The Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance is transitioning from four years of vision planning to specific on-the-ground initiatives with the assistance of a three-year, $2.5 million grant it received last month from Great Outdoors Colorado and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The PPORA is a collaboration of land managers, stakeholders, conservation and recreation partners that is implementing a plan for improving public land management across numerous jurisdictions in the region. It announced its vision plan and the grant application last August.
“Today marks the moment when years of regional planning and collaboration move into action,” said Becky Leinweber, PPORA executive director, at a news conference Tuesday. “It’s about managing outdoor recreation, conserving natural resources and stewarding the Pikes Peak region with intention.”
A major goal of the PPORA is to complete the 63-mile Ring the Peak Trail around Pikes Peak, long a dream of outdoors enthusiasts in the region. Currently there are two gaps, one of five miles on the northeast aspect of the Pikes Peak massif, another of eight miles on its southwest aspect near Cripple Creek.
The $2.5-million grant will be used initially to fund 10 projects including: Realignments of Ring the Peak Trail segments in the North Slope Recreation Area on land owned by Colorado Springs Utilities, where it has three reservoirs located along lower sections of the Pikes Peak Highway south of Woodland Park New trail and trailhead construction on the Ute Pass Regional Trail that will eventually close the five-mile gap in the Ring the Peak Trail northwest of Manitou Springs Develop 15 campsites and improve infrastructure at Red Canyon Park near Canyon City, located on the Gold Belt Scenic Byway Conduct environmental analysis and archeological studies required before developing Ring the Peak corridor campsites managed by CPW Enhance bighorn sheep habitat in the Dome Rock State Wildlife Area, located west of Pikes Peak near Mueller State Park
PPORA is one of 21 Colorado Outdoor Regional Partnerships funded by CPW and GoCo. Gov. Jared Polis instituted the regional partnerships initiative in 2020 to enable state-supported collaboration in efforts to preserve public lands and recreation opportunities.
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Pikes Peak-area public lands, camping, hiking to be managed by the state Gov. Jared Polis wants to be remembered for making Colorado’s outdoors ‘even more amazing’“When we set up the regional partnerships, we really had this kind of collaboration in mind,” Polis said of PPORA. “This is in many ways the highest profile, successful outcome of that work. There’s a lot of great work being done across the state, but none have the significance in the United States of America as Pikes Peak. It’s really exciting to work with the Pikes Peak region to help make this a reality.”
Pikes Peak regional partners have been in discussions with CPW officials for more than a year to identify areas where it can assume a management role. Most of the land is owned by the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Springs Utilities.
“We’re a state where the federal government owns more than a third of our state (land),” Polis said. “They are very hands-off, and have very little ability to work with locals dynamically and quickly to do things. Things take a long time going through Washington. By having this kind of collaboration, we want to be able to provide more active management to meet the local community needs through Colorado Parks and Wildlife.”
What that might look like is still under discussion, though.
“We’ve been having ongoing meetings every month, working towards having a short-term agreement in place – hopefully sometime this summer — which would firm up what we hope to accomplish in the long term,” said Frank McGee, director of CPW’s southeast region. “Anytime we do something with the federal government, there are extra layers of planning and processes that we have to go through. That’s going to take a period of years.”
In the meantime, CPW stands ready to help in any way it can.
“We’re not trying to take anything over from anybody by force,” McGee said. “We are trying to work with folks to have a mutually beneficial partnership and help them with things they have identified as needs we can help with.”
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