One step closer to hiking the Manitou Incline legally

The Manitou Incline is the toughest, most-touted and most-trespassed trail in the region, and now it is officially on its way to becoming legal, too.

Colorado Springs City Councilman Scott Hente went before the Manitou Springs City Council on Tuesday to outline a plan to legitimize the steep jumble of 2,744 old railroad ties that hundreds of hikers trespass on every day.

It was the first time details of Colorado Springs' closed-door deal with the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, which owns part of the Incline, were officially revealed, and it was a pivotal test for the plan.

Hente said if Manitou didn't back opening the Incline, he would abandon his efforts.

After hearing the plan, the four present members of the council backed it unanimously.

The plan has four steps. First Colorado Springs signs a revokable agreement giving the cog use of a small dirt parking lot next to its parking lots in Ruxton Canyon, which could happen in one to two weeks.

In exchange, the cog grants a trail easement on its portion of the Incline, allowing hikers to cross legally. That could happen in one to two months.

Once those steps are finished, proponents of the trail would begin a process to get the trail officially recognized on a portion of Pike National Forest near the top. At the same time, Colorado Springs and Manitou would begin to devise a plan to manage and maintain the trail.

"It's not going to open tomorrow," Hente said. "Even if (cog manager) Spencer (Wren) and I stand up here holding hands and singing Kumbaya and it still wouldn't be legal, but we are on our way."

The Incline was never meant to be a trail. It began, just over a century ago as tracks for a work train used to install a pipeline. Then for decades it acted as a tourist attraction whisking riders 1,900 feet up a steep mountainside.

When the tourist train was scrapped in 1990 the abandoned ties became a cult workout of a few mountain runners. Slowly word spread. Today on a nice summer day it can attract over 1,000 people, making it one of the most popular trails in the region.

It has been written up in the New York Times and Sports Illustrated.

The stairs are a regular regimen for everyone from stay-at-home moms to Olympic athletes to soldiers getting in shape to return to Iraq.

Just before Tuesday's meeting 38 people started up the ties in a 23-minute period - three of them in leprechaun costumes.

But with growing popularity came growing problems. Hikers clogged the already-congested parking spots of upper Ruxton Avenue and the cog has to patrol its parking lots to keep Incline hikers out.

The old railway is also in dire need of maintenance.

Many said legitimizing the Incline would only make both problems worse. But with hordes of people doing it illegally anyway, and a trail is so steep that, even left unvisited, it falls apart, Hente knew he had to find a solution.

He also wanted a solution because for four years he has been a regular illicit Incline user, as have a number of judges, deputy district attorneys, cops and others whose job it is to uphold the law.

"We've struggled with the Incline for years," Manitou mayor Eric Drummond said. "And we've never had any idea how to have a positive impact. If this opens the door, I'm in favor."

Hente said there is a strong desire from locals to donate time and money to fix the Incline. He even said he was contacted by a man who offered over $100,000 for a maintenance fund.

Manitou council member Ed Klingman said other locals had made similar, though more modest, pledges to him.

"I think you'd be surprised how loved the Incline is by a lot of people he said, adding, "I really think by working together we can achieve this."

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