The Colorado 14ers: All 58 Peaks, Ranked, With Trailheads

Colorado has 58 named peaks that rise above 14,000 feet, more than any other state, and climbing them, one summit at a time, is the defining bucket list of Rocky Mountain hiking. They range from Mount Elbert, the 14,440-foot roof of the entire Rockies that a fit beginner can walk up in a day, to Capitol Peak’s knife-edge ridge, where a single misstep is unforgiving and only experienced climbers belong.

This guide is the complete list: every peak, its elevation, its range, the difficulty class of its standard route, and, most usefully, a direct link to its standard trailhead in Google Maps, so the gap between reading about a 14er and standing at the base of one is exactly one tap.

The chart below covers all 58 fourteeners ranked by elevation, the best peaks for your first summit, the ones that demand real mountaineering experience, and the rules every hiker should know before going above treeline. For a feel of the full sweep before diving into the table, this tour of all 58 peaks from a hiker who’s climbed every one is the best overview on the internet:

What Counts as a 14er? The 58 vs. 53 Debate

The first thing every list argument comes down to: Colorado has 58 named peaks above 14,000 feet, but only 53 of them are officially ranked. The distinction is a measure called prominence, how far a summit rises above the saddle connecting it to its nearest higher neighbor, and Colorado’s long-standing standard requires 300 feet of it. Five famous summits fall short: Mount Cameron (a bump on the ridge to Mount Lincoln), El Diente (attached to Mount Wilson), Conundrum (Castle Peak’s twin), North Eolus, and North Maroon Peak, the second of the iconic Maroon Bells. Peak-baggers argue endlessly about which number constitutes “finishing” the 14ers, and modern LIDAR re-surveys have even nudged a few elevations and prominences since 2021, which is why you’ll see slightly different figures on older lists. Our table includes all 58, with the five unranked peaks marked, so whichever list you’re chasing, it’s here. One more naming note that trips up older guides: the Front Range giant long known as Mount Evans was officially renamed Mount Blue Sky in 2023.

Reading the Difficulty Classes

The class ratings in the table are the single most important column for planning. Class 1 means a real trail all the way up: Elbert, Quandary, Grays, Handies, San Luis, and Pikes via the Barr Trail are long, high walks, hard on the lungs but simple underfoot. Class 2 adds rougher ground, talus, and stretches without a clean trail, which describes the majority of the list, from Bierstadt to the Kite Lake “DeCaLiBron” loop that bags Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross in a single morning. Class 3 means scrambling, hands on rock with real exposure: Longs Peak’s Keyhole Route, Sneffels, Wetterhorn, and the Crestones live here, and a fall in the wrong spot is serious. Class 4 is where hiking ends and mountaineering begins, exposed climbing on often-loose rock where unroped falls are frequently fatal; Capitol’s Knife Edge, Little Bear’s Hourglass, Pyramid, Sunlight’s summit block, and North Maroon demand experience, helmets, and honest self-assessment. The time-honored progression is to work up the classes over seasons, not weekends, and most people who finish all 58 take five to fifteen years doing it. And if the class system feels abstract, two minutes of what Class 4 actually looks like will fix that:

Planning the Climb: Weather, Altitude, and Access

Above treeline, the rules are non-negotiable. Colorado’s summer monsoon builds thunderstorms over the high peaks almost every afternoon, so the universal formula is a headlamp start and a hard turnaround that puts you off the summit by noon; being the tallest thing on a ridge in a lightning storm is the most preventable danger in the mountains. Altitude is the second: at 14,000 feet the air holds roughly 40% less oxygen than sea level, and even the fittest flatlanders can be flattened by altitude sickness without a night or two of acclimatization. Access is the piece most first-timers miss: Quandary, the most popular peak on the list, now requires summer parking reservations; Culebra sits entirely on the private Cielo Vista Ranch and can only be climbed with a paid reservation; and the remote Chicago Basin group (Eolus, North Eolus, Sunlight, and Windom) is classically reached by riding the Durango & Silverton narrow-gauge train to the Needleton stop and backpacking in, one of the great adventures in American hiking. Every trailhead link in the table above drops a pin at the standard starting point; pair it with a current forecast and a recent conditions report, and you have everything you need to start checking off the list. If you’re deciding where to begin, this rundown of seven great peaks from beginner to expert is a solid shortlist builder:

Final Word

The Colorado 14ers, in one page: 58 named peaks above 14,000 feet, 53 of them officially ranked, crowned by 14,440-foot Mount Elbert and spread across seven ranges from the Front Range’s drive-up classics to the wild Chicago Basin peaks that require a steam train to reach. The full table above ranks every one by elevation with its range, its standard-route class from walk-up (Class 1) to genuine climbing (Class 4), and a one-tap Google Maps link to the trailhead where each adventure starts. Begin with Quandary, Bierstadt, or Grays and Torreys; graduate toward the scrambles; give the Deadly Bells and the Knife Edge the seasons of respect they demand; and be off every summit by noon. The list has a way of turning one summit into fifty-eight.