Mountain Biking Fourteeners Is Creating a Rift in the Outdoor Community
There may be no outdoor activity as quintessentially “Colorado” as climbing a fourteener. While the state isn’t home to the highest peak in the US (or even the 48 contiguous states), it does boast the largest concentration of high mountains: 53 peaks top 14,000 feet high. And whether you call it a rite of passage or a bucket list item, summiting one of these beloved peaks might be the unofficial stamp of residency.
So when news got out that an intrepid collection of mountain bikers were riding up and down some of those mountains, news really got out. Media outlets from Gearjunkie.com to the Wall Street Journal ran stories about the efforts of Whit Boucher and Ian Fohrman, and two solo adventurers, Justin Reiter and Jessica Martin, to ride every fourteener in the state accessible by bike. Separately, Reiter and Martin recently became the first man and woman to accomplish that goal in late September (Fohrman and Boucher have done 11).
And that’s when the issues really started.
“Mountain Bikers Summiting Colorado 14ers Raise Questions Over Trail Use” read the Denver Post headline. Whether by intent or circumstance, riders like Fohrman have pedaled headlong into a growing debate not just about mountain bike access to public lands, but overuse and appropriate use in general. It’s a debate clouded by emotion and obscured by miscommunication and misperception. And it’s happening at a particularly delicate time for Colorado’s wildlands.
“We had heard from some other people that Mount Elbert was actually a good mountain bike ride,” Fohrman recently told Bicycling, discussing how he and Boucher started their quest in summer 2014. “We decided, kind of spontaneously, to go check it out. And it turned out to be one of the best days we had on bikes all last summer.” Forhman says one of the things that appealed most was how it brought elements of ski mountaineering to two wheels. “It was a bit more about the exploration side, and going places where you’re not sure what to expect.”
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Encouraged by their experience, they set out to determine how many fourteeners were legally accessible by bike and came up with, originally, 17 that were not in federally designated Wilderness Areas or that had other explicit proscriptions against bike access. Some are straightforward, like Pikes Peak and Mount Evans, which each have paved roads to the summit. But others are more remote and rugged and, while the actual legal designation doesn’t ban bikes, are widely thought of as open to foot travel only.
That’s when emotion, misunderstanding, and miscommunication began to threaten their plans. To start, Boucher and Fohrman miscalculated the legally accessible peaks. Sunshine and Red Cloud Peaks are now in Wilderness Study Areas. And the summit of Mount Bross is privately owned; the Forest Service has not been able to negotiate an access agreement.
Then, miscommunication: The Post’s story strongly suggested that Fohrman and Boucher still intended to ride Red Cloud and Sunshine even as other mountain bikers backed off. Not true, says Fohrman. “As soon as we realized they were in a Wilderness Study Area, we scratched them from the list.” The source of the confusion might be that the peaks are still listed on the pair’s website, BikeThe14ers.com (Fohrman says he hasn’t had time to update it).
The errors continued when a Men’s Journal story implied that Boucher and Fohrman rode off designated trails on Mount Antero. That raised concerns for Tom Sobal, head of the Quiet Use Coalition and longtime resident of Salida, near the popular DeCaLiBron (Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross) quartet of fourteeners. He was not alone. Going off-trail on bikes at high altitude could damage fragile vegetation “which can take hundreds of years to recover from an insult like this,” fumed Oregonian John Seitzinger to the Post.
Fohrman says that the duo is not actually creating new routes to the summit (Antero has two designated approaches to the summit spur). Rather, they’re trying to link existing, open trails in a way that creates new ride routes, and Antero provided a chance to link up with a part of the Colorado Trail, which is also open to bikes, and create a memorable point-to-point alpine ride. “We don’t even summit all the time; usually we just go to the highest rideable point,” he says. “It felt a bit silly to hike our bikes to the top just to get a summit picture.”
"If trails were to be designed for mountain bikes, they might have been designed differently."
Led most visibly by Seitzinger, a small number of environmentalists questioned whether it was appropriate for mountain bikes to be used on Colorado’s high peaks, citing the possibility of riding off-trail and damage to the fragile alpine tundra. And public land stewards, like rangers for the United States Forest Service, began to wonder if they had another issue to deal with.
“The trails we have to the top of fourteeners are designed for foot travel,” says Erin Connelly, forest supervisor for the Pike and San Isabel National Forest, home to 10 of Colorado’s 14 legally bikeable fourteeners. “If trails were to be designed for mountain bikes, they might have been designed differently.”
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Some popular trails weren’t necessarily “designed” at all. A number of fourteeners don’t have official, constructed routes to the summit, just long-used social trails hammered in by years of use. Even for hikers, they’re not sustainable. And there are a lot of hikers.
Estimates vary of how many people flock to Colorado’s high peaks every year, but by the most reliable count, by the private group Colorado 14ers Initiative, puts the low end of the range at 150,000 (the high estimate is half a million, although not all of them summit). Most of that use comes in summer, and is concentrated on a handful of peaks that are readily accessible from the metro Front Range area, where most of the state’s population is.
Debate has simmered for years about whether Colorado’s fourteeners are being loved to death. The 14ers Initiative estimates that repairing the summit routes on Elbert alone will cost $3.6 million, and the idea of restricting access by permit has been floated for over a decade.
At the same time, Forest Supervisors like Connelly are contending with a host of other issues that rise from the wildland-urban interface: fire danger, illegal target shooting that endangers other users, and even modern-day prospectors inspired by reality television. Separately, a movement, led by the Sustainable Trails Coalition, is rising to question the blanket bans on backcountry wilderness travel by certain user groups like mountain bikers.
Fohrman and Boucher, at least, make a knowing nod to that issue on their site with a short section on last year’s 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, noting that “how we choose to use and legislate our public land is a topic that should always be on the table for discussion. By bringing our bikes to the legal 14ers, this project gives us an intimate connection to these self-imposed boundaries and will inspire discussion about how we use these precious public resources.”
Despite Seitzinger’s impassioned proclamations, the actual issues at present seem to be minor at best. As Fohrman mentioned, he and Boucher studiously stay on open trails. They’re also conscious of the sensitive nature of their project. They’ve proactively contacted rangers about permit issues, informed staff of their plans, and try to be “the friendliest guys on the trail,” Fohrman says. “We’ve had unanimously positive interactions. Most people are curious and we end up having a good conversation. We’re all out there for pretty much the same reason.”
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Connelly, the Forest Supervisor, says that to her knowledge the Leadville District of the San Isabel Forest has received three complaints about riders on fourteeners, although others have voiced concern. (She had no firsthand knowledge of the substance of those complaints.) And Sobal, head of the Quiet Use Coalition, freely allowed that of the hundreds of thousands of people who hike the fourteeners every year, “maybe less than 50 are doing that on a bike right now.”
The concern is what will happen if the added publicity draws more curious cyclists to the peaks. “It’s gotten a tremendous amount of media coverage,” Sobal pointed out. Sobal adds that while mountain biking fits very well with the Quiet Use Coalition’s philosophy, and the organization generally supports access for mountain bikes, “it may not be appropriate in all locations. We aren’t sure it’s appropriate on fourteeners.” Connelly is not especially concerned about riders like Fohrman, but adds, “the next rider may not be as conscientious.”
Still, no one I spoke with could articulate genuine impacts that don’t already exist from hiking use, in part because no one seems to know how many mountain bikers might be drawn to the high peaks. With the rugged terrain and the impact of altitude, riding on a fourteener “is a difficult thing to do,” says Sobal, who adds that back in the ‘80s he tried, unsuccessfully, to ride a bike to the top of Elbert. “We don’t see it becoming extremely popular.” But his group remains concerned, partly because the advances in equipment since his attempt have improved two-wheeled accessibility.
“That’s the paradox: You can’t enjoy these places without impacting them… But are we damaging them more than anyone else? No.”
Connelly says that mountain bikers might skid or be unable to navigate tight trail switchbacks made for hikers, although there are no known reports of that happening. But off-trail travel and tundra damage is already a significant concern for fourteener use. And that damage does not depend on mode of use or even, to a degree, how much use it gets. A detailed 2002 study of off-trail impact by two alpine ecologists and published in the journal Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research found that the most significant impacts in trampling alpine vegetation occur after only a few passes. Repeated trampling—up to 1,000 passes a season for three seasons in a row—still caused damage, but the rate of impact decreased significantly relative to the damage from even a handful of passes in a single season. And contrary to Seitzinger’s contention about high-elevation fragility, the study determined groundcover plants commonly found above treeline were actually more resilient than woody shrubs found lower down.
That’s all assuming riders go off trail at all, which hasn’t happened yet. The larger issue is trail sustainability, which has more to do with a trail itself than how it’s used. “That’s the paradox: You can’t enjoy these places without impacting them,” Fohrman says. “But are we damaging them more than anyone else? No.”
Also, any added impact from increased bike use will likely be focused. The great majority of Colorado’s fourteeners, including by far the most popular peak, Mount Bierstadt, remain off-limits to bikes. And many of the legally accessible peaks are no fun, Fohrman says. “I would not recommend anyone take a bike on Mount Princeton, for example,” he says. “It’s basically just an giant unrideable pile of scree” or loose rock . Peaks like Antero and Shavano are so remote that they are not easy to reach and see less traffic. What impact there will be from bike use may likely be concentrated on peaks like Elbert, which is relatively close to Denver, legally open to bikes, and actually fun to ride, according to Fohrman.
The question is how best to manage overuse. There are three broad options: Do nothing; offer a middle approach, perhaps allowing access by permit; or restrict bike access altogether. “We love wilderness,” says Fohrman, adding that he and Boucher are members of the Sierra Club. “But we think that certain trails that are conducive to biking should be considered for that, maybe by a permit system.”
It remains to be seen whether that will happen. Connelly and other supervisors are studying the issue. “The overarching mission of the Forest Service is balancing access against impacts,” she says. With increasing use, “we’re not looking uniquely at mountain bikers but we are looking at overall use and what’s in our stewardship.” Connelly has only been at the Pike and San Isabel office for a year and a half, but says in the past, she’s had good experiences working with mountain bikers, who are a conscientious and motivated user group. But she says she has to balance impacts for all users, and for future users. As the latest group to the table, and one that some other users are emotionally opposed to, mountain bikers may find small welcome.
Temperatures in Colorado’s high country are beginning to drop after a late, warm fall season. Soon, snow will close the peaks to most visitors, although people still ski and snowshoe in them during the winter. But the concerns will only hibernate, to reawaken in spring.
Fohrman appreciates that the issue is extremely delicate. “If anyone else is going to do this, we’d just say that we want you to be overly friendly to everyone on the trail and tread lightly,” he says. “Be good advocates. Be good representatives for the cycling community.”
The question, at a time when overheated emotions and misperception seem to run rampant, is whether that will be enough.
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