Estimate on 14er finishers?

[Sean Nunn]

I think what it boils down to is that being a finisher is a very significant accomplishment but one that can be accomplished by mere mortals who are very persistent. Whether the number is 2000, 4000, or even 10000, it is still a very small percentage of the people who have ever looked at a tall mountain and thought "I wonder what it would be like to climb that thing?"
I personally have great respect for the "finishers club" and hope to join them someday.

Sean Nunn
Raytown MO

[DaveLanders]

When I finished the 14ers in 1988, I did report it to the CMC. I personally knew about 30 people that had completed them at that time, including some
of my climbing partners on the 14ers. Only about half of those people ever reported finishing to the CMC. So I think a reasonable estimate would be to
double the number of finishers that the CMC knows about.

Another way to analyze this would be to look at the list of finishers on 14ers.com and see what percentage of them have reported to the CMC. I realize
that could be a little difficult because many people on 14ers.com aren't using their real names for their user name. One could also do the same analysis
with the list of finishers on ListsofJohn. More of the users there are using their real names, so that might be easier.

[joe-g]

I finished in 2007 on Capitol. I never reported it to the CMC or anywhere else, except for my profile on this website.

[jladderud]

I came upon this thread via another one this morning and am curious if anyone can comment as to whether or not the exponential growth in 14er finishers predicted here has played out in the past 4 years.

[TravelingMatt]

Here's my attempt at a Fermi calculation.

First, assume the vast majority of finishers have done so in the last 40 years, since the late 1970s. (For many of the Northeast lists, 80+% of all finishers have come in the last 40 years. Because Colorado has grown faster than that area, and because peakbagging there has been a thing for far longer, I'd put the percentage for Colorado higher, likely over 90%.)

We only need to estimate the number of times an arbitrarily hard 14er has been climbed in the last 40 years, and back out people with multiple summits of that hard 14er. I'll use Capitol, as it can't practically be combined with another peak in the same outing.

Most people will be summiting in summer conditions, say from late June to the end of September. That's about 100 days. Several of those days, maybe 20-25 of them, will see no summits due to weather. Some people will summit in the offseason, but I doubt many of them will be summiting Capitol (or any other hard 14er) for the first time in the offseason. So probably 80 days a year with a successful first summit.

From experience, a hard 14er will see on average 3-4 summits a day, or about 20-25 summits a week. I'd break that down as 1-3/day on weekdays or the offseason and 5-6/day on summer weekends. So say 300 summits/year. Back out the summiters who have already finished and I'd say it's around 250/year.

Now 250*40 = 10,000, but there were far fewer climbers in the earlier years, maybe a third to a half as many in the 80s and much of the 90s. So also considering the people who finished more than 40 years ago -- probably a few hundred, well under a thousand -- I would put the number of 14er finishers in the range of six or seven thousand. That might be a little off, but it's more than a few thousand, and I don't think we'll get to 10,000 for another decade or so.

[AnnaG22]

For the most part, I really like that calculation, and I agree with your overall estimate. Quibbling: when I did Capitol in September 2014, around 20 people summited that day. I would estimate that 20 did the day before (Saturday) as well. In July 2016 on LB, I think 8-10 people total summited the day I did it (Definitely at least one pair ahead of my group of three, and another group of three after us).

Here's my attempt at a Fermi calculation.

First, assume the vast majority of finishers have done so in the last 40 years, since the late 1970s. (For many of the Northeast lists, 80+% of all finishers have come in the last 40 years. Because Colorado has grown faster than that area, and because peakbagging there has been a thing for far longer, I'd put the percentage for Colorado higher, likely over 90%.)

We only need to estimate the number of times an arbitrarily hard 14er has been climbed in the last 40 years, and back out people with multiple summits of that hard 14er. I'll use Capitol, as it can't practically be combined with another peak in the same outing.

Most people will be summiting in summer conditions, say from late June to the end of September. That's about 100 days. Several of those days, maybe 20-25 of them, will see no summits due to weather. Some people will summit in the offseason, but I doubt many of them will be summiting Capitol (or any other hard 14er) for the first time in the offseason. So probably 80 days a year with a successful first summit.

From experience, a hard 14er will see on average 3-4 summits a day, or about 20-25 summits a week. I'd break that down as 1-3/day on weekdays or the offseason and 5-6/day on summer weekends. So say 300 summits/year. Back out the summiters who have already finished and I'd say it's around 250/year.

Now 250*40 = 10,000, but there were far fewer climbers in the earlier years, maybe a third to a half as many in the 80s and much of the 90s. So also considering the people who finished more than 40 years ago -- probably a few hundred, well under a thousand -- I would put the number of 14er finishers in the range of six or seven thousand. That might be a little off, but it's more than a few thousand, and I don't think we'll get to 10,000 for another decade or so.

[SurfNTurf]

My math was off in the other thread. I'd already doubled the official CMC number -- it's actually 1,809 as of 2017. So, I'd already doubled it when I said 3,400. My bad. Editing now.

I do stand by my prediction that the number of finishers will double in the next 10 years.

The CMC had 67 finishers report in 2017. That's up from 58 in 2016 and 41 in 2015.

[TravelingMatt]

For the most part, I really like that calculation, and I agree with your overall estimate. Quibbling: when I did Capitol in September 2014, around 20 people summited that day. I would estimate that 20 did the day before (Saturday) as well. In July 2016 on LB, I think 8-10 people total summited the day I did it (Definitely at least one pair ahead of my group of three, and another group of three after us).

As soon as I posted that I suspected those might be a little low nowadays, but I think for 40-year numbers they're pretty close to accurate, even with a downward adjustment included. Also, most experienced hikers seem to save the harder peaks for September when good weather is more reliable, or are trying to get them in while there's still season left.

For the record, I had one other person on Capitol (September 2010) and one other person on Little Bear (June 2011). I saw zero people to and from Eolus from Twin Lakes (September 2012) in late afternoon but believe two or three others summited that day.

[climbingcue]

I did Capital on 7/14/18 and there was 9 people on the summit when my partner and I reached the summit. We passed at least 15 more people heading up when we were on the way back down. So that would be 26 people including us that day.

Bill

[GeezerClimber]

Often overlooked in these calculations is the fact Culebra is limited. In recent years, they have allowed 60 per week for something like 7 or 8 weeks plus an unknown but small number of winter ascents. So let's say 500 per year. Not all of them will be finishers either. I don't know what percentage. When I climbed it in 2014, there were only 9 of us. One was finishing on it, two of us planned to finish. The rest had no plans to finish. That's too small a sample to be statistically significant but still an indication. For those who think Capitol is the be all, end all, check the forum user stats. There are quite a few climbed less than Capitol.

Dave

[mspalding]

I worked with the CMC on a fundraiser this Fall. They sent letters with a certificate of achievement to 1400 finishers. That seems like a lot. They used the self registrations from the CMC website.

They also included an offer for a Fourteener Finisher patch. All profits support the CMC. The deal is still available at 14erClimber.com

Screenshot.jpg (27.24 KiB) Viewed 1734 times

[mikefromcraig]

I worked with the CMC on a fundraiser this Fall. They sent letters with a certificate of achievement to 1400 finishers. That seems like a lot. They used the self registrations from the CMC website.

They also included an offer for a Fourteener Finisher patch. All profits support the CMC. The deal is still available at 14erClimber.com

Screenshot.jpg

Not sure how much faith I'd put in the CMC to keep accurate records. I filled out that form once, never received anything, contacted them and they told me to submit a new one which I did, still never received anything.