Manitou Incline reopens after flood repairs
A popular and brutally steep hiking trail near Manitou Springs is back open after a three-month project to repair flood damage.
The Manitou Incline, which rises 2,000 vertical feet up an old rail corridor over roughly a mile, was shut down and cordoned off Aug. 18 as part of a $1.5 million overhaul. It reopened Friday morning and the first hiker reached the top in about 24 minutes.
A crowd of several hundred people attended Friday’s reopening ceremony. After several speeches, hikers began ascending the Incline at 11.
The weather was perfect, with clear skies and warm temperatures.
Hikers said a noticeable change is to an area that is now smoother, but much steeper.
Nicholas Lee attested to that. He said it created a bottleneck that slowed advancement on the trail.
“To be honest, I wasn’t ready for that new part,” he said, while catching his breath after a hike. “The steps are nice, clean and perfect. It’s just a lot more steep, and it gets you.”
Lee and other hikers said they like the improvements.
“It’s a lot more of a calf workout, but it’s so much safer now,” he said. “I came down and I felt a lot more safe. It’s awesome to see what they did.”
Sarah Bryarly, the project manager, said the repair work focused on the areas most damaged by flooding, time and use.
She said the Incline still needs another $2 million worth of repairs that organizers are trying to raise funds for.
The Colorado Springs Gazette reports the trail was supposed to open at the beginning of the month, but crews decided to build three more retaining walls.
The formerly off-limits trail became legal in 2013 and has skyrocketed into one of the state’s more popular hikes, drawing upward of 2,400 visitors on weekend days in the summer.
