Colorado's Majestic 14ers

Title: Geospatial Distribution of Colorado 14ers and Their Elevation Question 1: "How are Colorado's 14ers distributed geographically across different mountain ranges, and does elevation vary by region?" Chart Description: This chart shows a scatter plot of all 53 14ers in Colorado, based on their geographic position: The horizontal axis shows longitude, from west to east. The vertical axis shows latitude, from south to north. Each peak is represented by a dot. The color of the dot reflects its elevation: lighter or yellow dots represent higher peaks. A dropdown menu lets users filter by mountain range. When hovering over a point, a tooltip reveals the name and exact elevation of that peak. Interpretation and Answer: The chart shows three main patterns: 1. Geographic Clustering: Most 14ers are located along a vertical, north-to-south mountain belt. Very few are found in the eastern plains of Colorado. 2. Elevation Patterns: The tallest peaks — shown in yellow — are mostly found in central and southwestern parts of the state, especially in the Sawatch Range. 3. Regional Differences: Some mountain ranges, like the San Juans, have many peaks but not the tallest ones. Others, such as the Elk Mountains, have fewer peaks but they tend to be higher.  

Title: Route Distance vs Elevation Gain by Difficulty and Average Visitors Question 2: "How does elevation gain on standard routes correlate with distance, difficulty and visitor traffic? Are longer routes necessarily harder and less visited?" Chart Description: This is a scatter plot that compares four key elements of hiking routes: The horizontal axis shows the route distance in miles. The vertical axis shows the elevation gain in feet. Each point’s color shows difficulty level, ranging from Class 1 (easy, shown in blue) to Class 4 (most difficult, shown in orange). The size of each point shows how many visitors a route gets on average — larger points mean more visitors. The chart is interactive, allowing users to zoom in and move the cursor to find out specific details for each route. Interpretation and Answer: The chart shows that longer routes usually involve more elevation gain — they go hand in hand. Harder routes, especially Class 3 and 4, are grouped in the upper right corner. That means they are both long and steep. Easier routes, mostly Class 1 and 2, tend to fall in the bottom left to middle part. These are the ones with moderate distance and elevation gain — and they attract the most visitors, which is why their points are bigger. There are also some exceptions: A few short routes still climb steeply.
The longest route (around 26 miles) is actually pretty popular and classified as an easy hike with an elevation gain of 7500 feet.  

Title: Average Elevation by Mountain Range Question 3: Which Colorado mountain range has the highest average elevation, and how do the others compare? Chart Description: The chart is a horizontal bar graph showing six Colorado mountain ranges. They are listed from top to bottom in order of their average peak elevation. The x-axis ranges from 14,000 to 14,500 feet. Each bar represents the average elevation of a mountain range - the longer the bar, the higher the average. The chart includes interactive features that allow users to click and highlight specific ranges. Interpretation and Answer: The Sawatch Range stands out with the highest average elevation, at 14,216 feet. It also has the most fourteeners, with 15 peaks. The Front Range comes next, averaging 14,210.5 feet. At the lower end, the San Juan Mountains have the lowest average elevation, at 14,095.9 feet. In the middle range are the Mosquito Range at 14,188 feet and the Elk Mountains at 14,140.6 feet. The bars are arranged by elevation, making it easy to compare the ranges visually and understand their relative heights.