A half-million people every year climb at least one of Colorado’s fourteeners, our 54 mountains more than 14,000 feet in elevation. But public access has been closed or restricted on six fourteeners that sit at least partly on private land.
On four summits in central Colorado’s Mosquito Range (Lincoln, Democrat, Cameron and Bross), landowners want hikers to stay away because they fear lawsuits if someone gets hurt. Gone are the days when Americans were willing to shoulder personal responsibility along with their knapsacks.
It’s in the public’s interest to encourage rural landowners to allow recreation access. As Colorado’s population grows, so does the need for places to hunt, fish, hike, climb, boat and ski.
Colorado law generally protects landowners who permit public recreation on their properties, but there are loopholes. In 2002, the Colorado Supreme Court said children, even teenagers, don’t have the mental ability to waive their right to sue. But no adult, not even parents, can do it for them, either. While reasonable people might think if a kid gets hurt on a mountain the parents should take responsibility, that’s not what Colorado law says.
The second gap involves a lack of protection for landowners stuck with any of the thousands of old, abandoned mine tunnels and openings that were dug in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They’re dangerous places, subject to cave-ins. They’re so numerous they’re almost impossible to identify, much less fence. Erecting fences would, in any case, create numerous eyesores in the high country. Even when landowners have tried to seal the mines, passersby have ripped off the locks.
A state lawmaker is working on a solution. Rep. Rob Witwer, a Jefferson County Republican appointed this summer to fill a vacant seat, wants the law to clearly protect landowners from liability for accidents at abandoned mines.
His idea leaves the question of protecting landowners if kids get hurt at old mines, but that mess also could be solved. State and federal agencies often obtain easements across private land. In such cases, government agencies should indemnify property owners, meaning that the protection government has against lawsuits would apply. That, in turn, would make it harder to sue.
Such a shift could put primary responsibility for staying safe in the outdoors back on the individual, where it belongs.
