2024 Field Season Overview
Mount Elbert – Northeast Ridge
Between 2021-2023, our dedicated crews worked alongside Rocky Mountain Youth Corps to tackle a major trail realignment project along the entirety of Mount Elbert’s NE Ridge. Efforts were focused on heavy trail reconstruction on the existing trail above and below tree line, and constructing a new trail reroute to avoid a severely blown-out section above 12,800′. Now, with additional funding secured, we’re excited to return in 2024 to finalize the last sections of the trail, bringing our crews even closer to the summit.
Thank you to the following groups for funding this project:
Mount Elbert – Black Cloud
This two-season-long major trail reconstruction effort will occur in 2023-2024 on Mount Elbert’s lesser-trafficked Black Cloud trail. Despite accommodating less than 2,500 hikers each summer, the Black Cloud route has experienced severe erosion and damage to the alpine tundra. The trail travels directly up fall line making for an overly steep ascent trail that has caused irreversible damage to the ancient alpine soils. A two-person crew kicked of a technical project in 2023 with a goal of constructing a more sustainable route through a stable talus field. In 2024, an expanded four-person crew will return to finish a new reroute located high on the peak.
Thank you to the following groups for funding this project:
US Forest Service – Great American Outdoors Act
Mount Shavano
CFI’s Sustainable Trails inventory in 2012 gave the Shavano summit trail an “F” grade and noted significant problems regarding overly steep grades, proximity to a creek that floods annually in early season, extensive erosion, and a proliferation of trail braids on the ill-defined approach to the summit. The trail has deteriorated in the years since due to erosion from spring snowmelt and summer thunderstorms, the boots of roughly 7,000-10,000 annual hikers, and substantial blowdown of beetle-killed timber. Today Shavano has the worst-rated 14er summit route in the state.
Work improving this designated trail could not occur previously despite its high priority because it crossed three private mining claims, including one parcel that contains the mountain’s summit. The USFS spent many years unsuccessfully trying to obtain these parcels through land exchanges before CFI stepped up in 2016 to raise $50,000 from private sources and purchase the parcels. In 2022, CFI kicked off the first season of new trail construction on this high priority peak. This project will reconstruct two bypass sections of trail totaling 3 miles (one on the upper mountain, one on the lower mountain), perform 1.5 miles of heavy reconstruction in three sections of the existing route (near the Colorado Trail, between the two reroutes, and on the ridge traverse from the summit to Tabeguache Peak), and will close/stabilize/restore 2.5 miles of the current route that will be bypassed. CFI predicts this project will be the longest duration, most expensive, and most technically challenging trail construction project to date.
Last year, CFI opened the first lower trail bypass to the public. In 2024, CFI will begin Phase II of this six-year project with a goal of completing the second lower bypass and continuing to push the upper reroute closer to the summit.
Thank you to the following groups for funding this project:
Meta Alice Keith Bratten Foundation
Adopt-a-Peak Crew
Fourteener enthusiasts, local businesses, youth summer camps, and college programs perform routine trail maintenance through the Adopt-a-Peak program to protect trail structures, control erosion and restore denuded areas. More than 22,942 volunteer days have been performed since 2001. Historically, about one-third of Adopt-a-Peak volunteers have been youths or young adults.
In 2023, CFI’s eight-person Adopt-a-Peak crew hosted 44 volunteer projects on 12 peaks across the state. These projects engaged 582 individuals who contributed 1,186 volunteer days. This year, CFI plans to host 40+ volunteer projects with local businesses, youth camps, partner organizations, and individual from around the nation. The Adopt crew hopes to complete more than 1,100 days of volunteer trail stewardship in 2024.
Want to help CFI reach our goal and give back to the 14ers? Head to our project registration page to sign up for a project.
Thank you to the following groups for funding this program:
Kimberly Appelson Internship Endowment
Nicholas Feinstein Memorial Internship Endowment
City of Aspen
Pitkin County
Town of Breckenridge
