Colorado’s 14ers lost a couple feet after federal scientists remeasured them
New ways to measure sea level means a humbling but not a total loss for the 14ers list, NOAA says
Hugh Carey/The Colorado Sun
Toss out your tourist brochures and climbing guides, Colorado. NOAA shows up today with some high-tech scissors to give all your fourteeners a 2-foot haircut.
No need to despair, though, Lake City. Sunshine Peak, long rumored to be on the fourteeners’ chopping block when a more precise measurement put the San Juans beauty in its place, is safe at 14,004.5 feet, NOAA says.
In fact, Sunshine got a promotion, leapfrogging Huron Peak at the bottom of NOAA’s 58-entry fourteeners list. Huron now checks in at 14,004.1 feet, the shortest Colorado giant, temporarily humbled but remaining in academic good standing among the Collegiate Peaks.
Now, since the NOAA sea level measurement overhaul touches every inch of Colorado, high or low, here’s a sop to regional tourism officials: So far there are no major shocks in store for the Instagram-famous places. Pikes Peak remains majestic at 14,107, if 2 feet lower than the dusty listing on 14ers.com. (Tallies of how many peaks qualify as fourteeners in Colorado have long varied, depending on who is doing the compiling, from the low to high 50s.)
But some town welcome-sign elevations will need repainting, and the social media star Capitol step marker at a mile high has to go up two spots. Bookmark a ceremony in the last year of the Polis administration, sometime in 2026.
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