Utilities speeds up South Slope access

After more than a decade of planning and talking, Colorado Springs Utilities will begin building trails this year in the South Slope watershed of Pikes Peak.

Bowing to public pressure, Utilities officials have sped up their time line for opening the long-closed watershed, a remote and scenic area that contains several reservoirs. Original plans, announced in January, called for trail-building in 2011 at the earliest. While a date has not been set, the area could be opened to public recreation this summer.

“It’s not any secret the public has felt like we can move faster on this. Now that we’re at a place where we can move faster, let’s do it,” said Utilities spokeswoman Patrice Quintero Tuesday.

Utilities officials will make a presentation to the city council members, sitting as the Colorado Springs Utilities Board, at a public meeting March 17. A public open house will be held April 27.

Utilities has been studying how to allow public access to the 15,000-acre area for a decade. A 1999 report recommended building four hiking trails, and in 2007 Utilities issued a plan to move forward with the trails. Budget cuts put the implementation on hold, and last year Utilities hired a consultant to study all forms of recreation, at a cost of $262,000.

Since the consultant’s recommendations were released in January, officials received about 200 comments on it. While the final plan, to be unveiled at the April meeting, is still taking shape, Quintero said only small changes are expected from that released in January. A trail along Ute Pass will be extended through Utilities property, an important goal for trail advocates behind the Ring the Peak Trail.

In the South Slope watershed, a 5.6-mile trail along the west side of Mason Reservoir will be opened to bicycle use, instead of just foot and horse traffic. The other proposed trail, the Lake Moraine Trail, would connect with an existing trail that runs to the Cog Railway. Another proposed change would allow limited hunting in the area.

Despite pleas from Ring the Peak advocates and the Trails and Open Space Coalition, Utilities does not plan a route to connect the two new trails, because the terrain is rugged and there is concern about impacts to a bighorn sheep herd in the area. The U.S. Forest Service shares the concern, and has denied a request to build a connecting trail to the west of the watershed because of the sheep.

Quintero said a connector trail, considered vital to complete the Ring the Peak project, could be considered in the future.