Notes from the Field

The Leave No Trace (LNT) Center for Outdoor Ethics focuses on educating people - our most valuable resources for initiating change - to protect the outdoors by providing them with invaluable skills, knowledge, and resources.

343-acre open space acquisition in city’s southwest foothills receives unanimous recommendation from Parks, Recreation & Cultural Services Advisory Board

NEWS RELEASE

Sept. 30, 2021

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Vanessa Zink
Lead Communications Specialist (719) 491-0363

 

Improvements will increase safety along route and at the Garden of the Gods Park entrance

Written by 2021 RMFI Intern, Riley Jones

Between 2015 and 2020, seven people died attempting to ascend peaks in the Crestone Group, a dramatic and notorious cluster of five 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo mountains.

On average one hiker dies every year trying to bag peaks in this granite cathedral.

NEWS RELEASE

Sept. 20, 2021

No matter our differences in backgrounds or how we choose to enjoy the great outdoors, trails create common ground that connects us. Access to trails is a privilege we acknowledge and can only safeguard through our actions toward one another.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Colorado Springs has been chosen as a Hot Spot by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics. The city is one of ten Hot Spots selected nationwide to participate in this year’s education program. From Oct.

Road closed from main entrance of North Cheyenne Cañon Park to Helen Hunt Falls to all users for project duration; park trails remain open

NEWS RELEASE

Sept. 8, 2021

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Vanessa Zink

Senior Communications Specialist

719-491-0363

NEWS RELEASE

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The Colorado Springs City Council today unanimously approved on a 9-0 vote a question for the November ballot seeking approval from Colorado Springs voters on a 20-year extension of the Trails, Open Space and Parks (TOPS) sales and use tax through 2041 and increasing the current 0.1 percent rate to 0.2 percent or 2 pennies on a $10 purchase. TOPS is a dedicated sales and use tax for acquiring, developing and maintaining trails, open spaces and parks that is currently set to expire in 2025 as approved by voters in 2003.

Written by RMFI Program Manager, Lindsay Williams

Know before you go, plan ahead, be courteous on area trails and help protect sensitive natural areas 

APRIL 20, 2021: 

APRIL 20, 2021:

CAÑON CITY, Colo. – The Bureau of Land Management Royal Gorge Field Office is looking to hear from the public before undertaking a planning effort to improve travel and camping on BLM-managed lands in Chaffee County. A public input period begins today and will continue through May 20. 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A portion of Gold Camp Road is now closed to vehicles until further notice due to a large boulder blocking the roadway. The closure is from the northern boundary of North Cheyenne Cañon Park, north of the Chutes and Ladders trailhead, to the gravel parking lot uphill from Helen Hunt Falls. The boulder fell into the road Sunday, April 25.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.

In May 2020, Colorado Parks and Wildlife began an effort to overhaul a 1998 document titled, "Planning Trails with Wildlife in Mind." This document was created to support land managers in planning for trails while incorporating strategies to address wildlife impacts. While it has served as an excellent tool for trail planners throughout the state, it had not been updated in 20 years.

DENVER - Colorado Parks and Wildlife researchers have set out to evaluate how human recreation may be influencing our elk populations and created a film titled ‘Emblems of the West’ to help tell that story. 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Electric bike (e-bike) access on City trails will be expanded during a year-long pilot program starting May 31. The program will allow Class 1 e-bikes, pedal-assist bicycles that can only be activated through a pedaling action, on all City trails that currently allow bicycles, rather than just urban trails. The pilot program will also allow, for the first time, Class 2 e-bikes on urban trails only. Class 2 e-bikes can be activated by pedaling or through a throttle element limited to low speeds.

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance and procedures for RMFI Field Crews while working with volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This document was most recently updated on March 11, 2021.

RMFI is authorized to complete trail and restoration work by the following public land management agencies in 2020: Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services; Bureau of Land Management Royal Gorge Field Office; El Paso County Parks; U.S. Forest Service Pikes Peak Ranger District and Saguache Ranger District. In delivering these essential services, RMFI will keep the health and safety of our employees and community as the first priority. This document was most recently updated on March 11, 2021.

CAÑON CITY, Colo. – The Bureau of Land Management’s Royal Gorge Field Office will begin accepting reservations for the 2021 camping season at The Bank and Sand Gulch campgrounds north of Cañon City to improve campers’ experiences at these sites.

Dec. 22, 2020

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Aquatic biologists and researchers at Colorado Parks and Wildlife have launched an intensive review of data on Bear Creek after a routine survey revealed a troubling decline in greenback cutthroat trout populations.

In 2012, CPW confirmed that tiny Bear Creek, on the city’s southwest edge, was home to wild greenback cutthroat trout, which are the Colorado state fish and are native to the South Platte River in the northeast.

COLORADO SPRINGS —Colorado College’s 11th annual State of the Rockies Project Conservation in the West Poll released today showed a marked increase in levels of support for conservation, with voters in the Mountain West calling for bold action to protect nature as a new administration and Congress consider their public lands agendas.

By Seth Boster: [email protected]

On a sunny, summer day in 2018, Hartley Hesse and her sister, Laurel, hiked high on Cheyenne Mountain to build a bench at a scenic overlook.

It was to commemorate their late father, the man responsible for designing long-anticipated trails around this iconic summit in Colorado Springs — and responsible for the local group leading construction, Rocky Mountain Field Institute.

Mark Hesse, the renowned mountaineer and Springs native, died in 2014 at the age of 63.

PUEBLO, Colo., Feb 5, 2021 – The Pike and San Isabel National Forests Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands and the Broadmoor Hotel completed a land exchange in El Paso and Teller Counties February 5, 2021 under the authorization provided in the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act of 2019 (Section 1001; Public Law 116-9; March 12, 2019).

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The City of Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services department will begin implementing nightly after-hour gate closures in Red Rock Canyon Open Space on Friday, Feb. 5. The gates, located at the park’s main entrance off Highway 24, will restrict access while the park is closed, 9 p.m.-5 a.m. (Nov. 1-April 30) and 10 p.m.-5 a.m. (May 1-Oct. 31).

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A section of North Cheyenne Canyon Road, from the main entrance of North Cheyenne Cañon Park to the parking lot at Helen Hunt Falls, will be closed weekdays (Monday-Friday) beginning Feb. 8 to facilitate the construction of a temporary bypass road ahead of a larger bridge replacement project in the park. North Cheyenne Cañon Park will remain open during the road closure, which is expected to last through the end of March. The road will be fully open on Saturdays and Sundays.

Seth Boster, The Gazette

COLORADO SPRINGS — Scott Fitzwilliams was supposed to be off work. But as supervisor of America’s most trafficked national forest,“ you’re never off work,” he says.

So there he was Fourth of July weekend, supposed to be enjoying the serenity he had always known at a lake within White River National Forest. “Popular,” Fitzwilliams had always known it, “but usually kind of a local place.”

Not in 2020.