The city of Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs Utilities has reached a deal on what to do with the $5 collected from each car that parks in the Barr Trail parking lot. The money will first go to maintaining the lot. Any extra will go to maintaining the Manitou Incline. This is undoubtedly a defeat for Manitou, which wanted to use the money to pay for other parking infrastructure, but was notified it does not control the lot. It is a victory for Utilities, which has a pipeline beneath the Incline that will be protected by stabilization work funded by the parking lot. It is a victory for the Incline, because it is slated to open to the public, but neds major work, and, as Dr. Raymond Stantz said in the 1984 classic, “Ghostbusters,” “This ecto-containment system that Spengler and I have in mind is going to require a load of bread to capitalize.”

It is, unfortunately, a splap in the face to the Barr Trail, which needs work, and after all, is the reason the parking lot is there at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if locals make a stink until the trail gets some love (and money) too.

Copper Mountain opened the Rocky Mountain campus of Camp Woodward this year — a high-flying, baggy-pants-wearing freestyle school for skiers and snowboarders. They just wrapped up their first summer camp. Looks cool. I’m assuming when they are not throwing 720s, they do normal summer camp stuff like make God’s eyes, sing songs and light bugspray on fire.

We were bandying this question around in the newsroom today. Where is the highest point in Colorado Springs. Is it in Cedar Heights?  Cheyenne Canon? Or perhaps this place?

We are checking the maps, but in the mean time, I am also taking suggestions.

On June 27 an “internationall, music-centric cancer charity” called Love Hope Strength will host what they are billing as the “first ever concert on top of Pikes Peak.”

Being a Pikes Peak Geek, I know this is not exactly accurate. There was a Zeb Pike chorus of America the beautiful in 2006, and, I believe, a similar concert in 1906.

But here is what I really find interesting. I’ve been to a couple free outdoor concerts in Summit County, at 9,500 feet. The musicians typically spend half the time talking about how there is no air. Imagine what it will be like to rock out at 14,000.

Pull your whammy bar too much up there and you might end up with HAPE

The list of guys who have skied all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks is steadily growing, but the 5  members up to now were all from the 970 crew — that is, they lived on Colorado’s Western Slope, the other side of the Great Divide.  Lou Dawson blogged yesterday about the first Front Ranger to join this elite group.

Joe Brannan, of Eirie, became the 6th person to ski all of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks with a descent of Wetterhorn a few days ago.

Technically, I guess, Joe is still a 970, so there is still a chance to become the first 303 or 719.

Interesting thing about Joe. He is a reletive newcomer to the sport, having only really started climbing easy fourteeners in 2004 and skied his first in 2005.

This is quite an accomplishment.

Jordan White of Carbondale, became the sixth person this week to climb and ski  all 54 of the Colorado 14,000 foot peaks. It took him  three  years, beginning with Quandary Peak and  finishing with Snowmass Mountain May 3rd.  Lou Dawson has a cool Q & A with the young ski mountaineer.

The Post has a cool story on two women who are closing in on skiing all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks. No woman has done it before and only two men have. Despite the writer’s woeful choice to begin the article with a bad girl golf analogy, it’s a cool tale of friendship and challenge and mountains.

Tony Aspen is thinking about marketing to middle class plebians (folks that don’t even have their own private jet) in order to attract more business in these hard times.

“We offer a lot to everybody no matter what your income level,” Mayor Mick Ireland told the Aspen Daily News. “We need to get the attention of the world that Aspen is inclusive, welcoming and affordable.”

He suggested highlighting the free buses, free summer concerts, and free Nordic skiing.

But mayoral challenger Marilyn Marks says not so fast.  She says Aspen should focus instead on existing wealthy customers.

“It’s far easier, faster and cheaper to bring back return customers who know the product, love the brand and are satisfied,” Marks said.

Maybe they could start a “Blow your bonus before you are forced to give it back” campaign.

There’s important stuff going on right now with Section 16, the popular 640-acre hiking area that links Bear Creek, Red Rock Canyon and Pike National Forest.

For over a century it has been owned and managed by the Colorado State Land Board, which is charged with using properties across the state to provide income for land grant schools. For decades that income has come froma  lease, first from El Paso County and more recently from Colorado Springs, to use it as a hiking area.

Now Colorado Springs is poised to buy the land for open space.

Here’s the deal.

The city has wanted to buy the land with TOPS money for years, but more pressing land deals and a Doug Bruce lawsuit kept things on hold.

Then, late in 2007 Great Outdoors Colorado (a fund fueled by Colorado Lottery cash) gave the city a $1 million grant to buy Section 16. The only catch: A price has do be set by June of 2009 and the papers have to be signed by December 2009.

The price for the land is expected to be about $3.5 million.

The city formally accepted the $1 million late in March, which probably means it is close to agreeing on a price with the state.

At $95 for a 13.2 mile run, the Pikes Peak Ascent is, to my knowledge, the most expensive running race per mile in the country, but that doesn’t stop an annual scramble to nab one of the 1,800 spots for the August race to the summit. In the past, the race has filled in a matter of minutes.

Registration is tomorrow, March 11. Runners have to be pre-qualified by having a suitable time in an approved marathon or half marathon in order to sign up, but there is a new back door this year for runners without a qualifying race, and it’s especially handy for locals.

Here’s the deal. If you sign up for the Pikes Peak Triple Crown of Running, you don’t have to pre-qualify for the Ascent or Marathon. If you run the first two jewels in the crown (The Garden of the Gods 10 Mile and the Trail Round-up 12K,) Then you can run the Ascent without prequalifications. Total price is $135.

You have to sign up for all three races tomorrow, and if you don’t show up for one of the first two races, you won’t be able to run Pikes Peak.

Good luck and happy training. I’ll see you on Barr Trail.

Forget Bill Ritter’s plan to turn Colorado into a center of green energy.  I like Jetpack International’s plan to turn the state into a center of awesomeness.  In the last few years, the Denver-based company has been working feverishly to  make my 4th grade dreams of a viable jetpack a reality. This Monday, they plan to break the jetpack record by flying over the Royal Gorge.  But more exciting than that, they sell their jetpacks!

The $200,000 T-73 has a reported range of 9 miles, and comes with free training!

It has been so warm lately that I decided Sunday to run to the top of Pikes Peak. But when jogging to 14,000 feet in November, a usually minor question takes on added importance: what to wear. It was at least 70 degrees in town, but there was still some snow at the top. So I packed a small backpack with full wind gear, gloves, and a light, fleece hoodie. I didn’t need any of it until12,000 feet.

It was sunny and beautiful, with only a few patches of snow all the way to the A Frame at 11,400 feet.

I only passed three other people out climbing. In the summer I often pass hundreds.

Above treeline, the wind picked up. There were long stretches of packed, hard snow on the trail, but nothing that required boots. I slipped on my hoodie. That was enough to make it all the way to the top.

At the summit, wind from the southwest was howling. I threw on all my remaining gear and still almost froze to death before successfully hitching a ride down.

The peak this time of year is cool. When the crowds disappear, the bighorn sheep move onto the east cirque. I didn’t see any, but saw several piles of droppings.

Up at the top, the ravens played in the wind. I’m always surprised to see them up there, but they are always there, in almost every type of weather, pitching and yawing in the gale.

Last winter Breckenridge introduced plans for a new chairlift to serve 285 new acres above treeline and 67 acres on six trails below treeline, plus a ski-patrol and warming hut and a base-area restaurant on Peak Six (far right in photo).

Local reaction was mixed since then, and has cooled a bit according to the Summit Daily News.

Locals meeting with the resort, the U.S. Forest Service, the Town and the county this week raised concerns about how the expansion would effect the town, traffic and wildlife.

It is unclear if the expansion will go forward. It has yet to be approved by the Forest Service and economic times my put on the brakes. We’ll see.

The Colorado Springs Sky Sox have a new logo that is “ based around Pikes Peak, a famous Colorado Fourteener.”

I’m looking, and I’m just not seeing it. Not that I blame them, a true-to-Pikes Peak logo doesn’t exactly say home run.

The poor Rockies, so high, and yet, such humble lines.

Chongo is a fixture of Yosemite dirtbag climbers and somewhat of a legend. This write-up of him in the Times is a cool window into this culture for outsiders (like me.)  And, if it counts for anything, the  outdoor bloggers seem to like it.

A 23-year-old Fort Carson soldier’s body was pulled out of the Y Couloir on the north side of Pikes Peak Tuesday. According to the Gazette, evidence suggests he had parked on the summit and descended the steep gully with ice tools to “try his hand” at ice climbing and took a fall. It’s unclear whether he fell on the way down or the way up. Read the rest of this entry »