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On Facebook, someone mentioned that the Summit County Sheriff was placing "warnings" on cars parked along the roads near the standard Quandary Peak trailhead.

If you found one on your car, could you post whether you were parking on the 850 (Blue Lakes) or 851 (McCullough Gulch) road?

I sent an email to the Sheriff's office asking them to provide more information on their intentions and hope they will get back to me soon.

That's a transient crowd, not repeat parkers. Surely someone at the sheriff's office understands that signage would be a more effective way to control parking in the area, and that cutting Quandry back to six parking spaces would have an impact on tourism. I guess there is that lower lot but that's a bit of a trek, and wouldn't hold the volume anyway.

Tortoise1 wrote:That's a transient crowd, not repeat parkers. Surely someone at the sheriff's office understands that signage would be a more effective way to control parking in the area, and that cutting Quandry back to six parking spaces would have an impact on tourism. I guess there is that lower lot but that's a bit of a trek, and wouldn't hold the volume anyway.

Yup. I'm trying to determine if they put warnings on the 850, 851 or both. I agree that signage would be best but if they plan on trying to eliminate parking on the 851 road, that's a big problem since the two, designated parking areas hold only a fraction of the weekend traffic.

I would assume it's 851 - I was up there today and cars lined the road from the parking lot that's right off of Hwy 9 all the way to where the trail leaves the road on the left hand side. Pretty crazy... especially considering the lot was less than half full

speth wrote:I would assume it's 851 - I was up there today and cars lined the road from the parking lot that's right off of Hwy 9 all the way to where the trail leaves the road on the left hand side. Pretty crazy... especially considering the lot was less than half full

well, most of us get a nice alpine start and some do a quick turn around which would mean leaving the parking lot early while the late coming tourists park behind the last car in line assuming there is no closer parking or that it turns into rougher 4wd road?

sounds like a repeat of the grays/torreys road debacle, especially if the rut is in

larkinrx2 wrote:late coming tourists park behind the last car in line assuming there is no closer parking or that it turns into rougher 4wd road?

sounds like a repeat of the grays/torreys road debacle, especially if the rut is in

It's just a dirt road, nothing close to 4WD. Hikers are just choosing to go the extra 300 feet closer and clog the road instead of parking in the provided lot. The extra 150 seconds of walking is murder.

I was up there Saturday doing some home shopping, we are thinking of buying a 2nd place in Blue River / Quandary. After seeing the millions of cars parked along the roads in Quandary I am now thinking no way in hell would I buy near that TH. Don't get me wrong, I support 14er access. But I can't imagine what it must be like living up there with so many people parking along the road on the weekends. I feel bad for the residents up there. So much for their quiet mountain getaway.

We were there Saturday. We parked on the McCullough Gulch road, right next to the little upper trailhead parking lot. We did not get a warning. As we were leaving we saw the warnings on the cars parked along the Blue Lakes road.

We were up there on Saturday as well and received one of the orange tags. We parked one the side of the Blue Lakes Road (850 if I remember correctly). The lot was full and we did not know until we got near the trail head that we could have parked alongside the dirt road leading to the trail head. I think better signage would help the situation as we only saw one small “No Parking” sign after the fact in someone’s yard. There were a ton of people up there on Saturday too. We talked to one group that said they had 85 people, so it was a little crazy.

Welcome to the Future of Hiking / Climbing a 14er

1. All roads will be paved to the Trailhead
2. Trailheads will have a 3 story parking garage with Valet Parking from 9-5
3. Trailheads will be equipped with Bathrooms and running water
4. All trails will be constructed of Rock with a passing lane every 100 yards
5. Orange flags will be placed every 50 feet along the trail
6. Digital Summit Registers
7. A sign that says "Please don't pet the wildlife"
8. A credit card machine to pay your parking fee
9. Headlines will read "Traffic Jam in the Hourglass !"

Please enjoy your back country experience and remember to "Leave NO Trace".....

awilbur77 wrote:Don't forget the stand /gift shop on the summit selling hot dogs, cotton candy....oh wait this is Pikes Peak.

Or Europe. Many of their mountain trails are in tamed areas with lodge and sales amenities along the way.

We were up there Friday and parked in the lower lot just below where you can make the right-hand turn onto 851. (for reference, it is where the porta potties are located)

The trail was busy and there were cars parked along a good bit of 851 from the trailhead back towards the intersection with 850. I did not see any orange signs on cars and we parked in the lower lot. The lower lot was only about half full so there was plenty of room to park there and not on the road. Possibly the law is trying get people to utilize the lower lot rather than park along 851.