The claim that Colorado and other Western states are being loved to death is wildly overstated, except for the most-Instagrammed spots (“Public lands inundated,” June 2021). I backpacked 732 miles diagonally across Colorado from the southeast to northwest corners in the summer of 2020 and encountered no more than three hikers a day in every place except near the resort town of Breckenridge. A check of hiking groups on Facebook reveals recommendations that point to popular places like the Fourteeners, Rocky Mountain National Park, Crested Butte and Boulder. I think today’s concentrations of use are because few people these days know how to read a regional paper map or use a guidebook which would point them toward a bear’s buffet of splendid unknown areas.
India Wood
Boulder, Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Public lands inundated?.
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