Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative · Article 20 of 24
The plan’s most useful chapter for a trail proposal or a grant application is the tools chapter. Three instruments came out of the values work: a project-criteria checklist, an Areas of Opportunity map, and a conservation summary, with a story map as the public front door. The instruction, repeated from the executive summary, is that they are not a yes-or-no machine.
The data hub
The hub is hosted with UCCS and funded through the Outdoor Recreation Industry Fund at the university. Geography and Environmental Studies faculty and students built it under instructor Matthew Gottfried. It covers El Paso, Teller, and Fremont counties in three drawers: natural environment, including wildlife and habitat; recreation and tourism; and socio-economic factors. Sources include CPW, the Forest Service, BLM, the Colorado Natural Heritage Program, Palmer Land Conservancy, Trust for Public Land, Longwoods, Recreation.gov, Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates, COTREX, LandFire, and OnX, among others. The interactive map lets a user look at biodiversity, ownership, easements, access, existing recreation, and wildfire risk. Static maps in the plan are a moment in time; the online layers are meant to stay live. The address in the plan is www.oppi-ges-gislab.hub.arcgis.com.
Areas of Opportunity and the conservation summary
UCCS and Trails and Open Space Coalition built the Areas of Opportunity map from federal, state, and local data, informed by the conservation summary. It is an initial filter for suitability, to be used with trails, easements, and ownership layers. A project in a high-conservation area is flagged for more study, not rejected. The Colorado Natural Heritage Program summary compresses biodiversity values into one regional layer. The story map, built with Trails and Open Space Coalition, is the narrative version: https://arcg.is/W58LD0. All three are labeled exploratory, not regulatory, and they do not replace a permitting process.
The checklist
The Project Framework Criteria lets a proponent self-score a project against the seven themes. The point is to surface weaknesses and point to resources before a funder does. It is for new projects that are not already on the OPPI list. A management example in the chapter asks whether the project fits existing legal mandates, whether it addresses growth or spreads use, which existing plan it aligns with, and who will maintain it. Land managers can attach the same worksheet to a state grant. Better projects, not automatic approvals, are the stated outcome.
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. How to Use This Plan, page 17; Data Hub, pages 52–53; tools chapter, pages 98–100.
