Climb a Colorado fourteener
A friend has invited you to do this with them.
A fourteener is a peak higher than 14,000 feet, and Colorado has more of them than any other state, several with walking routes that need no ropes. The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, a non-profit that looks after the peaks, publishes video series on mountain safety, gear and altitude illness for people planning a first ascent.
DemandingUnder £100 / $130MonthsOutdoorsWith othersColoradoSummer
How to start
- Watch the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative's mountain safety, gear and altitude illness video series.
- Choose a peak with a straightforward walking route and go with someone who has climbed one before.
- Spend a few days at altitude in Colorado before the climb and start walking at dawn.
Where to go
- Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (non-profit stewardship body)
- Colorado Fourteeners Initiative: mountain safety videos
We opened these links on 8 October 2026 and found them to be what we say. Dates, places and prices are on the official page, where they stay up to date.
Plan this
Pick a day, or a month, and we will set out how to get ready, step by step, with a date and a reason for each. The hard part of a day out is the timing: the right season, tickets and getting there. The plan watches the calendar for you.
Read next
No one left behind on the Expresso trail: fifteen years of Tuesday rides with Girls Outside
How a group of women in Colorado's Roaring Fork Valley turned a Tuesday mountain bike ride into a 15-year habit: the motto, the tailgate and why the group keeps them riding. How to start mountain biking on easy graded trails, or ride harder terrain with a group if you already ride.
Watching a swimmer from an exercise bike led Sola Alegbe from a lifelong fear of water to teaching it
How a Londoner who nearly drowned as a child learned to swim at 48, left her job at Transport for London and qualified as a swimming teacher. What the first lesson is really like, and how to start if water frightens you, or go further if you already swim.
More like this
Demanding · Scotland
Climb Ben Nevis
Demanding · Wales
Climb Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon)
Demanding · North West England
Climb Scafell Pike
Demanding · California
Hike to the top of Half Dome

