Climbing one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks used to
be a solitary joy. These days 50,000 people top the state’s famous
“fourteeners’ each year, and in one weekend on Mt. Harvard near
Buena Vista, 133 signatures filled the summit register. Marketed in
myriad guidebooks, the climbing craze is shattering solitude and
trashing ecosystems, reports the American Mountain Foundation,
based in Colorado Springs. The group says peak-baggers carve the
hills with braided trails, and thrill-seekers run down alpine
slopes “skiing the scree,” causing slides of fragile talus rock.
“There are those who are not in it for the wilderness experience,”
says Dave Duffy, an intern with the foundation. Duffy and five
other interns studied 46 of 54 peaks this summer in cooperation
with the Forest Service and three other outdoor groups. The
participants, including the Colorado Mountain Club, Colorado
Outward Bound School, and Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, will
recommend action to save mountains from too many people. Mary Beth
Hennessy, outdoor recreation planner for the Forest Service in
Leadville, says most of the crisscrossing “social trails’ take off
above treeline, where authorized trails become less distinct. For
more information, contact the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative,
American Mountain Foundation, 1520 Alamo Ave., Colorado Springs, CO
80907 (719/471-7736).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline No room at the top.
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