COLORADO FOURTEENERS INITIATIVE
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Mission Statement
Colorado Fourteeners Initiative preserves and protects the natural integrity of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks through active stewardship and public education.
About This Cause
Colorado Fourteeners Initiative protects, preserves, enhances and restores the natural integrity of Colorado's 54 peaks over 14,000 feet in elevation--the "Fourteeners" or "14ers"--through active stewardship and public education. CFI accomplishes its mission through volunteer-based trail construction, maintenance and restoration projects and educational programs that actively involve Fourteener enthusiasts in the long-term stewardship of these peaks. Our programs include: - Sustainable Trails Program - In the 2011-2013 and 2017-18 seasons, CFI's Sustainable Trails Program conducted detailed, foot-by-foot, GPS-based inventories of every major 14er summit route in the state to note the condition of existing structures, the need for additional work, and the severity of natural resource problems. CFI projects a further $18+ million is needed to build out and maintain the 14er summit trail network. This work protects the tremendous financial investment made to date in the existing network of constructed Fourteener summit trails. Monitoring conditions over time helps CFI project maintenance needs, costs and staffing requirements. Originally released in June 2015 covering 42 routes, CFI released an updated 14er Report Card in July 2019 to publicly present the information assessed in Phase I of the Sustainable Trails Project. The report has received lots of media attention and has been cited by as a model for quantifying need in a very objective way. A revised update is anticipated in 2023. In Phase II of the Sustainable Trails Program, CFI is utilizing infrared trail counters to track actual hiker use on 14er peaks to see how changes in use levels affect trail conditions. Started in 2014 with a pilot test with five trail counters tracking use on seven peaks, the project now annually uses 23 counters and projects use for all peaks using a proprietary modeling program. Annual hiking use projections have been released since 2016. The latest estimate, released in 2022 using 2021 data, estimates that 303,000 hiker days occurred on the 14ers. When combined with past expenditure surveys conducted by Colorado State University economists at Quandary Peak, this level of hiking use contributes $82 million annually to Colorado's trailhead economies due to 14er hiking. CFI will continue to update trail conditions to reflect reconstruction and maintenance work, as well as deterioration in conditions based on foot traffic and erosive forces of rain and snowmelt. The Sustainable Trails Program will provide CFI with tangible, long-term data that can be used to understand trends in trail usage over time, the improvement or deterioration in trail conditions, and help inform management decisions on these popular alpine trails. (Examples or evidence of program success) The 14er Report Card was very well received by the 14er hiking community, major funders, as well as general outdoor recreation and conservation enthusiasts. The story was picked-up by several major news outlets in Colorado, including Channel 9 News, the Denver Post, and 5280 Magazine. The Report Card spurred a multi-year, multi-million "Find Your Fourteener" campaign spearheaded by the National Forest Foundation that is resulting in record investments in funding and collaborative trail stewardship work. CFI's hiking use estimates are regularly cited in the news media and by other climbing organizations and publications. - Trail Construction and Restoration - CFI designs and constructs sustainably located hiking trails on Fourteener peaks. Once a sustainably located summit route is constructed, user-created routes are closed and restored with native vegetation. The Trail Construction and Restoration program utilizes 2-3 person seasonal leadership teams of young adults in their 20s to direct the work of 10+ person youth corps crews (ages 18-25) and volunteer groups to perform extensive trail reconstruction and restoration on peaks with severe resource damage. Crews work out of backcountry basecamps on trail projects that can take up to five years and $1 million to complete. (Examples or evidence of program success) CFI solves technical problems that are easily observed to indicate successes. Previously denuded and eroded user-created trails that have been closed, stabilized and restored show tremendous re-vegetation over time. Constructed summit trails located in sustainable locations show limited off-trail travel and trampling of adjacent vegetation, which is evidence of success. To date 40 sustainably designed trails have been built on 37 14er peaks. - Adopt-a-Peak Trail Maintenance - 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 20,546 volunteer days have been performed since 2001, including an average of 1,785 per year between 2015-19. Ongoing reviews of where volunteers most add value led to projects CFI to reduce goals to 1,200 volunteers per season. Historically, about half of Adopt-a-Peak volunteers have been youths or young adults. (Examples or evidence of program success) The 2019 "14er Report Card" shows the impact of enhanced reconstruction and maintenance efforts, including boosting Holy Cross from a "C" to a "B" and Quandary from a "C+" to an "A-" after three seasons of focused reconstruction. Peaks where a sustainable route has been designed and constructed and has periodic on-going maintenance are qualitatively in better shape than trails that have either not been designed and reconstructed or that get only infrequent maintenance. - Hiker Education and Outreach - CFI utilizes field crews and volunteer Peak Stewards to directly contact hikers on the peaks about using Leave No Trace practices to protect fragile alpine tundra ecosystems from damage due to inappropriate use. Since 2002, Peak Stewards have volunteered over 1,927 days educating the public, while crews and volunteers have reached more than 153,500 hikers. CFI puts on hiker education clinics in local retail stores, installs educational kiosks at popular trailheads, and has developed more than 80 educational videos that are distributed via CFI's YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/CO14ersInitiative). Total video views on the channel exceed 357,000. A mountain safety campaign launched in 2019 generated more than 154,070 views. These approaches spread the word about the unique alpine tundra resources found on the Fourteeners, as well as minimum-impact techniques that, if properly followed, will protect rare and fragile alpine plant ecosystems from damage. (Examples or evidence of program success) The impact of educational programs is always harder to assess than the on-the-ground construction, restoration and maintenance programs. However, at the macro level we know that increasingly large numbers of people are able to climb the Fourteeners while the presence of physical impacts and trash is decreasing. This causes CFI to believe that the educational programs are helping create a more aware hiker population that is recreating in a less impactful way. - Staff - Lloyd Athearn, Executive Director Lloyd joined CFI in June 2009 after three years serving as the deputy director of the Colorado Conservation Trust, a community foundation for private land conservation efforts, where he oversaw the organization's development, communications, finance and administrative functions. Previously he spent 10 years as the deputy director of the American Alpine Club, where he oversaw public policy, publishing, media relations, development and membership marketing. Lloyd has experience working with land managers across the country to protect alpine terrain, develop new protocols for removing human waste from heavily used climbing peaks and preserve the wilderness climbing experience. His conservation work has been recognized by the National Park Service, American Alpine Club and the American Society of Landscape Architects, while his communication efforts have won national awards. Athearn has a Bachelors degree with majors in History and Political Science from the University of Oregon and has pursued graduate level coursework in Wilderness Management at the University of Montana. He has climbed peaks on four continents, sea kayaked in the Arctic and backpacked extensively around the globe. Ben Hanus, Field Programs Director Ben joined CFI's permanent staff in 2012, having worked with the program in a seasonal capacity since 2009. He worked two seasons on the Chicago Basin trail delineation project, then collected detailed GPS-based data on Fourteener trails in during the 2011 and 2012 field seasons through the Sustainable Trails project. He analyzed and modeled data during the winters to help CFI manage constructed Fourteener trails, which represent capital assets worth $250,000 to $400,000. During the 2014 and 2015 field seasons, Ben took on a secondary role as Field Programs Manager, coordinating all trail maintenance, restoration, and volunteer projects conducted by CFI throughout the state. Ben holds a bachelor's of Landscape Architecture from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. His background and field experience include high alpine trail design, construction, and restoration, crew leadership, GIS mapping and data collection, and spatial analysis. Megan Poole, CPA, Controller Megan joined CFI in 2022 after five years of public accounting in Louisville, Kentucky with EY. Megan has always had a love for the outdoors, but her passion for environmental conservation strengthened when she volunteered for the U.S. Forest Service as a Wilderness Ranger at the Bridger-Teton National Forest during the summer of 2020. Megan has a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a minor in International Studies from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky and is a Certified Public Accountant. In her spare time, Megan enjoys hiking, biking, and climbing.