Hikers, landowners still dealing with Fourteener access issue

Alma — The tops of Mounts Bross, Lincoln, Cameron and Democrat provide brilliant vistas for 100 miles and more, but the view of how to get there is still cloudy.

Many climbers assume they are on public land as they strive to add more of Colorado’s 53 14,000-foot mountains to their list of accomplishments, unaware they are trespassing on private, patented mining claims.

The hikers and the owners of those Fourteeners are trying to solve the problem of providing access to those peaks, but they stumble on the crux of the whole issue — how to keep hikers using the trail without putting the landowners in a position to be sued.

Land on the tops of those mountains has been privately owned since 1873, well before the establishment of the surrounding Pike National Forest. Mine owner Maury Reiber says he understands the lure to climb to the top of his mountains, but he’s wary of trespassers who break into his mines and historical buildings, or put themselves in jeopardy of falling through the hundreds of mining tunnels into the shafts below.

“There’s no way of telling just where some of those shafts are after all these years,” Reiber said.

Reiber added that hundreds of miners dug shafts in the silver heyday of the 1870s and since most were prospect holes that yielded no riches, they were left to be haphazardly filled in by more than 100 years of snow and earth settlement.

While the problem of visitors climbing the Park County Fourteeners has been around since tourist groups used to visit the mines wearing button-top shoes, long dresses, top hats, and celluloid collars, recent newspaper articles clamored that the forest service was no longer issuing permits to climb the mountains.

Actually, the Forest Service has never issued permits for those peaks, but they have recently begun warning climbers that they would be going on private property and should contact the owners for permission.

That resulted in a flood of calls to the Park County Assessors office from avid hikers determined to locate the phone number of the owners to get permission.

One Park County organization, the Mosquito Range Heritage Initiative (MRHI) (the mountains in question are located in the Mosquito Range) has been trying to find a solution that will work for both sides of the access issue.

The MRHI acts as a consortium of widely diverse groups who have a stake in the welfare and use of the Mosquito Range land.
Representatives of the Colorado Department of Wildlife, the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, Colorado Mountain Club, ATV clubs, the forest service, Park County government officials and historic groups all share concerns and try to find solutions to conflicts over usage of the area.

One proposal voiced at a recent MRHI meeting in Alma was that perhaps mining property owners could lease access to marked trails through their claims to an organization that could indemnify the landowners. A similar program was arranged by a Park County agency in which ranchers lease restricted access to private streams for trout fishing.

Discussions are under way to consider some form of a similar arrangement.

Cara Doyle, president of the Alma Foundation and one of the founders of MRHI, offered to gather volunteers to build and post signs along some of the existing trails to tell hikers they are crossing private property and to warn against leaving the trail. She said there are a number of locals in the Alma area who are anxious to help resolve the problems and willing to help.

Could legislation help?

The problem may be attacked from the capitol.

According to T.J. Rapoport, executive director of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, Colorado House Representative Rob Witwer heard of the plight of members of the public seeking access to the Fourteeners and, as a climber himself, reserved the title of a bill to tighten protection for landowners who don’t want to stop hikers and recreationists from crossing their property, but also don’t want to get sued.

While there are some provisions for public recreational use, long-standing legal protections against litigation seem to be falling by the wayside.

In a 2002 case, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that even release forms signed by parents would not hold up if the children were injured skiing and negligence could be proven. A law would be needed to better define negligence in the case of the public hiking on private lands.

“Until there is a law, this problem just isn’t going to go away,” Reiber said.

Witwer agrees the laws already on the books need to be strengthened.

“Private landowners who allow the public access across their property are doing a public service,” he said. “It should be encouraged, not punished.”

Witwer’s proposed bill has the backing of State Senator Dan Grossman of Denver, and though the wording is still being developed, Witwer said, “The idea is to strike a balance between access to the backcountry and appropriate legal protection for the public. I think such a balance is possible — in fact, I’m very hopeful that a consensus can be achieved.”

When is a landowner liable

According to the Colorado statutes, a mine owner on Mount Lincoln would be liable for injuries to a hiker trespassing on his/her land if:

n there were no warnings that they could be hurt by using the land. The landowner must also have knowledge the public is using the land and that the land could provide hazards;

n if the hiker paid to use that land, unless it was land leased to a public organization, which then takes management responsibilities;
n any commercial or business injury that is incidental to the use of the land.

— Colorado Revised Statues, 1995. Repl. Vol. Section 1. 33-41-101 and revised by House Bill 97-1132 Natural Resources