Published September 24, 2025 05:33PM
Colorado's Famous '4-in-1' 14er Hike Is a Step Closer to Being Permanently Saved
The Conservation Fund announced this week that it had purchase 480 acres of formerly private land on Mount Bross—including a key portion of one of Colorado's most popular high-alpine trails.
Mt. Bross (Photo: stockphoto52 / iStock via Getty)
A new stretch of trail along Colorado’s frequently-closed Decalibron Loop is set to become public land after the Conservation Fund purchased a large parcel of land on 14,178-foot Mount Bross.
The nonprofit said on Tuesday that it had bought 428 acres of land from local landowner John Reiber. The purchase includes about a third of a mile of trail connecting Bross with neighboring Mount Lincoln, as well as large downslope portions of mountain. The nonprofit plans to transfer the land to the U.S. Forest Service to become part of the Pike-San Isabel National Forest. Kelly Ingebritson, Colorado senior field representative for the fund, called the acquisition “a major win for conservation, recreation, and local communities” and said that in addition to helping to protect hikers’ access to the popular trail, it would preserve key habitat as well.
“This is near the critical headwaters of the South Platte River that serves as water for local communities and the whole eastern half of Colorado,” Ingebritson said. “It’s an important wildlife habitat for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, Canada lynx, elk, moose, and it’s in the Mosquito Range mountains, which are a botanical hotspot with rare plants that are endemic to the area.”
The roughly 7.5-mile-long Decalibron Loop is one of Colorado’s most popular trails for peakbaggers, who use it to tick its four eponymous peaks—Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross—in a single outing. Some 15,300 people hiked the trail last year according to use estimates from the Colorado Fourteeners Institute. Parts of the trail lie on private land, however, and owners have closed them multiple times over perceived liability issues since 2019, when a federal court upheld a $7.3 million award to a cyclist who suffered catastrophic injuries while biking on a trail that ran through the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The most recent closure ran from March to July 2023 and, by one estimate, cost the nearby town of Alma $5 million in revenue.
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That closure ended after Reiber and partner organizations put up signs with QR codes directing hikers to a waiver. But finding a lasting resolution to the issue has proven to be difficult. An early attempt to amend the Colorado Recreational Use Statute to give additional protection from liability to landowners who allow hikers to cross their property failed, though a revised bill passed last year. While the Conservation Fund purchased the hike’s trailhead and the summit and surrounding land on Mount Democrat in 2023, Ingebritson said that consolidating public access has been challenging due to the fragmented nature of the area’s ownership, a legacy of the region’s historic economy.
“This is Colorado’s historic silver mining area from the late 1800s, when the federal government conveyed land in 10-acre rectangles to private owners,” Ingebritson said. “When you look at the map now, it looks like almost pickup sticks. There are all these private land rectangles within the public land, and our role is to work with sellers who want to sell to conservation.”
For now, parts of the Decalibron Loop remain privately owned, including the summits of both Lincoln and Bross; the latter remains closed due to safety concerns over the historic mineshafts on and around the peak. In the meantime, Ingebritson says, her organization is ready to pursue its next opportunity to take private mountains public.
“What some people don’t realize is about 10 percent of Colorado’s 14er summits are still private land,” she said. “Those mountains are Lincoln, Lindsey, Sherman, Shavano, Bross, and Culebra. And so the Conservation fund, we stand ready to help with conservation solutions on those 14ers, and really all over Colorado and the nation.”
