Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative · Article 1 of 24
The Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative Vision Plan is the region’s attempt to stop treating recreation and conservation as separate arguments. It covers El Paso, Fremont, and Teller counties. It was led by the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance, the local Colorado Outdoor Regional Partnership, with grant support from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Great Outdoors Colorado. The work ran nearly four years and was released in 2025.
The plan’s own mission is to “collaboratively identify and advance priorities and innovative strategies to ensure the resiliency and improvement of our natural and recreational values for the Pikes Peak region’s future.” That mission, the document says, is accomplished “through the convening, collaboration, and empowerment of outdoor interests across sectors.”
The vision in one sentence
The vision statement is broader than trails: “The Pikes Peak region’s people and economy thrive through our united efforts to ensure the resiliency of the region’s public lands, water, wildlife, working farms and ranches, as well as sustainable world class outdoor recreation opportunities for all.”
What the four years produced
The executive summary is blunt about the scale of the listening. Over the course of the process, OPPI collaborated with more than 400 attendees at 15 community listening sessions and gathered feedback from nearly 1,000 survey respondents, resulting in nearly 3,000 individual comments. Thousands more were reached through in-person and digital outreach. Nearly 100 planning documents were reviewed. Data from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the U.S. Forest Service, and local municipalities were analyzed.
The result is a plan built on seven values: Partnership, Communication, Connectivity, Natural Resource Conservation, Recreation, Management, and Funding. It also produced tools — a data hub, an Areas of Opportunity map, a conservation summary, and a project-criteria checklist — and a prioritized list of regional projects, from completing the non-motorized Ring the Peak Trail to a regional trail master plan and forest health work.
How the plan asks to be used
The “How to Use This Plan” chapter is written for land managers, grant writers, and residents, not just for a shelf. It asks readers to learn the seven values, use the data hub and Areas of Opportunity map to understand ownership and environmental context, and run new proposals through a self-scoring checklist. It is explicit that the tools “should be used together and are not intended to be a ‘Yes/No’ decision-making tool but rather to provide useful information to help make better projects.”
Looking ahead, the plan proposes an Implementation Task Force to carry action items, track progress, and pursue sustainable funding. The closing line of the executive summary is the point of the series that follows: the Vision Plan is a roadmap for preserving the region’s natural heritage while enhancing access, “ensuring that future generations can enjoy and steward these cherished landscapes.”
Source: Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative Vision Plan 2025, prepared through the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance as the local Colorado Outdoor Regional Partnership, with support from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Great Outdoors Colorado. Project team: PPORA, Trails and Open Space Coalition, N.E.S. Inc., Bachman PR, and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Geography Department. The plan was written across a four-year process and released in 2025; some statistics reflect a point in time before publication. Executive Summary, pages 15–17; Initiative Structure, page 35.
