They know the risks.
Maybe. Capitol is a Class IV climb. You SHOULD be roping up. But there are probably too many people on that peak now to do that safely, and a bunch of people who have no clue what is safe and what isn't. ( No, I have not done Capitol)
The influx of Libtards form California has turned bagging 14'ers into a Fad. When I took the Kids to Mt. Sherman the peak was packed - at 5:30 am. A lot of people were night climbing the thing. That is just STUPID in my opinion. Sherman is tame, and in my opinion the easiest 14'er, and its still stupid to try climbing it in the dark by flashlight. People are doing it to say they did it. I used to take people up that peak in my 20's and a busy day on that Mountain then was 25-30 people. Now "everyone is doing it" - There have been groups trying to restrict access to the 14'ers for years, trying to force the use of certain routes and so on. I used to oppose it because the 250 - 1000 people climbing them in a given week aren't hurting anything. Now that you have 10,000 or more climbing them - yeah, you probably need to start regulating it.
Here is the Captiol KNife Edge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbi47Pft4bUNow imagine a line of people tying to navigate it in both directions?
And the worse part is almost NONE of them are there because they love being at timberline, love being there - They do it so they can brag to their friends. There are 45 peaks above 14,000 in Colorado - Got to collect them all.
And now its spreading to 13'ers
He what about that one that is 13940? Yeah, no one climbs that one.
Colorado Mountain club puts log/registers on the top , and many of those logs are years old - and only half full
Guess which ones I wants to climb? And as for the Dumb F*ck Peak beggars, they don't fall off the cliffs near enough