Buses for Quandary appear to be imminent

[Jim Davies]

This year is unusual, because the competing entertainment for people and their kids is shut down. Bad time to do a study, if you ask me...

[peter303]

There is the Kalifornia solution around the corner: fee-permits on Whitney and Half Dome.

[SolarAlex]

Can't see buses really achieving much, unless they strictly enforce no parking along Blue Lakes rd and highway 9 and start running the buses at 5 or 6am. Even by Quandary standards, the crowds have been off the charts this year. Cars are routinely parked for a 1/2 mile in either direction on highway 9 , and all up and down the blue lake and mccollough gulch roads.I've always felt really bad for the guy who lives in that house on the corner, even more so now. Can't imagine what that must be like living there with 24/7 noise and traffic.

[Ptglhs]

Can't see buses really achieving much, unless they strictly enforce no parking along Blue Lakes rd and highway 9 and start running the buses at 5 or 6am. Even by Quandary standards, the crowds have been off the charts this year. Cars are routinely parked for a 1/2 mile in either direction on highway 9 , and all up and down the blue lake and mccollough gulch roads.I've always felt really bad for the guy who lives in that house on the corner, even more so now. Can't imagine what that must be like living there with 24/7 noise and traffic.

Unemployment which is hitting CO hard and the resort towns harder means people have more time on their hands. Normal recreational activities being shut down means people are more likely to be outdoors. A total lack of imagination and a fixation with the 14k line means a perfect storm on the easier front range / Tensquito peaks. Why they can't hike Fletcher and see 5% of the people on quandary mystifies me.

[mtnkub]

A total lack of imagination and a fixation with the 14k line means a perfect storm on the easier front range / Tensquito peaks. Why they can't hike Fletcher and see 5% of the people on quandary mystifies me.

Well (a) i'm glad that this lack of imagination makes things more predictable, and (b) Fletcher does call for a little more mountain craft than Quandary, imho.

[wildlobo71]

This year is unusual, because the competing entertainment for people and their kids is shut down. Bad time to do a study, if you ask me...

Actually it's a good year to study a max capacity effect... the fact they aren't starting the study until middle August is my big concern, the deeper we push past Labor Day with studies, the lower the max effect will be observed. The numbers we (or whomever wins the bid for the project) arrive at in 2020 will probably actually be realistic base numbers in 2024-2026 if positive growth continues as planned., maybe sooner if - as you say - those who used to sit and watch the game are now inclined to go for a hike.

[thatmushroom]

I can't believe no one has suggested taking a bunch of hydraulic jacks and raising up some of the highest 13ers. Bam, more 14er options for the crowds to choose from, fewer high-use concerns for a few years.

[Ptglhs]

Fletcher does call for a little more mountain craft than Quandary, imho.

Perhaps a bit, though I'd say someone who could handle Lincoln or Bierstadt, etc, could handle Fletcher's southeast Ridge.

Your thoughts?

[cougar]

[Eli Boardman]

I can't believe no one has suggested taking a bunch of hydraulic jacks and raising up some of the highest 13ers. Bam, more 14er options for the crowds to choose from, fewer high-use concerns for a few years.

Easier to just dynamite the top of each and every 14er until they're all 13,999; then human impact in the mountains would go to zero because climbing 13ers is just a waste of time.

[letitbeirie]

There is the Kalifornia solution around the corner: fee-permits on Whitney and Half Dome.

(this idea will probably be about as well-liked as a fart in a spacesuit, but here goes)

There's also the New England solution: alternate routes.

The 20th anniversary edition of the Bourneman & Lampert guide, published 1998, includes this preface:

The third edition, 20th Anniversary Printing of this guide is published in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service in an attempt to encourage the use of one or two minimum-impact trails or clearly established routes to each Fourteener. ... We decided that in a guidebook to such heavily used peaks as the Fourteeners, the most environmentally responsible approach is to recommend that climbers and hikers stay on established trailes or routes. The days of wandering over mountainsides and descending any scree slope are over. Too many have done that for too long, and the resulting damage on Mount Yale, La Plata Peak, Uncompahgre Peak, and many others will take generations to heal.

There's nothing wrong with what they wrote - it's more true than ever - but that's just half of the issue now. From the same preface:

I deeply miss "the good old days." During the summer of 1972, Omar Richardson and I climbed seventeen Fourteeners - and encountered only two other people the entire summer. ... In the summer of 1992 - on a weekday - I shared Elbert's slopes with at least fifty others.

Concentrating all the use each 14er gets on 1-2 trails made a ton of sense in the 90s, when the main concern was a maze of steep, eroding social trails and it was possible to unironically complain about seeing 50 people on Elbert on a summer afternoon. Dirt trails however can only support so much traffic - any footpath in a non-wilderness area that sees the kind of traffic Elbert gets would have been paved years ago. Clearly that's not going to happen (and nobody wants it to), so that means any long-term workable solution centers around removing traffic (permits) or adding capacity (trails).

Where does New England fit into this? They have tons of popular mountains too - many of them more popular than the 14ers just because of proximity to the population centers along the coast: most of them have multiple hiking options from multiple trailheads, which effectively disperse their traffic load. Discounting the old, discouraged social trails present on most 14ers, AFAIK Elbert has the most varied options with the 2 main trails, Black Cloud, and Echo Canyon; Mt. Washington has 10-12 class 1-2 routes to the top and Katahdin (which is about as far into Maine from Boston as the San Juans are from Denver) has 6-7 routes comparable to the Keyhole on Longs.

[mtnkub]

Fletcher does call for a little more mountain craft than Quandary, imho.

Perhaps a bit, though I'd say someone who could handle Lincoln or Bierstadt, etc, could handle Fletcher's southeast Ridge.

Your thoughts?

I agree. Just a bit more rock hopping (if i remember right) and an overall a more adventurous feeling (with a little more route finding).