COLORADO SPRINGS — Colorado is pouring $2.5 million into reshaping how recreation is managed around Pikes Peak, funding the first steps in a long-term vision that will expand access to trails, develop campsites and bring year-round stewardship to one of the state’s most iconic landscapes.
The three-year grant, awarded through the state’s Great Outdoors Colorado and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, will kick off the first phase of a widespread collaborative approach to manage increased tourism in the Pikes Peak region, while balancing conservation needs.
“We all need to be proactive about that and not reactive and that doesn’t happen without all of us coming together to make sure that the growth that we start to see is benefiting all of our communities,” Becky Leinweber, executive director of the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance said Tuesday while celebrating the grant on the deck of Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center.
The plan, first floated by the Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative, has been simmering for more than four years after several years of study revealed overwhelmed and under-resourced communities and land managers. In August, the recreation group released a decade-long plan that outlines steps to manage recreation in a region that draws more than 25 million visitors a year.
“This is, in many ways, the highest profile, successful outcome of that work,” Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday. “There’s a lot of great work being done across the state in many areas that are known to locals, some visitors, but none have the significance in the United States of America or in the entire state of Colorado as Pikes Peak.”
As federal land managers navigate shrinking budgets, this plan will help local and state officials to provide “more active management”, the governor said.
“We’re a state where the federal government owns more than a third of our state. We love our public lands, but they are very hands-off and have very little ability to work with locals dynamically and quickly to do things,” Polis said. “Things take a long time going through Washington.”
The grant will help fund the building of additional segments and connecting existing trails of the Ring the Peak trail, a 63-mile network of trails around Pikes Peak.
Funding will also support expanding camping across the Gold Belt Scenic Byway and down to Cañon City, and improving habitat for bighorn sheep and elk across 300 acres in Dome Rock State Wildlife Area, near Mueller State Park.
“Whenever you build a trail and people are coming to recreate, it does impact wildlife, so we’re trying to get ahead of that and make sure that they have good sight lines for predation and we’re protecting them from disease as well by being able to spread out,” Leinweber said.
Under the plan, Colorado Parks and Wildlife will assume management along the Ring the Peak trail and other parts of expanded parts of the Pikes Peak recreation area.
CPW will be scoping out possible spots to develop campsites while conducting environmental and archeological studies to prioritize protecting cultural sites and wildlife.
The agency doesn’t have specific locations or know the number of campsites that could be developed, but hopes to be “on the ground” as early as this summer, said Frank McGee, southeast regional director.
Balancing the booming population growth and influx of visitors with the protection of wildlife and wild spaces is at the heart of the state’s new investment around Pikes Peak, he said.
“One of the things that’s incredible about Pikes Peak, here’s this landscape that’s surrounded by 700,000 people and we still have places up there where these bighorn sheep are able to live,” he said.
“That’s a value that a lot of people have — they want to know that those animals are still on that landscape. And if the entire landscape is covered in development, they won’t be,” he said. “So how do we lean into making sure that we protect wild spaces and places so that those animals continue to thrive and then how do we also provide places where people can go and spend time outside and connect with nature?”
Another part of the grant will fund a three-year pilot program for “boots-on-the-ground” ambassadors to engage with hikers, maintain trails and collect recreation-use data.
Up to five seasonal ambassadors will be working on trails across El Paso, Teller and Fremont counties through a partnership with Rocky Mountain Field Institute.
“We’re trying to get out with people on the ground and tell them a little bit about what they can expect on the trail,” Sam Hinkle, RMFI’s marketing and development manager, said.
“The intent is to provide safety through education. Folks should know what they’re getting themselves into, and our program will help meet people on the trails and help them understand it as they go out there. Prevention, I think, is the best form of search and rescue.”
Hence then, the article about colorado grants 2 5 million to launch long term vision for tourism and recreation around pikes peak was published today ( ) and is available on Colorado Sun ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Colorado grants $2.5 million to launch long-term vision for tourism and recreation around Pikes Peak )
Also on site :
- Saks Global Secures $1.75 Billion of Committed Capital and Announces Return of Industry Veterans to Advance Transformation of Iconic Luxury Portfolio
- Another Weight Loss Surgery and a Wedding Bombshell: Spoilers From '1000-Lb Sisters' Season 8 Episode 2
- Trump-Iran latest: President threatens ‘very strong action’ if protesters are hanged after forced confessions