After four years of complicated negotiations and community input, the Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative announced a decade-long plan on Tuesday that will put Colorado Parks and Wildlife in charge of managing the public lands around “America’s Mountain.”
Their first push will be to complete the Ring Peak Trail, a 95-mile loop around Pikes Peak that is so far only two-thirds complete. The trail will cross land managed by the Pike National Forest and three counties — El Paso, Teller and Fremont. The aim is to finish the loop while having CPW assume management and development of the corridor.
“This is the first time our region has taken a truly regional focus for our outdoors, recognizing that our trails, our open spaces, our natural resources and our wildlife cross boundaries; so must our vision for their future,” said Becky Leinweber, executive director of the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance, which led the effort. “We’re at a pretty pivotal point.”
The effort got a major boost this year when Gov. Jared Polis pledged support for CPW involvement in his annual State of the State message.
“We have some stewardship challenges, user conflict challenges, infrastructure challenges,” Leinweber said. “While our use is going up, and we’re growing as a community – El Paso County is supposed to be over a million (residents) before too long – but we’re losing staff in our federal land managers and some of the others as well. Their resources are being cut. The challenges are growing, the resources are not.”
Since the governor endorsed the Pikes Peak Land Management Partnership, as it is called, CPW staff has been meeting with other land managers to work out the blueprint.
“They have been meeting regularly and put out a request for proposal for a consultant to figure out what does the scope look like for CPW, what does the geographic area look like, what would their responsibilities be, how would all the land managers work together,” Leinweber said. “They just hired this individual, so they are just now starting that facilitation, but the goal is to have a short-term agreement by June of next year.”
That would be a two-year agreement, Leinweber said, to be followed by a long-term agreement of up to 20 years.
One feature of the plan includes the creation of a ranger program to work in the Ring the Peak corridor, across lands under the jurisdiction of multiple agencies. CPW would manage that.
“They can be the face of those land management entities, sharing with visitors, giving information, tips to be safe, maps, helping people have a good day and a great experience outdoors,” Leinweber said. “They can also manage some of the challenges we have, taking care of some of the infrastructure. If there are abandoned campfires, we can deal with that. If there’s trash, we can deal with that.”
Another goal is to develop and manage camping in the corridor.
While the initial focus is on the Ring the Peak corridor, Leinweber’s husband, Colorado Springs city councilman David Leinweber, is calling for better management and development of Pikes Peak itself. Most of the mountain is under the jurisdiction of the Pike National Forest.
Forest officials have acknowledged problems on the mountain, including trash, dumping, abandoned vehicles and other irresponsible behavior by visitors.
“Pikes Peak is just simply amazing, but it’s so underdeveloped, it’s just ridiculous,” David Leinweber said Tuesday at a community informational event in Colorado Springs, noting that there are only two trails to the summit and only one campground with 12 campsites. “There is no master plan.
“A lot of this is trying to work with federal agencies who manage from Washington, D.C.,” he added, “and finding a way to say, ‘Look, we’re willing to do this and we have a willing partner, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, that wants to step in, with a willing governor. We have a willing community that truly wants to step in.’ The forest service is finally saying, ‘We need your help.’ We’ve got to keep pushing to move things forward.”
Congressman Jeff Crank, who represents Colorado Springs, was supportive.
“We probably have a better land management plan for that in Colorado Springs, but we’ve got to convince the federal government,” Crank said. “That’s my job. They are resistant to that.”
Complicating that challenge, Crank noted that the national debt stands at $37 trillion, which was the rationale for this year’s cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service. Jim Petterson, regional director for the Trust for Public Land, warned that funding will be one of the greatest challenges facing the Pikes Peak project.
“The state’s budget is facing some headwinds,” Petterson said. “We’re seeing some shifts in D.C. All levels of government are facing challenges with funding.”
But Samantha Albert, deputy director of the Colorado Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry in the governor’s office, noted there is “a great pool of funding” from Great Outdoors Colorado, which distributes lottery funds, and CPW, which is collecting $40 million annually through Keep Colorado Wild discounted state parks season pass sales.
The Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative has applied for a $2.5 million grant from the Colorado Outdoor Regional Partnerships Initiative to fund the Pikes Peak Land Management Partnership. That will help the Pikes Peak plan get implemented, which Albert welcomed.
“We don’t like an action plan that is just going to sit on a shelf,” Albert said. “It’s meant to move forward and make sure there are resources to support that.”