Outil
Budget Calculator — Colorado 14ers
The mountain is free; the trailhead is not. No public Colorado 14er charges for the summit — what has been monetized since 2020 is arrival: parking, shuttles, timed entry, and since 1 January 2026, a passport clause worth $100 a head at Rocky Mountain National Park.
USD. Elevations in feet. Flights, rental car, fuel, lodging and food are NOT priced here — our research carries no verified Colorado figure for them, so this calculator does not invent one.
Route
14,265 ft / 4,348 m · Class 1 · 6.75 mi (10.9 km) round trip · 3,450 ft (1,052 m) gain · ~6 h average
1 day out · 0 nights on the trail
Quandary trailhead access
Managed season 13 June – 13 September 2026, its sixth year. Parking is free first-come after 3 p.m. — which is a trap for summit logistics, because the paid day ends at 3 for the same reason your hike should: afternoon lightning.
Acclimatization
Altitude sickness hits roughly 20% of people above 8,000 ft and 40% above 10,000 ft — and Colorado trailheads start near 10,800 ft. There are no huts to stage through: acclimatization happens in valley towns before a single-day push. The only cure is descent.
Gear rental — 1 rental day
Verified per-day rates from Scot's Sporting Goods in Estes Park — the one shop rate sheet our research could verify. Packs, poles and stoves bill rental days; tents bill nights. Rentals of 3+ days take 15% off, applied above where it qualifies. A summer Class 1–2 14er needs no rope, no harness and no glacier kit: the gear barrier here is near zero, and the judgment barrier is the whole game.
Rescue funding
Backcountry search and rescue is free to the subject in Colorado, statewide, as policy — because fear of a bill makes people delay the 911 call. The CORSAR card is a donation that reimburses the volunteer teams' mission expenses; it is not insurance. The bill that can exist is the medical helicopter. Colorado residents also fund the system through the $29 Keep Colorado Wild pass at vehicle registration, $2.5M/year of which goes to SAR teams.
Quandary Peak — East Ridge (day)
1 day · 0 nights · USD
fees, access, guiding and rental only — per person
Not in this total
Flights, rental car and fuel, lodging and campgrounds in Denver, Boulder, Estes Park, Breckenridge or Leadville, restaurant and grocery food, and bear-canister rental. Our research contains no verified Colorado price for any of them, so this calculator does not invent one — and these are the numbers that actually dominate the trip. Our own read: an unguided Longs attempt is roughly $40 of fees on a trip whose real costs are flights, car and lodging.
Réalité
The class number is not a safety rating. Colorado averages 5,350 lightning flashes a day in July, and the first cells often build over the high peaks by midday — which is why every itinerary is built backwards from a late-morning summit, and why guided Longs parties leave at midnight. September, when the monsoon fades, is the quiet smart-money window.
à titre de comparaison
A resident's 14er weekend is functionally free: $7 shuttle + $5 CORSAR card = $12 of fees for a summit day. An international couple doing Quandary, a Maroon Bells overnight and an RMNP week pays about $329 — of which $200 is nothing but passports.
The full cost breakdown →All prices USD. Prices as of August 2026. Chaque chiffre sourcé. Published 2025–26 agency and operator rates only; nothing estimated. Colorado research
Sources
Every number in this calculator traces to a published agency or operator page. No affiliate links, no commissions from guide services or shuttles. Where our research has no verified price, the category is excluded rather than estimated.
Méthodologie : Every dollar is a published 2025–26 agency or operator price, verified for the Colorado dossier on 11 August 2026. Quandary parking tiers and the $7 shuttle come from Summit County and HikeQuandary. Maroon Bells fares come from RFTA; the $10 vehicle reservation and the Aspen Highlands / Brush Creek tiers from Visit Maroon Bells; the overnight permit ($10/person/night + a $6 non-refundable reservation fee, charged once per permit) from Kate Outdoors, booked on recreation.gov. RMNP entrance fees, the $100 nonresident surcharge and the $80/$250 America the Beautiful split come from NPS and DOI — the surcharge is waived by an annual or ATB pass, and this calculator applies that waiver automatically rather than warning about it. Timed entry is $2 per park day; the wilderness permit is $36/trip flat as charged for 2026 ($30 is the official 2019 admin fee). Culebra is Cielo Vista Ranch's published $150. Guided rates are the operators' published prices; party-of-two lines are the published party price divided by two and labelled as such. Gear uses Scot's Sporting Goods (Estes Park) verified per-day rates with their 15% discount on rentals of 3+ days — packs, poles and stoves bill rental days, tents bill nights. Deliberately NOT priced, because our research carries no verified Colorado figure: flights, rental car and fuel, lodging and campgrounds, food, and bear-canister rental.
Colorado fee updates
Trailhead fees in Colorado change every season. The 2026 surcharge changed them mid-year.
One email when Summit County reprices Quandary, when RFTA or RMNP publish new rates, when timed-entry rules shift, or when the nonresident surcharge moves. Every claim sourced.
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