2025 Colorado 14er Hiking Use Estimates
Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) has been monitoring hiking use on Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks using infrared trail counters since 2014. The program has continually expanded to cover additional locations and provide more accurate estimates of statewide hiking use. CFI is excited to share the latest edition of its report, which shows that the number of people hiking Colorado’s fourteeners decreased from 265,000 in 2024 to 256,000 in 2025. This represents a 3.4 percent decrease from 2024’s estimate.
Closure of the Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway contributed greatly to the decline, which offset higher climbing use on several of the most popular fourteeners. The 2025 estimate is the lowest tally CFI has recorded since the nonprofit began the hiking-use-estimate program in 2015. Fourteener hiking use peaked during the 2020 pandemic summer at 415,000 hiker days but has steadily returned to the mean since then.
CFI’s estimate of hiking use suggests a statewide economic impact of $69.4 million directly attributable to hiking fourteeners in 2025, based on past economic expenditure studies performed by Colorado State University economists John Loomis and Catherine Keske. Their 2009 study found that climbers of Quandary Peak near Breckenridge spent an average of $271.17 per day on gasoline, food, lodging, equipment, and other retail purchases. Given the decade-old data, these figures are likely understated in today’s economic context.
CFI has long been interested in the amount of hiking use these popular peaks receive. Colorado’s 14ers are among the most sought-after mountain peaks in the country. They also possess some of the most fragile alpine landscapes. Hiking use is confined into a very short four-month climbing season when the mountains are largely free of snow. Natural resource impacts in the fragile alpine tundra environment, stemming from the lack of properly designed and constructed summit trails on the 14ers, led to CFI’s founding back in 1994.
Additional Links:
2024 14er Hiking Use Estimates
2023 14er Hiking Use Estimates
2022 14er Hiking Use Estimates
2021 14er Hiking Use Estimates
2020 14er Hiking Use Estimates
2019 14er Hiking Use Estimates