OUT THERE: A decade later, Ring the Peak trail remains an imperfect circle

“Ring the Peak” — the first time a hiker sees that sign, perhaps along some well-traveled foothills path like the Section 16 Trail, it whispers of possibility. What is ahead? Where does it go?

“They see these signs for Ring the Peak and it encourages them to walk a little farther,” said Mary Burger, director of projects for the nonprofit Friends of the Peak. “It makes them feel like things are a little less hazardous, a little more organized.”

Ten years ago, Burger’s group set out to build a network of trails, a 70-mile route encircling Pikes Peak below treeline, great for a series of day hikes or a multi-day backpack or bike ride.

But it remains a ring in name only. While Friends of the Peak built 4 miles of trails between 2000 and 2006 and put signs along the rest of the established route, huge gaps remain, and after recent decisions by local and federal land managers to protect a herd of bighorn sheep by prohibiting trail construction, a big question remains:

Will the circle ever be unbroken?

Breaking trail

When Ring the Peak was conceived in the late 1990s, it was seen as a way to take some of the load off Barr Trail, the main hiking route up Pikes Peak.

Most of the work had already been done, thanks to the complex trail networks already in place.

“We knew immediately we were, like, 85 percent on existing trails. We just had these few little holes,” said Burger.

Group members drew lines on maps to connect existing trails, and, with U.S. Forest Service approval, began building. They built a trail near the North Slope watershed on Pikes Peak, one from Raspberry Mountain to the Crags area and, on the west side of the peak, connected Putney Gulch with Horsethief Park. Around 2007, they turned their eyes to the south side of the peak, where a huge gap existed.

They haven’t built any trails since.

Watching sheep

Bighorn sheep are rugged, shy animals, symbolic of the Rockies, yet declining due to disease and habitat loss. To see one on a hike is a treat.

A large herd, once thought to number 375 animals, moves between Pikes Peak and the Dome Rock State Wildlife Area south of Divide. From the early planning of Ring the Peak, the U.S. Forest Service has been concerned about how a trail would affect the herd.

Recent research has shown that the herd may be as small as 106 sheep, according to a December study by the Forest Service. The study also determined that close contact with humans could lead to an increase in predator attacks, stress and disease.

After receiving the study, Brent Botts, Pikes Peak district ranger for Pike National Forest, told Burger the agency would not conduct an environmental assessment on extending the trail from where it currently dead ends near Pancake Rocks.

“I said, ‘Mary, based on everything that biologists have said, the science is just so sound on that there would be a detrimental impact on the habitat and sheep,’” Botts said.

Asked why the agency can’t institute a seasonal closure, as the Colorado Division of Wildlife does at Dome Rock, so humans don’t interrupt lambing season, Botts said there would be only a three-month window, June through August, when the trail could be open, and it would be difficult to keep people out the rest of the year.

Utilities decision

Botts’ decision was the second in a double whammy blow to hopes for a trail encircling the peak.

Colorado Springs Utilities in January released its long-awaited proposal for recreation in the South Slope watershed of Pikes Peak. The Ring the Peak Trail currently ends at Forest Service Road 376, near where a locked gate keeps the public out of the South Slope. People on the trail who want to keep going west must then slog for many miles on Gold Camp Road, and then Colorado Highway 67, until they reach Horsethief Park.

Friends of the Peak had long hoped that when Utilities opened the area to the public it would include a trail across the area, to the western edge, connecting segments of the Ring the Peak Trail. But the plan released in January called for just two trails, a loop on the west side of Mason Reservoir and the Lake Moraine Trail that would connect with an existing trail that runs to the Cog Railway. The two would not connect, and no trail would run to the west side to accommodate Ring the Peak.

“The original alignment they wanted to see through South Slope just isn’t possible, based on the research, the biology, the restrictions with that proposed area,” said Utilities spokeswoman Patrice Quintero. She said Utilities consulted the Forest Service on the decision.

Something positive

Still, there was good news out of the Utilities access plan for Burger. The city-owned utility agreed to allow a trail through its land along U.S. Highway 24 at Ute Pass, which will connect the Ute Indian Trail with Ring the Peak in Cascade, long considered a crucial gap where hikers on the ring to and from Manitou Springs must walk along the highway for a mile.

But huge gaps remain on the west and south sides, and Burger doesn’t know how to bridge them.

“We have to go back to the drawing board and look for another alignment that doesn’t go so high,” she said.

One possibility is getting approval to build a trail downhill from Pancake Rocks, and finding private landowners who will agree to let the trail pass through. But such an endeavor could take years.

For now, the only people making a ring around the peak may be the handful of bicyclists who have ridden the trails and used roads to shoot around, a bypass few backpackers would attempt.

“Will we ever be able to move off Gold Camp Road and make it a nonmotorized ring?” asked Burger.

“I think it’s always going to be an imperfect circle.”