MOUNT EVANS — The T-shirts and hoodies are stacked deep on the tables of the 95-year-old restaurant. Bill Carle estimates he’s spent about $300,000 on the Mount Evans souvenirs for the Echo Lake Lodge his family has operated for 57 years. He spent that before Denver officials told Carle the city would not be renewing […]
Garden of the Gods
Posted inColoradans, Culture, Environment, News, Outdoors
Pikes Peak “bolt war” pits veteran climbers against each other on America’s Mountain
Rock climbing’s “bolt wars” of the late 1980s and early 1990s are long gone. But two Colorado Springs climbers are trying to reignite the decades-old debate over bolts. Bosier Parsons and Brad Saren last year warned Phil Wortmann they would take drastic action if the veteran climber published a guidebook detailing the granite routes around […]
Posted inColoradans, Culture, Environment, Growth
Whenever crews move dirt in the Garden of the Gods, an archaeologist helps link the present to the past
COLORADO SPRINGS — On a windy morning in Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs City Archaeologist Anna Cordova jumps a fence into the construction site with a practiced ease. A backhoe rests on the tracked up ground, and stakes with orange tape marking the perimeter of a new bathroom facility have already been placed. Cordova […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors
As climbing skyrockets, so has its environmental impact. “We really have to step up.”
COLORADO SPRINGS — On a cold Saturday morning in Garden of the Gods, a bit too early for tourists, Bosier Parsons passes out homemade breakfast burritos to a group of volunteers. The founder and president of the Pikes Peak Climbers Alliance, Parsons organized a group of 10 people to repair the eroded trail to Rainbow […]
Posted inColoradans, Culture, News
“This just does not happen”: A Garden of the Gods garbage heap is revealing big clues about the founder of Colorado Springs
COLORADO SPRINGS — Trash in this city’s iconic Garden of the Gods Park is usually nothing to get excited about. It’s a regular blemish on a revered place. But along the park’s northern edge, a heap of buried refuse — discovered during work to build a retention pond to control runoff after a wildfire swept […]