By R. Scott Rappold, The Gazette

Hikers and mountain climbers on the West Coast have long grown used to tight regulations on popular peaks – make a reservation, sometimes months in advance, and pay a fee to climb.

In Colorado, the 500,000 people who climb a 14,000-foot mountain each year just go and climb it.

But those days could be numbered.

The U.S. Forest Service Tuesday unveiled plans to begin charging hikers and backpackers a fee, $10 per person, per trip to hike and $20 to camp, in heavily used South Colony Basin in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, an access point for four fourteeners. It would be the first permit and fee requirement on a fourteener, with the exception of Culebra Peak, which is privately owned.

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