Private 14ers

Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Kit Carson Mountain – October 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

When it comes to scenic real estate, few parcels can match having your very own 14,000-foot peak.

Thanks to old Mexican land grants, several of Colorado’s tallest summits are in private hands.

The best-known of these is 14,059-foot Culebra Peak, on La Sierra (or the Taylor Ranch, depending on your politics) a few miles east of the town of San Luis in Costilla County.

[Map with Baca Ranch and Kit Carson Peak]

Previous owners of the ranch charged $40 a head for access, but left the route open throughout the climbing season. The new owner, Lou Pai, allowed access on only one day last summer, July 29, and that was limited to 30 people under Colorado Mountain Club supervision.

Kit Carson Peak, along with adjacent 14,080-foot Challenger Point, is also on private property — the 100,000-acre Baca Ranch, operated by Boyce Land and Cattle Co. of Moffat.

“At least, every map we have shows that they’re on the Baca,” said John Lubitz, executive director of the ranch.

The relevant ranch boundaries, in extremely rugged country above timberline, have never been formally surveyed, he said. And since the land is accessible only about two months of the year, with lightning a constant threat then, it’s unlikely that the northeast corner of the ranch will see chains and transits any time soon.

“We’d have a hard time stopping hikers, even if we wanted to,” Lubitz said, “since most hikers reach the summits from public land on the east side.”

The Baca Ranch does permit access from the west side, if hikers park in the Baca Grande Subdivision and follow established trails up Willow, Cottonwood, or Spanish creeks.

“We ask that they don’t camp or build fires on our land,” Lubitz said, “and we like it if they call us first.” (719-256-4619)

Lubitz joked that “the main thing we ask is that if people are going to fall, that they fall onto Forest Service land, rather than onto our land.”

This summer was relatively accident-free, but last summer, there were several injury falls on Baca land, and one was fatal.

“We co-operate every way we can with the county sheriff then,” Lubitz said, whether it’s providing a place for helicopters to land and take off, or lending pack horses to the search-and-rescue crew.

— E.Q.