MANITOU SPRINGS, COLO. -- It's an outdoor adventure in southern Colorado that attracts nearly 500,000 people every year despite the fact that it is illegal.
But that may soon change for the Manitou Springs Incline.
The cities of Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs have been trying to legalize the popular hike for several years.
"Our community has said hundreds of thousands of times a year that we want to use this facility," Colorado Springs City Council President Scott Hente, who has worked to legalize the Incline for the past six years, said. "So lets just make it legit."
Yet the battle to get the Incline legalized has proven to be almost as difficult as the vertical one-mile hike itself. One of the big hurdles has been that the property the Incline passes through has three different owners: Colorado Springs Utilities, The Cog Railway and the U.S. Forest Service. Not all property owners have granted public access.
"You have all three different property owners with two different municipalities trying [to legalize it]," Hente said. "You have huge parking issues up there, and you have to get through all the legal issues about hiking on an activity that, by itself, is somewhat inherently dangerous."
However, progress is being made.
Kurt Schroeder, Parks Operations and Development manager, said Colorado Springs Utilities has signed an agreement that is crucial to getting the popular trail legalized.
"We're closer than we've ever been," Schroeder said. "There were a lot of different players and agreements to arrive at that took a lot of time to accomplish, and now it is going to come to fruition that we can open it legally."
In February, the Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs city councils are expected to sign an intergovernmental agreement for management of the Incline.
"After that," Hente said, "we have to get some license agreements worked out between The Cog Railway, Manitou and Colorado Springs. Then we have to get a special uses permit from the Forest Service."
Hente added getting the special uses permit may be the most difficult part of the legalization process. On top of that, Schroeder said the city of Manitou Springs still has a major issue to overcome.
"Parking is a big concern," he said. "It is something they've been concerned with for a number of years, and they will tackle that part of it, whereas [Colorado Springs] will be responsible for the actual Incline."
The city of Manitou Springs has already begun charging $5 for every car parked in the Barr Trailhead parking lot near the Incline.
"In the master plan process it was actually discussed to implement fees to use the Incline. At this point in time, there will be no fees to access the Incline. Parking fees will be imposed in certain locations," Schroeder said, adding the money would be used to help maintain the trail.
The Incline Friends committee, which took over a management plan created by a task force between the city of Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs, is also working to help keep the Incline clean and safe.
"We're putting a restroom at the bottom [at the start of the Incline]," Sandi Yukman, vice president of Incline Friends, said. "We've also built a new trail to where people will actually start from. and we're going to close off some of the other social trails that are not environmentally friendly."
Yukman said some maintenance will be done to remove some of the hazardous parts of the trail, but they will not be drastic changes.
"We're not going to fix it up," she said. "We're not going to make it easy. We're going to make it safe."
If all agreements are made and signed as planned, Yukman said the Manitou Springs Incline could be legalized by this summer.
For more information about the Incline Friends, visit their website by clicking here.
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