Preparations are underway for an ultimate celebration of Colorado’s biggest mountains on the state’s 150th birthday Aug. 1. 

Summit 2026 was recently announced as “a once-in-a-generation celebration of the mountains, landscapes and outdoor experiences that shape our state.”

The mission: to have assigned teams on all 54 fourteeners. 

The announcement from the state commission promoting sesquicentennial events recalled the same “historic effort” arranged in 1976 for the state’s 100th birthday. Colorado Mountain Club organized that effort, as it is again. 

It makes sense, said CEO Madeline Bachner Lane, noting CMC’s extensive pool of volunteer leaders and connections with other organizations around the state planning to lead trips Aug. 1. With a website for people to sign up for trips and courses throughout the year, CMC also had the infrastructure for Summit 2026. 

“The other piece CMC has done well over 100 years now is risk management,” Bachner Lane said. “That was another aspect where we could also be valuable, for making sure as we built out this enormous project we can do it with safety in mind and manage risk well.”

The state’s America 250-Colorado 150 Commission and Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry is promoting an inclusive day involving tribal people; a sunrise ceremony on Mount Blue Sky is slated for Aug. 1. And Bachner Lane pointed to several partner nonprofits involved on the day, including Blackpackers, Latino Outdoors, Outdoor Asian and the Lockwood Foundation, which represents people with disabilities. 

“We want to be inclusive,” Bachner Lane said, “but it won’t be first-come, first-served.” 

On CMC’s website, cmc.org, registration is open for dozens of peaks, while the most dangerous and technical among them already have teams established for that Saturday, Lane said. The trips open to registration are listed for “hiking” or “scrambling,” and almost all are limited to numbers that can be counted on one or two hands. 

In registering, people are joining a waitlist, CMC’s website explains: “From there, trip leaders will reach out to gather more information about each participant’s experience level and interests. For trips where the waitlist exceeds the allotted group size, participants will be selected by lottery.”

Wilderness rules dictate group sizes on several mountains, noted Colorado Fourteeners Initiative Executive Director Lloyd Athearn. 

“The other thing that we considered is, for some of the more popular peaks, we don’t want to have some giant conga line of people adding to what will probably already be a very popular day,” he said. 

For anyone looking to climb his or her first fourteener, this might not be the chance, Bachner Lane indicated. It might not be the chance to climb a new peak either. 

“We do encourage folks to pick what they know they can do and what is meaningful to them,” she said. “We are asking folks to be a little selective about what they’re picking.” 

While the website shows some registrations open through July, “We are trying to get folks to sign up by June 30,” Lane said, “so we can make those assessments and have a month to make sure every peak is covered.”

Anything can happen in a month, she recognized ー or any given day, like Aug. 1. The day before in 1976, ahead of the 100th birthday climbs across the fourteeners, the historic Big Thompson flood began, Athearn pointed out. 

The weather remains unpredictable, while much else has changed since then. 

“It was a huge, unique deal (back then), because especially on the more challenging and remote peaks, they wouldn’t necessarily have been climbed any given weekend,” Athearn said. “Nowadays, 50 years later, people are gonna be climbing the fourteeners every day, especially on a Saturday in peak season.” 

Might they be especially inspired Aug. 1? 

“We’ve definitely thought about that,” Bachner Lane said. “We are trying to educate folks about responsible recreation, where you’re thinking about overcrowding, you’re thinking about trailhead parking; that’s a huge issue at Bierstadt and Front Range peaks. We want people to think about, Is this the best day, or could a weekday be better?” 

The Summit 2026 announcement came with the state promoting another initiative called Find Your Own 14er: “Whether it is hiking one of Colorado’s trails, visiting a state park, exploring a scenic byway, fishing, stargazing, birdwatching, or simply spending time outside with family and friends, every Coloradan can find a meaningful way to celebrate.”