Estimated 14ers traffic

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Oman
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Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by Oman »

New study via Lloyd Athearn of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative estimates 260,000 hiker days a year on Colorado 14ers.

Most traffic is on Grays, Torreys, Bierstadt, and Elbert, with up to 25,000 per peak per year.

Least visited, with less than 1,000 hikers per year, are Wilsons, El Diente, Eolus, Maroon, Capitol, Snowmass, Pyramid, Culebra, and Little Bear.

Chart here:http://www.14ers.org/wp-content/uploads ... 9.2016.jpg
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denvermikey
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by denvermikey »

I was just on Torrey's a couple weeks back. Are you sure that's not 20,000-25,000 per day? :-D
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Monte Meals
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by Monte Meals »

What ????

Where is the LOVE for Sunlite Spire ????
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by bdloftin77 »

Thanks, that's really interesting!
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by gjohnston89 »

Surprised quandary and sherman arent on that list also. I must have seen at least 200 almost a few weeks ago on quandary.
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by yardman »

gjohnston89 wrote:Surprised quandary and sherman arent on that list also. I must have seen at least 200 almost a few weeks ago on quandary.
Quandary is in the 15,000-20,000 category and Sherman is in the 10,000-15,000 category. We have solid counts from two seasons on Quandary, but began our first year of monitoring on Sherman this summer. To get into the highest category (20,000-25,000) you generally have to have Saturday traffic of 500+ and sustained mid-week numbers of 125+. Given the really short season--mid-June to mid-August--it takes a lot of people to rack up the big numbers. We doubled counters this year (from 10 to 20), so will have even more accurate counts to disseminate next year. Stay tuned.
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by Scott P »

yardman wrote:
gjohnston89 wrote:Surprised quandary and sherman arent on that list also. I must have seen at least 200 almost a few weeks ago on quandary.
Given the really short season--mid-June to mid-August--
Nice stats and very interesting.

I do have on question though. Why stop in mid August? The send two weeks of August typically get more traffic than in June, at least on most 14ers.

Crowds don't really start to dissipate until after Labor Day.

July 4th weekend through Labor Day weekend is the most popular two month (approximately) period on the Colorado 14ers.
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by MountainHiker »

Scott P wrote:
yardman wrote:
gjohnston89 wrote:Surprised quandary and sherman arent on that list also. I must have seen at least 200 almost a few weeks ago on quandary.
Given the really short season--mid-June to mid-August--
Nice stats and very interesting.

I do have on question though. Why stop in mid August? The send two weeks of August typically get more traffic than in June, at least on most 14ers.

Crowds don't really start to dissipate until after Labor Day.

July 4th weekend through Labor Day weekend is the most popular two month (approximately) period on the Colorado 14ers.
I could see the early (relative to some other places) school year impacting numbers, especially on week days. The school schedule certainly impacts the drive to work in the city.
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by Scott P »

I could see the early (relative to some other places) school year impacting numbers, especially on week days. The school schedule certainly impacts the drive to work in the city.
You are correct about the school schedule, but August is still more popular than June. School creates a drop-off of visitors in late August, but snow also keep less people around in June.

Dividing the months into 1/4's, these are the (estimated off SP logs) most popular quarters of the month in order of climbers, at least on Elbert:

1. 4th quarter of July
2. 1st quarter of July
3. 3rd quarter of July
4. 1st quarter of September
5. 1st quarter of August
6. 2nd quarter of July
7. 2nd quarter of August
8. 3rd quarter of August
9. 4th quarter of August
10. 4th quarter in June
11. 2nd quarter in September
12. 3rd quarter in June
13. 2nd quarter in June
14. 1st quarter in June
15. 3rd quarter in September
16. 4th quarter in September

Note, for quarters I used the following criteria:

1st Quarter: 1-8
2nd Quarter: 9-16
3rd Quarter: 17-24
4th Quarter: 25-31

Just for the heck of it, here are the approximate least popular monthly quarters in a year:

33. 1st Quarter of February
34. 1st Quarter of January
35. 4th Quarter of February
36. 4th Quarter of April
37. 3rd Quarter of April
38. 1st Quarter of December
39. 2nd Quarter of April
40. 2nd Quarter of December
41. 1st Quarter of April
42. 3rd Quarter of December
43. 1st Quarter of November
44. 2nd Quarter of November
45. 4th Quarter of January
46. 3rd Quarter of January
47. 2nd Quarter of January
48. 3rd Quarter of November

The above is for Mt Elbert and probably similar for other popular peaks class 2 and below. The popularity of March is curious. One would expect that numbers in April drop because people can no longer count a calendar winter ascent, but the last quarter of March is outside calendar winter and still sees more ascents than any quarter in April.

For peaks such as Longs Peak, I would assume that September actually has more ascents than June, since Longs is usually in "technical status" during all June, but isn't always in September.
Last edited by Scott P on Sun Jul 31, 2016 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by onebyone »

<<<<Least visited, with less than 1,000 hikers per year, are Wilsons, El Diente, Eolus, Maroon, Capitol, Snowmass, Pyramid, Culebra, and Little Bear<<<<

Hmmm, I wonder why. LOL
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by onebyone »

I've always wondered what the success rates were on various 14ers. I can't tell you how many times I'm back down at the 12,000 foot by 11-12 pm and see a ton of people just on their way up. How many of them make it??? I have absolutely no clue.
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Re: Estimated 14ers traffic

Post by GeezerClimber »

I suspect early Sept. is popular only because of Labor Day. I have found the mountains get pretty quiet right after that.

I also suspect success rates are lower on the easy "tourist" peaks or Longs than on the tougher peaks which generally see only experienced climbers.

Dave
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