Quandary Peak Is Now Colorado's Most-Climbed Fourteener
The Breckenridge peak overthrew Mount Bierstadt as the most popular high mountain in the state.
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Quandary Peak is now the most popular fourteener in Colorado, according to an October 2019 report by the Colorado Fourteeners Institute, the first time on record that any peak has surpassed Mount Bierstadt.
According to the CFI’s data, Quandary Peak saw 38,259 hiker days from May 28 to October 7 of 2018. This exceeds Bierstadt’s count at an estimated 36,800 hiker days. However, Bierstadt still saw the busiest hiking day with 1,023 visitors on July 20, 2018.
Quandary Peak offers four different routes that vary in difficulty. (The CFI only counted hikers on two of them, the East Slopes and West Ridge). To summit the 14,265-foot mountain via the standard East Slope, hikers gain 3,450 vertical feet in 6.75 miles. Unlike many fourteeners, Quandary’s standard route is relatively safe from avalanches, making it a popular winter-season hike.
According to the CFI report, the number of people hiking fourteeners has been steadily increasing over the past five years, with a 5.7 percent rise in hiking use from 2017 to 2018.
In addition to collecting trail data, the CFI has built 31 sustainable summit trails on 28 peaks since its founding in 1994.