Five years ago, Carl Woody’s first job out of grad school took him to the slopes of Pikes Peak.

“Best office in the world right there,” said the program director with Colorado Springs nonprofit Rocky Mountain Field Institute.

His task: to build a new trail to the top of the peak above 14,000 feet.

It’s but one ongoing project across Colorado’s highest mountains this summer.

While Woody and fellow builders will return to the backside of Pikes Peak — to the climbing corridor called Devils Playground — crews with Colorado Fourteeners Initiative will once again fan out to other parts of the high country in need of makeovers.

Devils Playground is far from the only summit path that has long been viewed as damaging, its steep alignment inviting snowmelt and rain to rush down the mountainside. This has left deeply incised scars. And generations of trampling feet have only deepened these scars, further advancing harmful water.

In 1994, Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) mobilized to address erosion threatening fragile, alpine ecosystems.

“The vast majority of these mountains were first climbed by people just trying to get to the summit as directly as possible, as quickly as possible,” explained CFI Executive Director Lloyd Athearn. “They were looking for the path of least resistance, which is not necessarily the most sustainable way up a mountain.”

Those straight-up footpaths have increasingly been replaced by gentler, switchbacking trails “hardened” by rock steps and bordered by erosion-mitigating walls of timber and stone. It’s technical, time-consuming work that inspires camaraderie among staff, contracted youth crews and volunteers.

However backbreaking, “it’s a pleasure to steward and work in some of the most beautiful places in our country,” Woody said.

Here’s a look at the job list this summer:

Pikes Peak

Since starting in 2019, Rocky Mountain Field Institute reports having built about 2.5 miles of new Devils Playground trail in the woods up from the Crags trailhead. The blueprinted reroute calls for about 4 miles, trending south of the current route.

The goal is to reach treeline this summer, Woody said. “If we can get to that talus field, I think we’ll be in really good shape to kind of cruise through in the following season.”

The 2026 season will see the last of a three-year grant from Colorado Parks and Wildlife that has largely funded work. “We certainly feel urgency; we feel urgency every year,” Woody said. “We want to make as much progress as we can every year.”

Perhaps with some help from volunteers. At rmfi.org, they can sign up for the pack-in set for June 18. An overnight and two-day “stewardship weekend” is scheduled for Aug. 16-17.

Interest has been high over the years, Woody said. “It’s a really unique opportunity to say, ‘I helped build one of the primary trails up to the top of a really famous mountain.’”

Mount Shavano

Crews enter a fourth summer of what Athearn calls “the biggest, gnarliest project that CFI has ever undertaken.”

The years have seen two “bypasses” constructed on the lower part of Shavano — trail away from a corridor that tends to flood. A third bypass is in the works this summer.

“So certainly by the end of next summer, people will fully be on new trail up until above timberline,” Athearn said.

While one crew works below, another will work closer to the summit on a more sustainable stretch of trail — “a lot of really complex rock engineering,” Athearn said.

Builders will be camping and hiking more than 3,000 feet up to the work site, he said. “So for people who think it’s a big accomplishment to climb a fourteener, every day our upper crew will be essentially climbing a fourteener and then picking up tools and moving rocks.”

Mount Democrat

About 300 acres including the mountaintop and parts of the multi-fourteener loop known as Decalibron became public land after years of on-and-off closures under private ownership.

The acquisition “created this huge opportunity to redo the summit trail on the western half of the Decalibron loop,” Athearn said.

Over two years, plans call for 110 timber and rock check steps, about 1,200 square feet of retaining wall and about 140 linear feet of drainage. Meanwhile, down at the Kite Lake trailhead, land managers are planning improvements to parking, camping and other infrastructure.

‘Blue Beard’

It’s the so-called project regarding Mount Blue Sky and Mount Bierstadt, often mispronounced “Beardstadt.” A crew will split time between the popular mountains — both of which are past due for attention, Athearn explained.

On Bierstadt, CFI has eyed a boardwalk over wetland that has “deteriorated significantly” since work a decade ago. On Blue Sky, CFI has worked to restore an area between Chicago Lakes and Summit Lake that was wrecked by historic rains and mudslides in 2013.

“Now we’re at a point where we can put in more trail and build back what was one of the best routes in the state,” Athearn said.