Mount Bierstadt (Guanella Pass) Guide

Colorado has 58 peaks over 14,000 feet — more than any state — and Mount Bierstadt, at 14,060 feet an hour from Denver, is the one that turns ordinary people into fourteener hunters. The Guanella Pass trailhead already sits at 11,650 feet, so you only climb about 2,400 vertical over 3.6 miles one way on Trail #711: a boardwalk through the willows, a creek crossing at 11,470, then a steady grind up a Class 2 slope to a summit that looks straight across the jagged Sawtooth at Mount Blue Sky. It’s the most-climbed fourteener in the state, which means it’s crowded and it also means it’s forgiving. Don’t be the one who treats it like a hill — people who start at 10 a.m. get chased off the top by lightning, and altitude sickness doesn’t care how many CrossFit classes you’ve taken.