The Bear Creek Watershed lies just west of the City of Colorado Springs along the eastern flank of the Pikes Peak Massif. Encompassing both National Forest lands and private lands owned by Colorado Springs Utilities. The watershed is extremely important for its recreational opportunities, its value as a water resource, and as vital habitat for the threatened Colorado greenback cutthroat trout.

Running 2009-2010, the Bear Creek Habitat Improvement Project focused on protecting greenback cutthroat habitat within the Bear Creek drainage by reducing sedimentation and erosion impacts from 3.9 miles of the Pike National Forest system trail #667 which runs adjacent to upper Bear Creek.  The project worked to eliminate sediment influx from erosion off the trail into Bear Creek through the use of erosion control structures, retaining walls, the reconstruction of eroded banks, construction of bridges, rerouting portions of the trail and restoring closed sections, and applying revegetation techniques to eroded banks and slopes. 

This project focused on implementing targeted, short-term solutions to begin addressing these issues, but did not address the overall condition of the trail. Given the high-erodibility of the soil in the area and the popularity of the trail by multiple users groups (OHV, mountain bikes, and hikers), a long-term solution is needed to fully address the issue of sedimentation into Bear Creek.