Three years after Gov. Jared Polis christened Fishers Peak State Park near Trinidad as Colorado’s 42nd state park, he celebrated the debut of a trail to the 9,600-foot summit of its namesake mountain by hiking to the top. There he presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony with a dramatic view of the Spanish Peaks in the distance.
“It’s a bit of a hike, but to those who are adventuresome, nothing beats it,” Polis said that day in 2023. “One of the greatest state parks in the state of Colorado.”
Polis regards the addition of Fishers Peak State Park in 2020 as a signature event in his legacy as governor. But that strenuous hike wasn’t just a photo op. It also reflected his personal love for the outdoors and the priority his administration places on outdoor recreation.
As he approaches his final year as governor, Polis, 50, can see his legacy taking on a sharp focus when it comes to public lands, recreation and conservation. He enjoys being regarded by some as Colorado’s outdoors governor, because that was his goal from the beginning.
“When I think about where we need to go as a state, I think we need to make sure we up our game on conservation, on access, on making the most of this amazing natural asset that we have which defines the very character of our state,” Polis said in an interview recently at the governor’s mansion. “For me, it’s like, how can I make my mark as governor to provide an intergenerational benefit to make our outdoors even more amazing?”
Among his biggest successes is the Keep Colorado Wild pass, a discounted annual state parks pass that is sold as an option with motor vehicle registrations. Its creation was on his agenda when running for his first term, which began in 2019, and it raised $39.7 million for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in the 2023-24 fiscal year, its first full year of sales. CPW says preliminary figures for the fiscal year that ended June 30 stood at more than $41.6 million.
He also kept state parks open during the COVID lockdown. He doubled public access to State Land Trust land from 478,000 acres in 2018 to 973,000 acres and wants to add more. He supported a compromise between environmental groups and Colorado’s oil and gas industry in 2024 that will funnel more than $56 million to CPW in the current fiscal year (and as much as $59 million next year).
This year, he announced a partnership involving the state, the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies that will enable CPW to manage federal land on and around Pikes Peak. As “America’s mountain,” it’s a tourist draw and popular recreation area, he said. But in recent years, locals complained that it was getting “trashed” by overuse and poor management.
“What we’re going to see with Pikes Peak is so exciting, to bring all these folks to the table, a lot of folks who historically have not agreed on a lot,” said Conor Hall, who works for the governor as director of the state’s Outdoor Recreation Industry Office.
“That can be a real model. It does not happen without Gov. Polis’ leadership,” Hall added. “We wouldn’t have the resources without the Keep Colorado Wild pass.”
Elevating the conversation
The addition of Fishers Peak was personal for Polis. Not only is it a magnificent landscape, but the park is expected to have a significant economic impact on tourism in Trinidad and Animas County.
“As somebody who has lived in Boulder for most of my life, I can’t imagine a Boulder where you couldn’t hike up to and experience the Flatirons,” he explained. “Citizens of Trinidad, for a generation, were able to see the iconic Fishers Peak, but it was completely cut off to access. It was severed from the community that it defined.
“It was like putting salt in a wound, that it was closed to access,” he added. “Now it’s open to access and has the added advantage of attracting visitors that benefit the economy in Trinidad.”
Fishers Peak was acquired by the state in partnership with two national nonprofit organizations, the Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy. Jim Petterson, vice president for the mountain region of the Trust for Public Land, is struck by the governor’s sincerity when advocating for Colorado’s outdoors.
“Every time I’ve heard him speak about it, he just seems to really nail the fact that it is part of who we are, and how integral the outdoors and outdoor access is to our economy,” Petterson said. “He has elevated the conversation in those areas.”
Hall acknowledges that advocating for the outdoors is “politically smart” in Colorado, but he says it springs from “a place of deep passion and personal experience” for Polis.
“He talks about growing up in the outdoors, exploring, finding trails,” Hall said. “His parents are very deeply environmental, nature-conscious people.”
Indeed, Polis grew up hiking with his family and calls himself “a good skier.” He also keeps a massive framed photo of himself fishing in a mountain lake when he was 14. Measuring 33 x 38 inches, it hangs in a conference room at the governor’s mansion.
Not every one of Polis’s projects has gone as planned, however. In 2021, for instance, Polis announced that Sweetwater Lake, an idyllic and isolated gem 14 miles north of Glenwood Canyon, would become Colorado’s 43rd state park on White River National Forest land. That hasn’t happened yet, however, due in part to community pushback.
The property was purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 2020 to prevent it from being developed into an expensive resort. Working through the Eagle Valley Land Trust, the conservancy transferred the land to the national forest, which lacks the resources to operate it. Locals were alarmed when Polis made the state park announcement, fearing the relatively small 488-acre park would be overrun by outsiders.
“Whether a (state) park or not, I think they all are happy we’ve preserved it from being a development for multi-millionaires and a golf course,” Polis said. “One of the concerns that many residents have is, how do you balance visitation with the quality of the experience? We’re able to best do that by managing it as a state park — whatever you call it.”
Forest officials are planning to grant CPW a 20-year special use permit for Sweetwater, pending an environmental review. A final resolution is anticipated next spring.
Working with the federal government
Polis said more partnerships between the well-funded CPW and underfunded federal agencies, such as those governing Sweetwater and Pikes Peak, are likely to come.
“You can say I’m pursuing half a dozen at least,” said Polis, declining to identify them. “The U.S. Forest Service owns amazing potential recreation areas and existing recreation areas. However, they have very little funding and very little manpower to support recreation.
“And, it’s getting worse,’ he continued. “It was bad before (Trump administration cuts). We have the ability to do much more, through Colorado Parks and Wildlife generally, but also GOCO (Great Outdoors Colorado) and other entities.” GOCO has invested $1.4 billion from Colorado Lottery proceeds to fund outdoor projects since 1992.
Polis said federal authorities have been receptive to state assistance.
“This began under the Biden administration and didn’t have any hiccups during the transition,” Polis said. “It’s very much the direction of both the Biden and Trump administrations. Acknowledging that they have had cuts in the park service and the forest service, they are absolutely entertaining partnerships.”
That could even involve operating Rocky Mountain National Park and the state’s other three national parks in the event of a federal government shutdown. Polis said the state already has contingency plans for that.
“We are ready with our plan if the federal government shuts down,” Polis said. “We will keep our national parks open. That requires cooperation with the federal government. Both Biden and Trump, when they were facing shutdowns, were fine with that. It’s a matter of us figuring out how to pay for it and do it. We haven’t had to do it, but we came very close a couple times.”
Polis pushed for the creation of outdoor regional partnerships, funded by the state, that bring together stakeholders to brainstorm for ways to improve wildlife management, sustainable recreation and protection of wild spaces. Created by an executive order in 2020, there are 21 regional partnerships now across the state. One is the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance, which successfully lobbied for CPW management of federal lands there.
Another is NoCo Places, a coalition that includes Rocky Mountain National Park, the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, CPW and five Front Range counties — Larimer, Boulder, Gilpin, Jefferson and Clear Creek. The goal is to find strategies to meet northern Colorado’s future needs in the outdoors, including the impact of population growth in the Front Range.
“Gov. Polis had the foresight to see the need to balance outdoor recreation and conservation, and the need to act, so we protect what makes our state so special,” said NoCo Places founder Steve Coffin, who retired this summer. “The Regional Partnership Initiative he created to do just that is an excellent way to balance outdoor recreation and conservation, make the state more climate resilient, and do all that in a way that is based on local needs and values.”
Last year, Polis signed legislation imposing “production fees” on the state’s oil and gas industry to remediate its environmental impacts. CPW will use the $115 million it receives over the next two years for land and wildlife habitat conservation and restoration.
“You can create infrastructure and plans, but it doesn’t do a lot unless you have money,” Petterson said. “That’s where some of these investments like the oil and gas production fee and the Keep Colorado Wild pass come into play. He’s thinking about how to make this commitment to the outdoors durable, so that it endures beyond his administration.”