Woodland Park's Avenger Open Space will be the largest ever | Lifestyle

Forest Park • For men who hike their favorite trails here in the hills, the view of Pikes Peak is not the prettiest sight, but it is the most restful one. It is a wooden board placed on top of a tall pine tree.

There are no words on the board now. But back in August, hikers found the words “private property.”

They were stunned. “I thought, wait a minute, this is public land, Forest Service land,” Jeff Webb recalled.

Another nearby resident, Jerry Smith, similarly made this scenic trail a part of his daily routine for many years. Seeing his post that summer day, he did a little digging to confirm that it was indeed private land – 120 acres containing a mining claim called Avenger.

“Right after that, I saw it for sale,” Smith said.

Chris Gonzalez, a regular on the same trail and a member of Woodland Park's parks committee, started making calls. “I was like, 'Okay, it's time to go,'” he says.

It's been a “whirlwind” since the August revelations, said Cindy Keating, the city's parks director.

It's all leading up to what she calls a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), an agency that provides lottery revenue to recreation and conservation projects across the state, awarded $523,250 last month to the city to acquire 120 acres of land that will become Avenger Open Space. announced that it would donate.

Once the deal is completed (and officials say a public opening could take place “soon”), Avenger will be the largest land acquisition in the history of the city of Woodland Park. This would nearly double the amount of open space and greenways currently counted by the city.

“It's amazing,” Webb said. “This is our small town heritage.”

Webb, a Woodland Park resident for seven years, serves as chair of the city's Parks Board in Career Planning's Open Space and Trail Systems. In various jobs with the Colorado Springs Parks Department, he formalized the Manitou Incline, and he helped expand the Valley Park and Legacy Loop regional networks. Mr. Webb also helped create the master plan for his Park Highlands in North Cheyenne and Jones in Cannon.

“Honestly, I'd rank this above them all,” Webb says of the Avenger. “I feel like that’s rather important.”

He says it's because it's home and where he naturally introduced his 1-year-old daughter.

That's because Woodland Park's largest open space represents a “new frontier,” he says.

And for a sharp sense of victory.

The acquisition plan received unanimous support from local governments. “But it was still like, 'Oh, our odds are really against us,'” Webb said.

With a willing and patient seller (the developers are a knockout), Gonzalez called GOCO a “linchpin” of the plan he proposed to city leadership. Most of the cost will be covered by the provincial government, with the city contributing $150,000 and contributing an additional $80,000. Private financing is required, and the Palmer Land Conservancy will hold the conservation easement.

“Honestly, I was just amazed at how City ran with the ball,” Gonzalez said.

He is a young father like Webb who has spent the last few years promoting outdoor activities in Woodland Park. He did that through the nonprofit organization he founded, Teller Trail Team.

The nonprofit organization is part of a “task force” mentioned in the Park Service's master plan released last year that would “guide the development of the trail network through advocacy, fundraising, maintenance, and easement acquisition.” Embedded in the task force's vision.

Gonzalez took a closer look at the trails he and other locals frequent and recognized the need. Some ran through private property, including the Horsethief Falls Trail, where “no trespassing” signs were installed in 2021 before a resolution was reached.

That trail, like many locally beloved trails, was primarily walked through the Pike National Forest. Many of them were built by the Forest Service and are not designated.

“The town is surrounded by national forests, so it might seem like there's a lot of forest,” Webb said. “It seems like we have access to everything, but the reality is we don't have access. And we certainly don't have access to legal, sanctioned trails.”

Unauthorized trails that pass through private property are subject to closure if deemed environmentally unsuitable. This is the result Gonzalez recognized. “Most of the things we use in our area could be shut down very quickly.”

The Forest Service is not working on trail expansion projects, local park managers said.

“It’s quite a process to develop a trail system and work with the Forest Service to build an established trail system,” Keating said. “They have to go through the (National Environmental Policy Act) process, which takes time, sometimes years. And their focus right now is fire mitigation. , it is highly appreciated.”

Mr Keating said he felt impressed by last year's master plan study. Of the more than 1,200 respondents, 83 percent said the Park Service's main concern is more open space and trails.

“In the master plan, we identified that this type of thing (like Avenger Open Space) would be great,” Gonzalez said. “And all of a sudden, it fell into our laps.”

It was 120 acres of pine and aspen trees, meadows and grassy hills with views of the vast Pikes Peak massif and the Sawatch and Sangre de Cristo mountains in the distance.

The plaza, a narrow strip of land between national forests, is “complicated and interesting,” Gonzalez said.

The high points, rock gardens, and famous Rainbow Gulch are complicated by access via unauthorized routes that cannot be advertised on city signs. I'm intrigued by all the possibilities between urban land and national forests.

Officials and advocates recognize that collaboration with the Forest Service will be key to achieving the potential outlined in the city's master plan. Mr. Webb found that missing.

“The project that drives it doesn’t exist yet,” he says. “I think this might be it.”

And he thinks it can further the conversations that were had decades ago by Front Range communities to make open space dreams a reality. “That sales tax is necessary,” Webb said.

A portion of the sales tax funds open space programs in Colorado Springs, Douglas, Jefferson, Boulder and Larimer counties. In Woodland Park and Teller County, “I think it's going to be a pretty tough battle,” Gonzalez said. “Whenever we mention any kind of tax in our particular area, we get a lot of backlash.”

The outdoors tends to bridge political gaps, Webb said.

“I think[Avenger]can be a little bit of a catalyst,” he says. “I think people are really starting to realize that the reason we live here is to be surrounded by nature.”

Around open spaces, “you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere,” Gonzalez says. But home is never far away, he points out, and it's easy to imagine them marching away.

Webb is also glad they don't. He is now hiking here with his little girl.

“It will protect her as well,” he says. “I'm excited for her too.”