Out There

Volunteers needed to tend trails, campsites

Budget cuts underscore need for public's help

ANDREW WINEKE

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Still need to make a New Year’s resolution? Or need a replacement for one that didn’t last two weeks? Consider giving something back to the great outdoors that gives so much to you. Cash-strapped cities and parks are leaning more... Full story

Indoor climbing gym opens downtown

Routes will challenge all skills levels

R. SCOTT RAPPOLD

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Being suspended by rope 43 feet in the air will test your faith in knots. For this reporter, whose knowledge of technical climbing stemmed mainly from the Sylvester Stallone flick “Cliffhanger,” the wall seemed much higher on a recent... Full story

Snow to herald new year; conditions deteriorating in mountains

Treacherous driving expected for mountains

TOM ROEDER

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Colorado Springs will likely say farewell to 2009 with a final shot of snow that could leave an inch on roads and lawns by Thursday morning, the National Weather Service predicts. And the New Year will be a happy one for skiers, with nearly a... Full story

OUT THERE: Who says Colorado camping is just for summer?

R. SCOTT RAPPOLD

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There are days in Eric Hunter’s camping season when the wind chill hits minus 40 degrees and sideways snow reduces visibility to zero. Outside the cocoon of warmth of his mountaineering tent, hypothermia can strike in minutes.... Full story

Beetles that battle tamarisk may be victims themselves

R. SCOTT RAPPOLD

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The Colorado Department of Agriculture this summer released 320,000 Chinese beetles into the Arkansas River Basin, an effort to control the invasive, water-guzzling tree tamarisk. On the Western Slope, the beetles, which come from the same central... Full story

Colorado skier, 96, still hitting the slopes

DAVE PHILIPPS

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Wolf Creek Pass • Charles Elliott’s doctor never called back to give him permission, but with a forecast of sunny skies and 5 feet of fresh snow, the 96-year-old went skiing anyway last week — on his new hip joint. Elliott, a... Full story

Stimulus plan, circa 1930s: the Colorado ski industry

DAVE PHILIPPS

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Monarch, Winter Park and Wolf Creek ski areas all celebrate 70 years of skiing this winter and they all owe their start, in part, to an unexpected benefactor: government stimulus. It came in the form of the New Deal. In 1939 — the year all... Full story

Local knowledge: Coping with the holiday ski crush

DAVE PHILIPPS

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Christmas is a time for giving. At Colorado ski resorts, it is a time when locals typically give the slopes to thousands and thousands of out-of-state revelers who take over for about two weeks before disappearing again until Spring Break. For... Full story

Cheyenne Mountain State Park: undiscovered no more

DAVE PHILIPPS

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Twice as many visitors, compared to last year. That is the sign that Cheyenne Mountain State Park is at long last a success, said Dean Winstanley, director of Colorado State Parks. The number of people visiting the park jumped from 66,700 in 2008... Full story

Opening the Manitou Incline takes a $95,500 step forward

Grant and donation will fund planning for the popular but illicit trail

R. SCOTT RAPPOLD

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Hiking the Manitou Incline, an old railroad line that rises 2,000 feet up a steep hillside above Manitou Springs, can be a lumbering slog that tests one’s endurance. So is the effort to get it officially opened to the public. But there was... Full story

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