A Colorado nonprofit is piecing together 14er access, one old mining parcel at a time.
Denver Post reports The Conservation Fund recently purchased 58 parcels covering 480 acres on Mount Bross, one of four 14,000-foot peaks in the Decalibron Loop above Alma.
Most of this newly acquired land faces south, including a small section of trail. But the summit of 14,178-foot Bross remains on private property and closed to the public.
For now.
“Sometimes, to save a mountain, you have to buy it,” Kelly Ingebritson with The Conservation Fund told the Post. “It secures hiking access between Mount Lincoln and Mount Bross. It protects its southern face and viewshed. It’s near the critical headwaters of the South Platte River.”
The stark, rocky slopes of Bross and its partners – Mounts Democrat and Lincoln, plus “unofficial” 14er Mount Cameron – are littered with old mining claims. For decades private property owners let hikers cross their land to reach the summits, making these some of the most popular 14ers in the state. They are close to Denver, simple to find and relatively easy to hike. You can bag all four in one day.
That changed in 2022, when one property owner closed access to the main trailhead at Mount Democrat. He feared lawsuits from injured hikers, citing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Over the next two years The Conservation Fund, Colorado Fourteeners Initiative and others partnered to buy that property, and in 2024 access to Mount Democrat reopened.
Securing the same access on Bross could be trickier, Ingebritson says. Multiple different owners have parcels there.
“Our role is like (connecting) a puzzle,” Ingebritson said in an interview. “This is a national forest with thousands of acres of private land and we are helping to put the pieces back together. The land ownership is fragmented.”
Why is Mt. Cameron ‘unofficial’?
You won’t find 14,238-foot Mount Cameron on a list of “true” 14ers. If it was, it would be ranked higher than iconic Pikes Peak, scenic Maroon Peak and the entire Collegiate Range.
Why doesn’t it count? Because the saddles connecting Cameron to Democrat and Lincoln don’t lose enough elevation. A true 14er must rise at least 300 vertical feet from the nearest low point, known as “topographic prominence,” according to 14ers.com. Cameron rises only 152 feet.
Of Colorado’s 58 peaks over 14,000 feet, five are “unofficial” 14ers: Cameron, El Diente (264-foot prominence), Challenge Point (264-foot prominence), Conundrum Peak (225-foot prominence) and North Eolus (212-foot prominence).
Preview image via Outdoor Trail Maps.