Colorado’s Fourteeners are scarred by multiple trails where only one is desirable, trampled tundra, eroded gullies, and other damage directly attributable to human behavior. Practicing minimum impact travel and camping techniques will help reduce these impacts and prevent the need for costly and labor intensive restoration efforts.

Stay on the Trail

  • Concentrate travel along existing routes
  • Walk through muddy and rutted out areas, not around them
  • Never cut switchbacks
  • When the trail is covered by snow, travel over snow and rock until the trail can be regained
  • Take rest breaks on durable surfaces

Where a Trail Does Not Exist

  • Travel over durable surfaces (snow and rock)
  • Avoid traveling over melting layers of thin snow
  • Disperse use over a wide area to minimize impacts to fragile alpine vegetation
  • Avoid gullies and steep loose slopes prone to erosion and vegetation loss
  • Glissade responsibly

Camp Responsibly

  • Camp on durable surfaces
  • Camp below timberline
  • Store food securely
  • Leave your campsite clean

Stay on the Trail

Concentrate travel along existing routes – Since Fourteeners receive heavy foot traffic, most peaks have established trails or well-worn social paths leading to their summits. For this reason, traveling off trail, which can have a significant impact on fragile alpine tundra, is generally unnecessary and inappropriate.

Often, multiple social paths exist along the route to the summits of popular Fourteeners. These paths develop due to the fragility alpine vegetation and the lack of a well-delineated summit trail. Always travel on the most worn path. This will increase the likelihood that vegetation within and around less developed social paths will be able to recover. Also, when descending Fourteeners, try to descend the same social path that you used to climb the peak.

Some Fourteener routes are more environmentally appropriate than others. This site provides a list of site-specific environmental concerns for each Fourteener. Knowing these concerns will help you to minimize your impact while climbing.

Walk through muddy and rutted out areas, not around them – When confronted by a muddy or wet section of trail, walk through the middle rather than around it. Avoiding puddles and muddy spots widens the trail, promotes erosion, and requires expensive, time-consuming restoration efforts. Remember that boots dry overnight, but tundra plants can take centuries to recover.

Never cut switchbacks – Properly constructed, sustainable trails on Colorado’s Fourteeners switch back and forth uphill to maintain a constant grade and reduce erosion. By short cutting these switchbacks, people trample vegetation and over time the trampled areas frequently erode into gullies. These gullies are not just an eyesore, they remove essential topsoil from the area and divert water and nutrients from other vegetation. For the sake of the plants and animals that make their home in the high country, do not cut switchbacks.

When snow covers the trail, travel over snow and rock until the trail can be regained – During spring and early summer, portions of Fourteener trails and social paths will be covered by snow. It is important that you travel over this snow or other durable surfaces such as rock until the trail can be regained. Hiking around snowfields will severely damage alpine vegetation just as it is coming out of dormancy and preparing for its growth season. Safe travel over snow requires full leather boots, an ice axe, and mountaineering experience. The best way to relocate the trail is to follow the general direction of the hiking route and look for cairns, pyramid shaped piles of rock which mark alpine hiking routes, or other signs of human disturbance.

Take rest breaks on durable surfaces – When taking a rest break, be sure to find a durable surface. Since the upper reaches of Colorado’s Fourteeners do not have trees to obstruct people’s view, it is often difficult to take a break out of sight from other hikers. For this reason, it is acceptable to take breaks on the trail if other visitors will not be affected by your presence. Resting on the trail will reduce trampling of surrounding areas. If other hikers will pass by during your break, it is often best to find an easily accessed durable surface to rest upon. Often, rocky outcroppings or snowfields are good places to rest. Be sure to assess the route you will take to your resting area. If you choose a moist, blooming, or otherwise fragile path, you will likely trample sensitive plants. Also, try not to travel the same route back to the trail. This will reduce the likelihood that your footsteps will fall on any piece of vegetation more than once. Social paths often develop between trails and resting places through hikers continually traveling over, and consequently trampling, the same vegetated areas.

Where a Trail Does Not Exist’

Travel over durable surfaces (snow and rock) – Many Fourteener routes have sections where no trail or path is clearly marked. It is your responsibility to keep these areas pristine. By traveling over durable surfaces, you will be able to minimize your impact. Rocks and solid, stable snow cover are the most durable surfaces in Colorado’s high country. Avoid walking over fragile alpine vegetation. Studies in the Rockies have shown that it takes only a moderate number of footfalls to severely damage most tundra plants.

Avoid traveling over melting layers of thin snow – Snow is generally a durable surface, but there are times when traveling on snow can damage the tundra below. Snow that is solid and not slushy protects the tundra beneath from being trampled. As snowfields recede in the spring and early summer, their edges become slushy and thin. These areas are very susceptible to permanent damage from human trampling. When a thin blanket of snow is compressed and compacted, melting is delayed, decreasing the growing season for plants. Furthermore, plants pressed into the mud below the snow have little chance of survival, and a sliding boot easily uproots plants growing in wet soils surrounding snowfields.

Disperse use over a wide area to minimize impacts to fragile alpine vegetation – When traveling over tundra or other vegetated areas is the only option, be sure that your group disperses use over a wide area. Walking single file up a vegetated slope will increase the likelihood that any one piece of vegetation will receive multiple footfalls. By walking side-by-side, you and members of your group will be able to spread your impacts over a wider area.

Avoid gullies and steep loose slopes prone to erosion and vegetation loss – “Screeing,” the practice of sliding down steep dirt or rubble is always inappropriate. Unfortunately, some people think that bounding down scree slopes has little impact because they believe plants do not populate these areas. This is a misperception. Many of the plants are too small for the casual observer to notice. In fact, these fragile environments are often home to rare and endangered plant species. Also, sparsely vegetated, steep, dirt and rubble slopes and gullies are easily eroded. For this reason, “screeing” often results in the development of gullies that divert water and nutrients away from nearby vegetated areas.

Glissade responsibly – Glissading – sliding on snow – is a popular form of descending Colorado’s Fourteeners. If done properly, sliding on snow can be a safe, fun, and minimum impact way to return to the bottom of a peak. However, if done improperly, glissading can be dangerous to humans and damaging to the environment. Slide only with the understanding that there are risks involved. Calculate those risks to minimize the chance of injury. Always assess the grade, length, and run out of the slope and consider the potential for an avalanche before glissading. To maximize safety, maintain constant control when sliding and carry and know how to use an ice axe to self-arrest.

Poorly planned glissading is not only unsafe, it can damage the tundra at the top and bottom of the snowfield. When accessing snowy slopes, travel on rocks or snow to avoid trampling vegetation. Be sure that the slope’s end will place you on another durable surface so that you may return to the trail without damaging tundra plants. Otherwise, choose an alternate method for your descent.

Camp Responsibly

Camp on durable surfaces – Minimum impact camping on Colorado’s Fourteeners requires special considerations. Remember that good campsites are found, not made. Minimize site alterations (digging trenches for tents and constructing lean-tos, tables, or chairs is inappropriate) and be sure to replace anything that you decide to move. Where possible, use established sites to concentrate your activities in already disturbed areas. The kitchen, which generally receives the most foot traffic, should be placed on rock, mineral soil, or another durable surface. Campsites should be at least 200 feet (about 70 adult steps) from the trail and water sources to minimize undesirable human and wildlife interactions.

If an established site is not available, find the most durable area to establish your camp and practice purist minimum impact practices so as to leave the site as pristine as possible. It is always best to avoid lightly impacted campsites (sites that show evidence of use, such as crushed or flattened vegetation, but have not yet been trampled) so that they can recover.

Camp below timberline – Camping above timberline is not recommended. Trees provide shelter from mountain weather and fallen needles and leaves create a more durable ground surface than tundra. One night camping on tundra can severely damage or even kill alpine plants. If camping above timberline is your only option, several things should be considered. Snow, rock, or an existing, fully impacted campsite are the most durable surfaces above treeline. While in camp, limit your activity and avoid trampling surrounding vegetation by wearing soft-soled shoes or sandals and by minimizing the number of times you step in and out of your tent. Take alternate routes to and from the kitchen and tent, and use collapsible water containers to minimize the number of trips needed from camp to water. If you choose to stay above treeline for more than one night, move your campsite daily to give the tundra a chance to recover.

Store Food Securely- Since many of Colorado’s Fourteeners are home to black bears, how and where you store your food at camp is especially important. Bears can be dangerous if surprised or provoked, and are attracted to people and their food. If they become a nuisance they are often trapped and ultimately killed (the [http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/spl/safety US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region’s web-site] is an excellent resource for information on hiking and camping safely in bear country).

The ‘campsite triangle’ will help ensure your safety and the safety of your food. The three corners of the triangle are the tent or sleeping area, the kitchen, and the food storage area. Where possible, each site should be separated from the others by 100 yards. Storing your food away from your kitchen and tent minimizes the chance of a wildlife encounter.

Food, garbage, and toiletries should be stored in a properly hung bear bag or bear resistant container. To hang a bear bag, you will need two ropes, a stuff sack, and two trees. Attach a stone to one end of a rope, then throw the stone over a sturdy limb of one tree. Using the same technique, hang the other rope over a limb of the other tree. Bring one end from each of the ropes together, and tie the stuff sack filled with food, garbage, and toiletries to both rope ends. Next, using both ropes, hoist the bear bag in place. Ideally, the bag should be at least twelve feet above the ground and six feet from the supporting trees.

Even if bears are not in the area where you are camping, always store food securely to minimize the possibility of other animals eating your rations. Although small animals and birds may appear to “beg”, their digestive systems cannot handle many human foods, and feeding them may actually kill them. Proper food storage will ensure the safety of your food source and that of the wildlife. Be sure to perform a “final sweep” of the kitchen and food storage areas before leaving camp. Make sure that all food scraps and small pieces of trash are packed out

Leave your campsite clean – In established camping areas, a clean site will encourage the likelihood that other visitors will use it. This will reduce the development of new and unnecessary sites. When camping in a pristine area it is important to both clean and naturalize your site. Most campsites will recover from a single use. Cleaning and naturalizing the campsite will reduce the likelihood that others will camp there. This is especially important above timberline where impacted vegetation is slow to recover. To naturalize the site, recover scuffed up areas with natural materials, and brush out footprints or matted grass with a stick.