Growing up in Greeley, Fred Otis thought of the Poudre River the way he thought of Disneyland, as this faraway, magical place miles from home.
The Cache la Poudre River in Greeley on Friday. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)“You knew it was in the canyon,” Otis said, “but you had no idea what it looked like.”
It always made him kind of sad. Otis loved to ride bikes, and he ran several marathons. There wasn’t really a great place to do either, at least not for the long hours he preferred to ride or run the long miles training for those marathons demanded. A little scenery, he thought, would make those miles go by much faster.
There were many times in those decades of work that it didn’t seem possible to build a complete path that would wind all through Northern Colorado. But Otis always remained optimistic. At one point, he never thought he’d get to see the river at all, at least through Greeley.
“I actually begged to be a part of it,” Otis said.
That group became a nonprofit board made up of three members each from Greeley, Weld County and Windsor as well as an intergovernmental agreement with all three. At times, the work was difficult, as the fundraising and grant writing felt endless, and he had to use all his negotiating skills as a real estate attorney to get landowners to allow the trail across their land, sometimes by talking with the next generation decades later.
Even as Otis and the board worked for decades to build a trail through Greeley, it never felt impossible. It felt more like a dream come true.
The Poudre River Trail extends from Bellvue to Greeley. Courtesy Larimer County.
Given that it seems as if there are more trails than sidewalks in Fort Collins, it seems weird to consider that the the city didn’t begin developing trails until the 1960s. But Fort Collins didn’t build its first until 1965, along Spring Creek, which led to the development of Spring Park.
In the early 1970s, Fort Collins envisioned a 25-mile recreational trail loop system weaving through the city and connecting the Poudre, Spring Creek and the foothills. In 1978, the city built the first section of the Poudre Trail from College Avenue to Linden Street out of Lee Martinez Park. It would be how leaders from Weld and Larimer counties would build it until it was done — piece by piece as opportunities arose. At times, building the pieces felt random, but organizers from both counties had a general route in mind — along the Poudre, of course — and a goal, accompanied by endless optimism, that they would connect the sections over time, even if connecting Larimer to Weld wasn’t the idea right away.
It was, ironically, not considered a gem when Fort Collins built its first official section in 1987 in LaPorte. Fort Collins saw it as a way to connect the two areas, like a handshake in asphalt, but LaPorte viewed it as an infringement by Fort Collins, essentially telling their neighbors to build their trail in their own dang city.
This was, of course, a stark contrast to Weld County, which paid for the trail through grants and funds raised by hand, and it allowed Fort Collins to build most of its portion of the trail by 1995. The city is proud of the trail, but there aren’t nearly as many records as those kept by Weld’s nonprofit, probably partly because the nonprofit wanted to show donors and grant givers its progress in the hopes of obtaining more money.
“I used to longboard back (in the mid-’90s),” Kemp said, “and you had to be on the lookout or else you’d get thrown.”
The Poudre River Trail was first conceived in the 1970s but will be complete in the spring of 2026. Courtesy City of Fort Collins.Before the Poudre River Trail was a given, it was an experiment
Eastman Kodak Co. owned the land where the trail would pass through Eastman Park: The company had already donated the land for the park years ago, but it had concerns about droves of people using a trail in case there was a chemical accident. Otis found a state law that absolved the company from responsibility for public recreation purposes.
Donations, however, came from parties other than the board. Noffsinger, Hoshiko and Farr families donated $50,000 toward the construction of a footbridge just west of Missile Silo Park; George Hall, owner of Hall-Irwin Construction, donated 80 acres; and Martin Lind and Steve Watson, owners of the Water Valley sand mining operation, donated three riverbank miles, plus $175,000 for construction.
“Some (like Hall) were just generous, but Martin Lind wanted the trail to go through his land, and that was fine,” Otis said. “Ultimately, the trail became an asset to development projects.”
“As private landowners were challenging, developers were open and willing to incorporate the trail in their developments,” Wiebe said, “and sometimes they paid for it.”
“A number of them were waiting to see how successful it was before they would jump in,” Hall said. “The first conversations were not always about the end result. The first few landowners were the ones who had to take a chance.”
“If you had private access to the river,” Otis said, “would you want the public to go through it?”
“Larimer County just wasn’t a model for us,” Otis said. “Tax money was the difference between the two, and I don’t mean that negatively for either side.”
“I think people looked at it as a community effort versus a governmental effort,” Hall said.
“Those hackles go up automatically,” Willis said.
Winning trust, one easement at a time
The trail had stalled out to the CSU Environmental Learning Center, located just east of Larimer County Road 9 and north of Rigden Farms, for years because of private property and I-25. This left a sizable gap east of the learning center all the way to west of Windsor. Local officials admitted to some frustration, as they hoped it could be connected as early as 2022.
The city, feeling the deadline of the grant, instead asked the Great Western Railway of Colorado if it could build a trail on its nearby land. The railway was pretty much the opposite of a bullet train, and the city didn’t see much risk.
Kemp, like Otis, also didn’t want to portray both landowners as evil.
The railroad’s access allowed the city to build a trail from the learning center to Ridgen Reservoir, but another challenge came from an equally formidable obstacle. I-25 provided a barrier east of Arapaho Bend into Tinmath. It would be, of course, problematic to build a trail across one of the busiest highways in the West (the city never considered that an option). But a little serendipity came when CDOT decided to build its Express Lanes project from Berthoud to Fort Collins to relieve increasing traffic in the area. The project adds a toll lane to each direction of I-25. It’s doubtful the underpass would have happened otherwise, so let’s hear it for traffic! These portions of the trail were completed at the end of 2024.
“We had ditch companies, private landowners, developers, you name it,” he said. “Sometimes, it takes generations to get a willingness to let us go through.”
The Poudre River Trail has become an amenity for residents from Bellvue to Greeley. Courtesy City of Fort Collins.“It’s just been within the last 10 years that you’re invited to come down to the river,” Willis said. “It’s such a striking contrast. The trail showcases what is possible and what could be.”
Windsor also approved its own quarter-cent sales tax for open space in 2022, no small feat in Weld County.
Indeed, the trail made it easier for the Cache La Poudre River National Heritage Area to fulfill its mission of bringing people together and engaging them in the river, said Rylyn Todd, spokeswoman for the area. The area is much like a national park but doesn’t own and maintain land.
It’s possible that the Poudre Trail achieved even more than its creators intended. The fact that it connects so many communities has also evolved it into a bike commuter’s highway in the mornings and evenings.
More than a trail, a river reclaimed
City officials consider it an economic driver as well. They are just now trying to understand the impact it has.
Greeley may also take advantage of the trail’s spotlight on the Poudre. The city hopes to restore the Poudre, including some recreational uses similar to the way that Windsor and Fort Collins have done. They also hope to bring it to a more natural state. This is probably not something Greeley may have considered without the trail paving the way.
Otis left the board in 2024. The trail committee named a bridge west of the 71st Avenue section after him for his 30 years of service. Greeley finished its last piece in 2009. It felt like it was taking forever, he said today, but now it seems like a short time. Parents usually say the same thing.
He lives close now, something he didn’t think was possible as a younger man. He still loves hearing about ways the trail could be expanded or lead to other opportunities with the river: He even serves on a committee that works on expanding the trail, and he promises some big news in the near future. You’d expect nothing less.
Poudre River Trail timeline:
• 1970s — Greeley City Council — and other groups —identify a trail along the Poudre as a future goal. More serious discussion begins taking place in 1988.
• 1983 — The University of Colorado Denver completes a feasibility study that lays the groundwork for an integrated trail system between Weld and Larimer counties.
• 1991 — Poudre River Greenway Commission formed by the City of Greeley.
• 1994 — The Trail’s groundbreaking in Weld County takes place on National Trails Day on June 2.
• 1995 — Greeley gets another piece in Island Grove, and Windsor builds a portion in Water Valley. The PTC board completes and adopts its master plan.
• 1995 — This large East Poudre trail segment, just north of the Fossil Creek Reservoir Natural Area, is completed out to the Environmental Learning Center.
• 1999 — Edmundson trail completed after several years of negotiations for an easement. The Hall section from 83rd to 95th avenues completed. A parking lot is built at 83rd Avenue.
• 2002 — The Poudre Trail receives the National Recreation Trail designation.
• 2004 — A big year for the Larimer County side, as Fort Collins completes construction on a portion that expands the trail west all the way from Taft Avenue to Lions Park Open Space into LaPorte. Around the same time, the county also builds a section that brings the trail all the way out to Watson Lake in Bellevue, where the trail starts (or ends) today.
• 2005 — Ribbon-cuttings for the River East and Raindance sections in Windsor and the Duran/Sheepdraw sections from 59th to 71st avenues.
• 2006 — Trailheads completed at the Poudre Learning Center off 83rd Avenue and the so-called Red Barn section off 71st Avenue. The trail grows to 19.3 miles.
• 2024 — Fort Collins completes a section from the Arapaho Bend Natural Area to the new I-25 underpass, which the Colorado Department of Transportation agreed to build as a part of work done in that area. Fort Collins also finishes its final section within its city limits running west of Arapaho Bend to the Environmental Learning Center, creating a continuous trail from Bellevue to Tinmath.
This article was first published by BizWest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement. © 2026 BizWest Media LLC.
The Poudre River Trail sign is pictured in Greeley on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)Hence then, the article about the poudre river trail s final mile was published today ( ) and is available on GreeleyTribune ( Saudi Arabia ) 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 ( The Poudre River Trail’s final mile )
Also on site :