As the number of visitors to the Pikes Peak region continues to climb, land managers released a sweeping plan this week that maps out ways to manage the future growth of recreation access on public lands around America’s Mountain.
It’s a plan four years in the making that involved nearly 20 listening sessions with the community, public surveys and conversations with city, state and federal stakeholders to figure out the next steps in managing recreation in a region that draws 24 million visitors a year, while also trying to conserve its natural beauty.
“With all of these strategies, with all of these projects, with all the things that we’re trying to move forward in our Pikes Peak region, one organization cannot do it alone. We all have to lean in and work together,” Becky Leinweber, executive director of the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance said Tuesday while unveiling the plan at the State of the Outdoors event in downtown Colorado Springs.
The widespread collaborative effort to get ahead of the region’s surge in visitors comes after research found overwhelmed and under-resourced communities and land managers were struggling to protect resources and wildlife in the area that is managed by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the city of Colorado Springs and its utilities department.
Not everyone’s vision for the outdoors is the same, especially for a recreation area that spans three counties. Writing the final plan involved a lot of listening via surveys from residents living on Colorado Springs’ five military installations, a Spanish translator, and conversations with tribal representatives and kids.
Top priorities in the 493-page sweeping plan include trail development, expanding camping access and implementing a ranger program that would bring more “boots on the ground” to help manage recreation spots across El Paso, Teller and Fremont counties that see the highest visitor traffic.
“One of the things that we heard across the community is: We love thinking about the future. We want to plan for the future. But we have things that need help today. We have resources that need help. We have recreational experiences that are not what they could be,” Leinweber said.
“Education around stewardship, putting out a band of campfires, helping with some of the on-the-ground needs is going to be very important,” she said.
Balancing development and sustainability was also a top concern, Leinweber said, to address the rapid population growth along the Front Range.
El Paso County’s population is expected to surpass 1 million by 2049, according to the state’s demography office. The county’s population grew by 41% between 2000 and 2020, the office said. Fremont and Teller counties saw population growth, too.
Earlier this year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife was tapped to take on a larger role in balancing recreation needs with conservation needs in the Pikes Peak area, starting with the Ring the Peak trail.
The plan also includes strategies to protect forest and watershed health, using maps that identify biodiversity hotspots in the region and areas where land managers can “double down on conservation,” Leinweber said.
For some, expanding recreation feels at odds with the quiet they venture out to find in the wilderness.
“I think some outdoor enthusiasts are a little nervous when we hear we need to develop these places. To me, those places are gems, keep them as they are,” a Doherty High School teacher who guides kids on backcountry trips said during the event.
“One of the things we preach to students is that the beauty of some of these outdoor places is that they’re undeveloped. You spoke about the Pikes Peak massif — that’s an area I spend a lot of my time and one of the things I like about it is that there’s no trails and that I can go up there and lose myself completely,” he said.
Colorado Springs City Councilmember David Leinweber, who sat on a panel of outdoor experts, called the development vital for preserving the area for future generations.
“We have to find ways to develop this,” said Leinweber, who is also a cofounder of the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance and owner of Angler’s Covey. “Now, I love wilderness, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not going to be a reality because if we don’t manage this, people will find their own ways. They’re going to make their own paths.”
“If you don’t manage it properly, with a million people at its doorstep, we’re not going to be able to repair the damage.”
The Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance is hoping to receive a $2.5 million grant from Great Outdoors Colorado, which would help the consortium of land managers implement first steps of the strategy as early as next spring.
“The power of the outdoors”
“Super users” is how Jim Petterson, Colorado and Southwest region director of Trust for Public Land, would describe Colorado Springs residents.
In a 2025 report, Colorado Springs residents visited parks, trails and recreational facilities 22.5 million times last year. Data showed that 90% of kids and 87% of adults used the city parks, open space and trails in the last year.
“Our team had never seen a higher usage of the outdoors of any community that we surveyed, but for Colorado Springs,” said Petterson, who also sat on the panel of recreation experts.
Two world-famous spots in Colorado Springs — Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods — bring millions of visitors each year. The report found that in 2023, an estimated $192.9 million in direct travel spending and $17.3 million in local and state tax receipts could be attributed to the parks, trails and recreational facilities in the Colorado Springs region.
“There’s no question at all in the data or the analysis or the polling to say that there’s any reason why you should not be investing more in your park system,” Petterson said. “It delivers for businesses that want to attract and retain talent, for the chamber of commerce that wants to attract businesses. This is about our quality of life and the data shows that.”
Outdoor recreation contributes to more than $500 million to the city’s economy each year, Mayor Yemi Moboloade said at the event.
“You see visitors who hike the Incline or bike our trails, they don’t just enjoy the view. They stay in our hotels, they eat in our restaurants, they shop in our stores, and they fall in love enough to make this place home, and sometimes some of them actually move back to start businesses,” Mobolade said.
“And that is the power of the outdoors.”