Backdoor trails take you to the top

WHITE RIVER NATIONAL FOREST - In 2009, according to the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, some 750,000 people will visit one of the state’s 54 mountains above 14,000 feet.

On a Saturday in late June, it seemed a good portion of them were with me on the trail to Grays and Torreys peaks, two hugely popular fourteeners just a few miles from Interstate 70, close enough for Denverites to attain without the discomforts of overnight camping.

Despite overcast skies, brutal winds, lingering deep snow and clouds obscuring the summits, a veritable conga line of hikers in jeans and cotton stretched down the trail, hundreds of weekend warriors and their dogs transforming an intimate mountain experience into the 16th Street Mall.

But a month later, when I returned on another weekend to hit the summits I had missed in June because of weather, I had the trail to myself and in fact didn’t see a soul until I bursted breathless into the social hour scene on the summit of Grays. Solitude was the reward for choosing the path less traveled, an alternate route up the peaks from the Summit County side.

Many fourteeners have such backdoor routes, most of which involve similar or even less elevation gain as the standard trails. Some are well-marked trails, while others are vague tracks that require a map and some imagination as you walk up valleys and scramble up ridges.

Most alternate routes are rated class 2, which means difficult off-trail hiking that may require you to put your hands down for balance and may involve walking on talus or scree. Trails can fade in and out of existence, and while there may be cairns to mark the route, don’t count on it.

While the U.S. Forest Service and nonprofit mountain stewards like the CFI encourage some alternate routes — a trail was recently built up the west side of Pikes Peak from The Crags to codify what had long been an unofficial bushwack — they urge hikers to avoid others, including my path up Grays and Torreys.

And many alpinists bristle at the notion of opening these routes up to a new audience with, for example, an article in the newspaper.

“A lot of the ‘off the beaten path’ fans go out of their way to do research to find alternate routes or different peaks altogether, and their reward is a less crowded hiking experience,” wrote one climber on the Web site www.14ers.com after I asked people to post their favorite alternate routes for a story.

“Won’t those then turn into the ‘new’ crowded routes?” responded another.

The CFI’s concerns are not about crowds, but the impact of boots on fragile alpine tundra that can take hundreds of years to recover.

“Whenever there are a couple hundred people a day using a route that is non-designated in the alpine, the repercussions, as far as the ecology goes, are pretty great,” said education and outreach coordinator Brian Wallace.

The CFI formed in 1994. Many fourteener trails were made before then by hikers taking the quickest route up the peak, often on steep terrain vulnerable to erosion. So the organization has worked to build new “sustainable” trails on 21 of the 54 fourteeners and urges hikers to stick to them.

The organization’s Web site calls my path up Grays Peak “a steep eroded and unraveling route.”
“Continued use of this route will cause a major scar on the hillside. Please do not add to this problem,” it says.
So what’s a hiker to do to avoid crowds?

One option is to climb fourteeners in the southern Sawatch range or, even better, the San Juans. Or, climb on weekdays, or in spring or fall, when the number of hikers decreases exponentially. For a true wilderness experience, climb one of Colorado’s more than 600 thirteeners.

The CFI asks hikers taking an alternate route to familiarize themselves with “leave no trace” principles: walking on durable surfaces (rock and snow) when possible, avoiding vegetation and steep scree slopes, and spreading out a hiking group to disperse the impact. Visit CFI’s Web site, www.14ers.org, for more details.

And, since some of the alternate routes involve going off-trail on mountainsides, hikers should do research and ensure they know where they are going, because solitude means there is nobody to help you if things go wrong.

Here are five alternate routes up popular fourteeners to get away from the crowds. More detailed information on each is available at www.14ers.com. Some below involve route-finding off of a trail, so preparation is essential.

Pikes Peak from The Crags
A longtime unofficial bushwack up the west side of Pikes Peak is now a real trail, thanks to recent improvements. Many say the scenery is nicer than the “I can see to Kansas” views of the standard route, Barr Trail.
Length: 10.5 miles round-trip, less than half the 26-mile round-trip distance of Barr Trail.
Elevation gain: 4,200 feet, vs. 7,500 for Barr Trail.
Getting there: From Colorado Highway 67 south of Divide, turn onto Forest Service Road 383 and head to the Crags Campground, where the trailhead is. Leave the Crags trail where a new trail splits to the right a few hundred feet up

Mount Massive from North Halfmoon Creek
This fourteener near Leadville, Colorado’s second-highest peak, has a long, crowded standard route, but a good trail up the back side that was built in the past few years will save you 5.75 miles and 500 feet of climbing.
Length: 8 miles round-trip
Elevation gain: 3,950 feet
Getting there: From U.S. Highway 24 south of Leadville, turn onto Colorado Highway 300, then south on Lake County Road 11 and follow signs to the Elbert Creek Campground. If you have a four-wheel-drive, high-clearance vehicle, go 2.5 miles past the main Mount Massive trailhead to a parking area. The trail is clear to the summit.

Grays and Torreys peaks, southwest ridge from Summit County
Get away from the hordes on the I-70 side by tackling these peaks from Summit County, a route that involves some off-trail scrambling but pays dividends in solitude.
Length: 10 miles round-trip, or 6 miles from the top of the four-wheel-drive road. The standard route up and down from the I-70 side is 8.25 miles.
Elevation gain: 3,800 feet, 200 more than the standard route.
Getting there: From the Keystone Ski Resort, take Montezuma Road 4.7 miles and turn onto Forest Service Road 260, which is rough but passable for passenger cars. The Chihuahua Gulch trailhead is 2.25 miles up, although four-wheel-drive vehicles can go up 2 more miles. The trail splits to the right where posts block vehicles and leads to an old mine. Follow an old road into the basin, then scramble up the southwest ridge of Torreys and meet a trail at the top to the summit. Hike the standard route to Torreys and then backtrack, or make a loop by heading down Torreys’ west side and descending the meadows on the saddle back into Chihuahua Gulch.

La Plata Peak, southwest ridge
The main route up this Sawatch mountain is from a paved road near Independence Pass, but it can also be tackled from the ghost town of Winfield in Chaffee County, saving Colorado Springs residents a bit of driving and a lot of elevation.
Length: 7 miles round-trip, 2.5 miles shorter than the standard trail.
Elevation gain: 3,380 feet, compared with 4,500 on the main trail.
Getting there: On U.S. Highway 24 north of Buena Vista, turn left on Chaffee County Road 390, a good dirt road drivable with any vehicle. Turn right in the ghost town, and cars should park a half-mile up. Four-wheel-drives can proceed another 1.5 miles. The trail begins at the registration box, and is well-defined until high on the mountain, when route-finding and cairn-spotting may be necessary.

Handies Peak, east slopes from Grizzly Gulch
Most people climb this central San Juan mountain from American Basin, a few miles farther up a rough road, but passenger-car drivers can climb it from Grizzly Gulch and probably have the trail to themselves, and even make a loop by descending into American Basin and walking down the road.
Length: 8 miles round-trip for there-and-back, or about 11 to make it a loop. The standard trail is 7.3 miles, or 5.5 if you have high clearance.
Elevation gain: 3,650 feet, 850 feet more than from American Basin.
Getting there: From Colorado Highway 149 south of Lake City, take Hinsdale County Road 30 for 16 miles on the sometimes rough road to the Grizzly Gulch trailhead, where there are bathrooms and free camping. A good trail goes to the summit. As a bonus, you can climb fourteeners Redcloud and Sunshine peaks from the trailhead across the road, on the north side.