Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative · Article 18 of 24
One outcome of the management focus group was not on the original grant scope. Land managers in that group reached consensus that a single-entity approach, aimed at the deeper-dive recreation shed, was worth a harder look. Follow-up meetings, one-on-one and collective, examined pros, cons, and benefits. PPORA and Catchafire produced a four-page internal brief. Design was volunteered. The evaluation pointed to Colorado Parks and Wildlife as the agency that could carry enforcement and recreation management across jurisdictions without taking ownership of the land.
The criteria they wrote down
The brief’s major criteria include recreation and natural-resource expertise, the ability to fund and manage new facilities, outdoor ethics and Leave No Trace and Stay the Trail messaging, cross-jurisdictional work, legal authority to enforce across jurisdictions, a sustainable user-fee program, trust with user and conservation groups, equitable access, staff capacity, and tools for landscape conservation. Specific needs from the OPPI process included one management voice where possible, aligned policies, a single public message, cohesive ranger and sign education, wildlife corridors, protection of high conservation values, strategic trail connections, more camping, completion of Ring the Peak, a trail-use classification system, and a new funding approach.
Why CPW, and what is already in motion
The brief’s benefits list is practical. CPW already has wildlife jurisdiction across most of these landscapes. Ownership would not change hands. Other managers could spend more time on the non-recreation parts of their missions. Compliance would sit with one set of rules. The Keep Colorado Wild Pass, $29 a year on vehicle registrations, is named as a funding mechanism. Arkansas Headwaters and South Dakota’s George S. Mickelson Trail are the precedents. The brief also says CPW management of Ring the Peak would remove key barriers to finishing it.
In December 2024, the Bureau of Land Management, the City of Manitou Springs, Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services, Pikes Peak — America’s Mountain, Colorado Springs Utilities, El Paso County, Teller County, and the U.S. Forest Service submitted a letter of intent to explore a long-term agreement with Colorado Parks and Wildlife for sustainable recreation management along the Ring the Peak corridor. Governor Polis highlighted the model in the January 2025 State of the State and at a February 10, 2025 press conference with regional leaders. The plan lists benefits — balance, a unified user experience, better enforcement, dispersed use — and the worries that have to be answered: fees, traffic, and public perception. June 2024 comments had already split between wanting a unified entity and wanting current management left in place. The project list marks the regional recreation management model as exploratory, not done.
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. Exploration of Single Entity Management, pages 88–89; Early Outcomes, page 105; project list, page 474.
