Across some of the country’s most beloved landscapes, hikers are arriving at trailheads to find locked gates, warning tape, and hand-lettered signs where route maps used to be. Officials say the sudden shutdown of dozens of routes is not a bureaucratic glitch but a direct response to a more unsettling reality: the trails themselves have been transformed into unstable, sometimes deadly terrain. From the Pacific Northwest to California and Colorado, the closures trace back to a common cause that is reshaping outdoor recreation in real time.
In place after place, authorities describe paths that are “unrecognizable,” slopes that have simply given way, and canyons where familiar switchbacks now end in sheer drops or piles of debris. The chilling through line is a mix of extreme weather, climate‑driven instability, and wildlife pushed into closer contact with people, forcing land managers to choose between cherished access and basic safety.
The Gorge where trails became “unrecognizable” overnight
In the Pacific Northwest, the most dramatic example of this new fragility is the Columbia River Gorge, where Jan and other officials have watched signature routes buckle under relentless storms. After a barrage of heavy rain, they reported that popular paths in the Columbia River corridor were so chewed up by landslides and washouts that “they’re unrecognizable,” with footbridges twisted, retaining walls gone, and tread either buried or carved away. Jan and other officials have warned that there is a ton of work ahead, and that the closures are not a matter of days but of months of reconstruction.
The scale of the damage extends beyond trail tread into basic infrastructure. At one point during the month, more than 300,000 people across the region were left without power as Extreme rain triggered floods and slope failures that ripped through the National Scenic Ar and nearby communities. Officials say the region is getting a break in the weather now, but they are still picking up the pieces in a National Scenic Ar that was already vulnerable to erosion and wildfire scars, and where repairs to damaged routes and access roads could take months of coordinated work.
Oregon’s Eagle Creek Trail and a National Scenic Ar in crisis
Within that same landscape, the fate of Oregon’s Eagle Creek Trail has become a symbol of how quickly a marquee route can be knocked offline. Earlier this year, land managers closed Eagle Creek Trail after severe storms and flooding damaged cliffside sections that were already precarious. The route is a common alternate for Pacific Crest Trail hikers, and its closure ripples through long‑distance itineraries as well as local tourism, since it is one of Two of the most popular trails in the Columbia River Gor for visitors seeking waterfalls and narrow basalt canyons.
Trail managers in Oregon say the problems are not isolated to a single canyon. Zach Urness reported that Two of the heavily used routes in the Columbia River Gor National Scenic Area are now closed long term, with at least 37 separate slides and failures identified along their length. Officials in the National Scenic Ar say the combination of steep topography, burn scars from past fires, and Extreme rain has created a cascading effect, where one slope failure destabilizes the next. For hikers, that means familiar destinations like Wahclella Falls and Eagle Creek are off‑limits not because of paperwork, but because the ground itself can no longer be trusted.
Deadly seasons on Mount Baldy and the new calculus of risk
Farther south, the closures around California’s Mount Baldy show how quickly a beloved peak can turn lethal when winter storms collide with heavy visitation. Several trails were temporarily shut on California‘s Mount Baldy after 3 hikers were found dead in separate incidents, with Rescue crews locating two of them by helicopter in steep, icy terrain. Authorities responded by closing Several of the most exposed routes, arguing that the combination of hard‑packed snow, hidden ice, and cornices had turned routine day hikes into technical mountaineering without warning.
Those closures were not permanent, but they came with a stark warning. When the hiking trails surrounding Mount Baldy reopened after winter storms and three deaths, officials and local advocates stressed that the mountain’s profile had changed for the season. Here, as one detailed account put it, the same ridgelines that draw crowds can funnel wind and snow into dangerous drifts, and the current risk to hikers remains elevated even when the sun is out. Destiny Torres reported that rangers are urging visitors to treat Mount Baldy less like a casual weekend outing and more like a serious alpine objective, with traction devices, avalanche awareness, and a willingness to turn back when conditions deteriorate.
Wildlife on the move and a mountain lion shutdown in Colorado
In Colorado, the abrupt closure of Horsetooth Mountain underscored a different but related threat: wildlife pushed into closer contact with people as habitats shift. Larimer County officials temporarily shut down Horsetooth Mountain after reports of aggressive mountain lion activity near popular paths. Update notices from Larimer County explained that wildlife officers swept the area but did not locate the animal, and that the “temporary closure” was a precaution to keep hikers out of a zone where a big cat appeared to be hunting or defending a kill.
Officials later reopened Horsetooth Mountain on Friday, but the episode highlighted how closures are increasingly used as a tool to prevent dangerous encounters rather than simply respond to them. In some cases, managers have resorted to euthanasia for safety purposes when animals repeatedly approach people, a trend that Jan and other observers link to crowded trail systems and fragmented habitat. While hikers are often nature lovers, the surge in visitation can compress people and wildlife into the same narrow corridors, raising the odds of conflict and forcing land agencies to choose between access and the welfare of species that have roamed these foothills far longer than any trail map.
“Never before have we seen this”: climate, tourism and the future of access
Behind these individual closures, officials are increasingly blunt about the larger pattern they see. Jan and other leaders have said that Never before have we seen [this] level of disruption across so many different trail systems at once, with floods, slides, and wildlife incidents stacking on top of each other. In one analysis of access to hiking routes and climate tourism trends, Jan and other Officials warned that There is a growing mismatch between the way trails were built and the kind of Extreme events they now face, from atmospheric rivers that dump inches of rain in a day to heat waves that destabilize permafrost and rock faces. The result is a patchwork of shutdowns that can strand local businesses and frustrate visitors, but which land managers argue are the only responsible option when the ground itself is shifting.
For hikers, the new reality means treating every outing as a dynamic situation rather than a fixed plan. I have seen how quickly a favorite route can go from postcard‑perfect to off‑limits, and the reporting from Jan, Zach Urness, Destiny Torres and others only reinforces that lesson. Before heading out, it is now essential to check the latest advisories for places like the Pacific Northwest, California and Colorado, to carry gear suited for conditions that can change by the hour, and to accept that sometimes the safest choice is to turn around at the trailhead. The closures in the Columbia River Gorge, the shutdowns on Mount Baldy, and the mountain lion alerts at Horsetooth Mountain are not isolated flukes, they are early warnings from landscapes under stress, telling us that if we want these trails to endure, we will have to adapt how, when, and where we walk them.
