Colorado’s 14ers logged 256,000 hiker use days in 2025, the lowest total in the eleven years the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative has published estimates. The biggest culprit? One closed road. And a decade of data says demand for the peaks is doing just fine.
If you spent a summer morning in 2025 circling the Mount Bierstadt lot at 5 a.m., “record low” probably isn’t the phrase that comes to mind. But that’s what the new numbers say: 14er hiking in Colorado fell to its lowest level since the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) started publishing statewide estimates in 2015.
The story behind that number is more interesting than a simple decline. It says a lot about where 14er hiking is actually headed.
What the new 14er hiking numbers say
CFI’s 2025 hiking use estimates, released in early August, put statewide use at 256,000 hiker use days. That’s down about 3.4 percent from 265,000 in 2024, and down 38 percent from the pandemic spike of 415,000 in 2020.
The top of the leaderboard changed hands too. Mount Bierstadt reclaimed its spot as Colorado’s busiest 14er with about 31,000 hiker days, edging Quandary Peak by around 500. Both were busier than in 2024.
CFI builds these estimates from TRAFx infrared trail counters on the most popular routes, filled in with a correlation between counter data and peak checklists submitted to 14ers.com. Range and statewide totals get adjusted for hikers who summit multiple peaks in a day. They’re estimates, and CFI says so plainly. They’re also the best long-running dataset anyone has on 14er use.
The Blue Sky asterisk
So why the record low? Mostly one road.
Mount Blue Sky’s summit road, the highest paved road in North America and the way most hikers reach one of the state’s most popular peaks, didn’t open at all in 2025 due to construction. A peak that historically ranked in Colorado’s top three, with about 20,600 hiker days in 2024, fell out of the top 30 entirely.
CFI executive director Lloyd Athearn estimates the closure cost about 18,000 hiker days on its own. Without it, 2025 would’ve grown year over year instead of setting a record low.
“Continued volatility stemming from peak closures and re-openings masks the underlying trend that the fourteeners continue to be exceptionally popular hiking destinations,” Athearn told the Colorado Springs Gazette.
A decade of swings that map to access, not appetite
That volatility isn’t new. Put the last five years of CFI’s estimates next to each season’s access news and the pattern jumps out.
One closed road, one “record low”
Colorado 14er hiking use days by year. Nearly every major swing lines up with an access change, not demand.
1 Record snowpack buries trailheads · 2 COVID surge · 3 DeCaLiBron closes in May · 4 Quandary paid parking begins · 5 DeCaLiBron closes again · 6 DeCaLiBron reopens
Data: Colorado Fourteeners Initiative annual hiking use estimates, 2015 to 2025. Chart: The Next Summit.
| Year | Statewide estimate | The access story that season |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 303,000 | DeCaLiBron loop closed May through early August; Mosquito Range use fell 65 percent |
| 2022 | 279,000 | Quandary’s paid parking and shuttle system debuted; Quandary use fell roughly 55 percent from 2020 |
| 2023 | 260,000 | DeCaLiBron closed again over liability concerns; statewide use tied the 2015 record low |
| 2024 | 265,000 | DeCaLiBron reopened and Mount Democrat became public land; Mosquito Range use jumped 55 percent |
| 2025 | 256,000 | Blue Sky’s road closed for construction, erasing an estimated 18,000 hiker days |
Every major swing in the modern record traces back to a gate or a parking lot. When access opens, hikers show up. The DeCaLiBron rebound held in year two: Mount Lincoln, which carries the loop’s counter data, logged 20,000 to 25,000 hiker days in 2025, one of the highest totals in the state.
Mount Lindsey tells the same story in miniature. After nearly four years closed over landowner liability concerns, it reopened through an agreement between CFI and the landowner, made possible by the liability protections in SB24-58, the law the Fix CRUS Coalition we helped lead fought to pass. In its first full season back, CFI’s chart shows Lindsey at 1,000 to 3,000 hiker days. I was one of them last summer. After years of writing about that closed gate, walking through it legally was a highlight of my season.
Meanwhile, the crowds are concentrating
The statewide total may be at a record low, but you’d never know it standing at the trailheads everyone actually uses.
By CFI’s estimates, 59 percent of all 14er hiking, about 152,400 days, happened on the twelve peaks closest to the Denver metro area. Bierstadt and Quandary alone absorbed roughly a quarter of every hiker day in the state. Meanwhile, seven peaks saw fewer than 1,000 hiker days apiece all year, including the entire Chicago Basin group, Snowmass Mountain, and Culebra Peak.
One number did surprise me. The Sawatch Range, at 74,500 hiker days, edged the Front Range’s 73,000 to become Colorado’s busiest range. The difference? The Sawatch spreads its total across fifteen peaks. The Front Range packs nearly the same use onto six. Crowding on the 14ers comes down to about a dozen trailheads.
Even in a down year, all that traffic carried real money into mountain towns. CFI pegs the statewide economic impact at $69.4 million, a figure that leans on a spending rate from a 2009 Colorado State University study, so treat it as a ballpark.
What this means for your next climb
Demand is holding steady, it’s concentrating, and access keeps shifting under everyone’s feet. Plan accordingly.
- Start with the road. Blue Sky in 2025 and Kite Lake before it prove a construction project or an expired road order can take a peak off the board even when the trail’s in perfect shape. Confirm road and trailhead status before you drive.
- Expect managed access on the big names. Quandary’s parking reservations and shuttle are the model other busy trailheads are watching. Book ahead, or have a backup peak in your pocket.
- Use the concentration to your advantage. If 59 percent of hikers are on twelve peaks, the other 46 are quieter than the headlines suggest. The Sawatch spreads similar traffic across more than twice as many summits, and a 13er can beat a 14er outright on solitude.
- Going for Bierstadt or Quandary anyway? Go in smart. Early starts and weekday summits matter most exactly where the crowds are. Our guide to climbing smart during peak season covers the playbook.
The pull of these mountains is as strong as it’s ever been. Colorado just had one fewer door open last year, and the numbers show it. Access is fragile. It’s also fixable, and as Lindsey proved, worth fighting for. That fight is a big part of why The Next Summit exists, and our members are the reason we can keep showing up for it.
When the next gate opens, go walk through it.
Photo by The Next Summit. Reporting from the Colorado Springs Gazette and Krystal 93. Historical data from CFI’s annual hiking use reports.
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