MOUNT DEMOCRAT, Colo. — The air is thin at the summit of this 14,155-foot peak. So are the crowds climbing it this summer.
On a blue-sky July morning, only four hikers were taking selfies against the endless backdrop of undulating Rocky Mountains. About 2,100 feet below, parking spots abounded in a dusty lot usually overflowing with the cars of people seeking to conquer Democrat and three more of Colorado’s famed “fourteeners” via a trail that links those summits.
The Decalibron Loop, as it is known, remains officially closed amid a contentious saga involving three words of a state statute, a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, the limits of public access to wilderness and the dashed hopes of trekkers who come from around the world to scale as many fourteeners as possible.
“These mountains are a kind of portal to people having some of the most amazing experiences of their life,” said Lloyd Athearn, executive director of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. “A lot of people want to do all of the mountains. So being unable to do that is a source of extreme frustration.”
Much of Colorado’s rugged landscape is public and open to everyone. Yet the peaks of Democrat and nearby Lincoln and Bross are privately owned, as are parts of the trail to the loop’s fourth summit, Mount Cameron. Three other fourteeners — of which there are 53 or 58, depending on the definition — are also on private property. Battles over public and private lands throughout the American West have played out for generations, often over the massive swaths of territory owned by the federal government or the vast expanses closed off by wealthy landowners. This is a different sort of tussle, perhaps a distinctly 21st century one, featuring property owners who don’t want to keep others out but fear potential liability and litigation.
The Decalibron is wildly popular because it is not far from Denver and because the climbs along it are not terribly difficult, as fourteeners go. The loop has mostly been open in recent decades thanks to a longtime partnership between the primary landowner, outdoor recreation organizations, public land managers and the tiny town at the foot of the peaks. But a 2019 federal court ruling — and an explosion in crowds during the pandemic — made public access too risky, the landowner says.
In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld a $7.3 million verdict awarded to a cyclist who was gravely injured when he rode into a sinkhole on a path at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. A worker had taken photos of the washout before the accident but not alerted others, and the court found that amounted to “willful or malicious” failure to warn of a “known” danger, an exception under a Colorado statute that gives broad immunity to private property owners who allow public recreation on their land for no charge.
“I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy [this property] basically all of my life. I don’t want to stop people from having that same opportunity,” said John Reiber, a retired business executive who owns mining claims across Democrat, Lincoln and Bross but said he does no mining and does not profit from them. The Air Force might be able to afford a $7.3 million judgment, he said, but “I don’t have that kind of money.”
The ruling has had a chilling effect in Colorado, according to a coalition of mountain counties, the Colorado Farm Bureau and recreation organizations such as the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, which came together to change the law.
The owner of Mount Lindsey, another fourteener, closed it in 2021 based on the appellate decision. This summer, a property owner who hosts a series of running and mountain biking races is requiring both participants and spectators to sign a waiver, with police on hand for enforcement, the Colorado Sun reported. The Decalibron Loop shutdown has lit up hiking message boards, with people lamenting their spoiled plans.
“Having someone coming and cheering and passing out water having to sign a liability waiver? That’s not the way we want races to function or hiking mountains to function,” said Anneliese Steel, who leads the group trying to make it harder to sue property owners under the Colorado Recreational Use Statute.
Legislation this year proposed removing “willful” from the statute, but it died in committee. Attorneys from the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association testified against it, saying the change would leave room for inexcusable dangers. Proving liability is already extremely difficult under the law, they said.
The bill failed on party lines, with the three Democrats who voted no saying the Air Force case was an extreme outlier. “This is a reaction to one case — one case over 26 years where a plaintiff has gotten a reward under the law. I think that means the law is working,” Sen. Dylan Roberts (D) said at the committee hearing.
Reiber, a lifelong Coloradan, inherited much of his land from his father. He purchased more of the silver-and-gold-rich Rockies over time as a sort of doomsday savings account and because he believes it will someday be possible to mine the mountains inexpensively and with minimal environmental damage.
But hiking them comes with plenty of possible dangers that change with the weather: Avalanches and rockslides. Lightning strikes and falls. Goring by mountain goats. Most worrying, Reiber said, are cave-ins and other dangers from old mining activity, some of which he is unaware of and cannot mark with warning signs. This year, he noted, the cost of his liability insurance rose from $6,800 annually to $15,000. He says he would likely file for bankruptcy if sued. Athearn certainly knows the hazards that hikers can face on a trail. “Someone could step on a rusty nail,” he said Monday on his way up Democrat, pausing next to the remnants of a cabin, a pile of rotting wood amid the wildflower-dotted tundra. “Someone severs blood vessels in their leg, and all of a sudden someone’s bleeding out.”
The initiative has long partnered with Reiber and other landowners to mitigate such scenarios, rerouting trails onto public land and placing signs instructing hikers to stay on paths. But the work has gotten more intense as crowds have grown in the backcountry — along with landowners’ concerns. In 2020, it estimates that as many as 30,000 people tackled the Decalibron Loop peaks.
The next year, worried about his exposure, Reiber closed access to fourteeners on his property, and the number of hikers dropped to less than 10,000. The town of Alma — which sits at 10,578 feet and bills itself as the “highest incorporated town in North America” — and other trailhead communities lost about $5 million in tourism revenue, the initiative estimates.
“It’s painful,” Park County Commissioner Amy Mitchell said of the tourism losses in Alma and nearby Fairplay. “Those two municipalities are dependent on sales tax.”
Last week, Reiber sat at a metal picnic table at the Kite Lake trailhead that starts the ascent to Democrat. A large green sign alerted visitors of the trail’s closure. Few seemed to heed it.
“You guys realize you just trespassed?” Reiber shouted to several people finishing their hike. “You see that sign over there?”
“We went up Democrat,” a young man yelled back. “We saw other people up there.”
“That doesn’t make it right!” Reiber said, shaking his head.
Knowing that people will still climb his mountains, Reiber’s latest tool is an electronic waiver (signed by Washington Post journalists who summited Democrat). Among other dangers, it warns of cave-ins, sunburn, altitude sickness and “the actions of other people or animals and the mental distress from exposure to any one of the above.” He hopes to post the QR code at the station where people pay for parking or camping.
The coalition plans to resurrect legislative efforts next session and is pushing to change the statute’s wording from “willful or malicious” to “willful and wanton,” a common legal term that is used in Colorado’s good Samaritan law and would provide a higher level of protection to property owners.
“Ninety-eight percent of everybody that comes up here are great folks. They care, they take pictures and they leave footprints, and I’m fine with that,” Reiber said. “It’s just a rare few that have folks scared.”