Two popular trails reopen at Garden of the Gods following improvements
UPDATE: Two popular trails in Garden of the Gods Park are now improved and ready for users.
You may recall, work on the Foothills and Gateway Trails trails started back in September of 2018. That’s when crews starting realigning part of the Gateway Trail from 30th Street into the park and providing a more accessible pathway.
A new pedestrian bridge was also constructed over Camp Creek. The Foothills Trails, which runs parallel to 30th Street near Rock Ledge Ranch, has been moved and improved to try and stop conflict with the overflow parking lot.
Lastly, damaged concrete was also replaced along both trails and drainage improvements have been made.
A ribbon cutting for the reopening will be held Monday, Jan. 28, 2019, at the Garden of the Gods Park. The public is welcome to attend.
Previous Story (Sep 17, 2018):
A few weeks ago, Garden of the Gods had gates installed at a lot of the park’s entrances. As of now, the gate on Ridge Road is the only one that closes at night.
“People I’ve talked to that live in the neighborhood are happy that they’re doing that,” said one Colorado Springs resident.
“It’s an unfortunate sign of our times that this park that’s been free since its inception, a model for many parks, is now closed at night because of incidents of vandalism and destruction,” said Kevin Wilkins, visiting from Alamosa.
At 10 o’clock at night, the Ridge Road Gate is closed and no visitors are allowed in.
“About a week and a half and we began to close our Ridge Road entrance. We had both of those gates necessary to do that in place so we began that precooks already and so far it’s been really successful,” said Kurt Schroeder, park maintenance and operations manager for the park.
He also adds the parking lot behind this gate used to take about an hour and a half to clean up.
The city also has a plan to ensure people who are vandalizing this park won’t do the same to others.
Schroeder told us, “We’re taking the positive steps to protect Garden of the Gods and we will be looking at the other locations coming up and probably doing more of the same in some of our larger parks.”
