Avenger Open Space represents 'new frontier' in Woodland Park

WOODLAND PARK • For the men hiking their favorite path here in the hills, it is not the greatest sight — that would be the Pikes Peak view — but it is the most relieving: a wooden plank posted on a tall pine.

The plank now bears no words. But back in August, the hikers found these words: “PRIVATE PROPERTY.”

They were dumbfounded. “I was like, Wait a minute, I thought this was public land, Forest Service land,” Jeff Webb recalls.

As did another living nearby, Jerry Smith, who similarly made this scenic path a routine over the years. Upon seeing the post that summer day, he did some digging to find this was indeed private property — 120 acres including mining claims called Avenger.

“Shortly after that is when we saw it go up for sale,” Smith says.

A fellow trail regular and well-connected member of Woodland Park’s parks board, Chris Gonzales, started making calls. “It was like, OK, it’s go time,” he says.

It’s been “a whirlwind” since that August revelation, says the city’s parks director, Cindy Keating.

It’s all led to what she calls “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), the agency granting lottery revenues to recreation and conservation projects statewide, last month announced $523,250 toward the city acquiring the 120 acres to be Avenger Open Space.

Upon closing on the deal — a public opening could come “soon,” officials say — Avenger will mark the city of Woodland Park’s largest ever land acquisition. It will nearly double the acreage of open space and greenway the city currently counts.

“It’s amazing,” Webb says. “It’s a legacy for our little town.”

A Woodland Park resident of seven years, Webb chairs the city’s parks board amid a career planning open spaces and trail systems. For Colorado Springs’ parks department, various jobs saw him help formalize the Manitou Incline and expand Ute Valley Park and the Legacy Loop regional network. Webb also helped craft a master plan for Jones Park high in North Cheyenne Cañon.

“Honestly I’d rank this one above them all,” Webb says of Avenger. “It sort of matters more, I feel.”

Because this is home, he says — the place where he has introduced his 1-year-old daughter to nature.

Because of what Woodland Park’s biggest open space can represent: “a new frontier,” he says.

And because of an acute sense of victory.

The acquisition plan garnered unanimous support from local government. “But it was still like,’ Oh man, our odds are really against us,’” Webb says.

Along with the willing and patient seller — developers knocked — Gonzales called GOCO “the lynchpin” to the plan he pitched to city leadership: The state agency would provide the bulk of the cost, the city would put up $150,000 to go with another $80,000 in private fundraising, and Palmer Land Conservancy would carry the conservation easement.

“Honestly, I was just blown away by the city taking the ball and running with it,” Gonzales says.

He’s a young father like Webb who has spent the past couple of years growing Woodland Park’s outdoor advocacy. He’s done that through the nonprofit he founded, Teller Trail Team.

The nonprofit is in the vision of a “task force” referenced in a parks department master plan published last year — a task force to “guide trail network development through advocacy, fundraising, maintenance and easement acquisition.”

Gonzales recognized the need as he took a hard look at the trails he and other locals popularly frequented. Several ran through private property, including Horsethief Falls Trail, which saw a “NO TRESPASSING” sign posted in 2021 before a resolution was reached.

That trail mostly traveled Pike National Forest, like so many locally beloved trails. Many of them were not built and designated by the Forest Service.

“The town is surrounded by national forest, and it can seem like we have an abundance,” Webb says. “It appears we have access to everything, but the reality is we don’t, certainly not to legal, sanctioned trails.”

Unsanctioned trails, like those through private property, were subject to closure if deemed unfit for the environment. This was the upshot Gonzales realized: “There’s a chance most of what we use in our area could get shut down in a moment’s notice.”

The Forest Service has not been in the business of trail expansion, the local parks director observed.

“It’s quite a process to have a trail system and create an established trail system with the Forest Service,” Keating says. “You gotta go through the (National Environmental Policy Act) process, which can take some time, years even. And their focus now is fire mitigation, which is appreciated.”

Keating felt moved by surveying from last year’s master plan: Of more than 1,200 respondents, 83% said their primary interest from the parks department were more open spaces and trails.

“The master plan identified this sort of thing (like Avenger Open Space) would be great,” Gonzales says. “And then all of a sudden it landed in our lap.”

It was 120 acres of pine and aspen, of meadows and grassy knolls looking out to Pikes Peak’s broad massif and the Sawatch and Sangre de Cristo ranges in the distance.

The open space is a narrow strip between national forest — “a complicated thing and intriguing thing,” Gonzales says.

Complicated, for high points and rock gardens and the well-known Rainbow Gulch reached via unsanctioned routes that city signage cannot promote. Intriguing for all those possibilities between city land and national forest.

To achieve the possibilities laid out by the city’s master plan, officials and advocates know coordination with the Forest Service will be key. Webb has seen that lacking.

“There just hasn’t been a project to drive that,” he says. “I think this could be it.”

And he thinks it could drive a conversation had decades ago by Front Range communities to achieve open space dreams. “You gotta have that sales tax,” Webb says.

Portions of sales tax have funded open space programs in Colorado Springs and Douglas, Jefferson, Boulder and Larimer counties. In Woodland Park and Teller County, “I think that would be quite an uphill battle,” Gonzales says. “Any time you mention any sort of tax in our particular area, it always gets a lot of pushback.”

The outdoors have a tendency to bridge political divides, Webb says.

“I kind of wonder if (Avenger) could be a little bit of a catalyst,” he says. “I think people are starting to really recognize why we live up here, and that’s to be surrounded by nature.”

Around the open space, “it feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere,” Gonzales says. But homes are never far, he points out, and it’s easy to imagine them marching on.

Webb, for one, is glad they won’t. He’s hiking here now with his little girl.

“It’s gonna be protected for her, too,” he says. “I’m excited for her, too.”