High Rockies are easy to climb.

People are mistaken who believe the high Rockies are hard to climb. To the traveler who has passed through the plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado, the high Rockies might seem like a beautiful but forbidding wilderness, approachable by only the toughest mountaineers. It is true that the 53 peaks in the Rockies that soar over 14,000 feet in elevation should only be attempted by seasoned climbers. However, the peaks under 14,000 feet, the fourteeners, can be easily …

…today, to accommodate the number of climbers, is about a quarter-mile long. If I've shattered your belief that Colorado's peaks are the domain of only bears and mountain men who look like bears, consider how Zebulon Pike might feel about Pikes Peak today. In 1806, he "predicted that the mountain would never be climbed" (Eberhart and Schmuck, p. 6). Now, via the cog railway or the toll highway, he could reach the summit without moving his legs.