Colorado’s tallest peaks continue to see far fewer people compared with record waves from five years ago.

That’s according to the latest hiking estimates from Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI), the nonprofit that annually tracks numbers.

The count was around 415,000 during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that saw unprecedented surges across the outdoors with the loss of indoor entertainment. The number was closer to 260,000 in 2023 — the lowest CFI reported since launching the yearly review in 2015. 

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Fourteener hiking “has steadily returned to the mean,” CFI concluded in its new report, while announcing a slight year-to-year increase.

For 2024, the estimate was 265,000 “hiker use days.” That’s a figure meant to represent one person on one peak a day. (“Anecdotally we know that individual enthusiasts may hike multiple fourteeners over the course of a given year, including climbing the same peak multiple times,” CFI has explained.)

CFI credited the bump in 2024 to the reopening of a popular route around a cluster of peaks.

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“With Mount Democrat becoming public land in 2024 and an electronic waiver system also in place by the landowner of Mount Lincoln, hiking use levels on the Decalibron Loop effectively doubled last year compared to 2023 when the loop was closed for half the season,” CFI Executive Director Lloyd Athearn said in the report.

But overall estimates were offset, he explained, by decreased hiking suspected at “perennial top-tier peaks.” Those included Mount Elbert and Grays and Torreys peaks. Athearn added “tweaks to the modeling code” that resulted in a boost at Mount Blue Sky.

The annual report continued to show Mount Bierstadt and Quandary Peak as the state’s most popular fourteeners. CFI lists both within an estimated range of 25,000-30,000 hiker use days.

Mount Blue Sky rose to a range of 20,000-25,000. CFI previously placed estimates between 10,000-15,000. This was a change from “assuming most people climbed the 5.5 round-trip miles from Summit Lake rather than the 17 miles from Echo Lake,” the report explained.

Elbert, Grays, Torreys and the Decalibron mountains were estimated in the 15,000-20,000 range. Elbert, Grays and Torreys were previously placed in the 20,000-25,000 rage.

CFI lists Pikes Peak as the next most-hiked — between 10,000-15,000 — with Longs Peak, Mount Sherman and Huron Peak falling in an estimated range of 7,000-10,000.

In continuing a predictable trend, CFI reported 54% of the state’s fourteener hiking occurred on the 12 peaks closest to Denver, comprising the Front, Tenmile and Mosquito ranges. Including Mount Elbert and the Collegiate Peaks, the Sawatch Range sees another bulk of hiking. Numbers are much thinner in the more technical and remote Sangre de Cristo, San Juan and Elk ranges.

Among other data, CFI’s annual report draws from infrared counters installed at trails across 22 peaks and tens of thousands of “checklists” submitted to 14ers.com.

“Several factors could be influencing CFI’s estimated hiking levels,” the latest report stated.

Also mentioned: Colorado’s slower population growth compared with past decades and a recent report from the Colorado Tourism Office that found a decrease in overnight visitors to the mountains last summer.

CFI has also aimed to capture the economic impact of fourteener hiking, using an old study out Colorado State University that tracked Quandary climbers’ spending on gas, food, lodging and more.

For 2024, CFI estimated an impact of $71.9 million. That’s down from $112.5 million estimated from the record hiking year of 2020.

From the 415,000 hiker use days tallied that year, CFI estimated 303,000 the next year as COVID-19 restrictions eased for city dining and entertainment. The 2022 report determined 279,000 hiker use days, before falling to levels of the past two years on par with CFI’s estimates from 2015.