Officials have presented concepts aimed at protecting a rare, colorful landscape east of Colorado Springs that came under harmful siege during the pandemic years.
For the past 24 years or so, El Paso County has managed Paint Mines Interpretive Park based on “a myriad of plans, reports and baseline studies,” explained Ross Williams, county park planner. He’s now coordinating a master plan for the geologic expanse on the plains near Calhan.
“Twenty-four years ago, you didn’t have social media, you didn’t have this huge push to go outdoors,” Williams said.
Recent years have seen Paint Mines “crawling with folks,” as he put it. Parking lots have filled, cars have lined the adjacent road, and Instagram has displayed people hopping across hoodoos and other fragile formations of multi-colored clay believed to have been sought by Indigenous people as far back as 9,000 years ago.
From the recent surge, land managers have noted damage and vandalism.
“We need to get moving,” went the county’s thinking, Williams said, “because everyone and their brother now knows about this place.”
On a $200,000 contract, Denver-based DHM Design has spent this year analyzing the park for concepts that were presented at a recent open house — concepts meant to control crowds. In 2023, nearly 71,000 visitors were estimated at Paint Mines.
Renderings at the open house showed a paved parking lot of 73 spaces, vastly expanding the gravel lot visitors have filled. The lot is part of a proposed “grand interpretive plaza,” complete with a visitor center and educational signs.
Signs would continue throughout the park under the proposal, which also pinpoints areas for restoration and erosion mitigation.
Most problematic are “a lot of trails where folks don’t know where the trail ends,” said Ashleigh Quillen with DHM Design. “So they end up continuing on and climbing up the formations that are really delicate.”
The idea is “to help guide people where they should be and where they shouldn’t be,” she said.
Renderings show chain link barriers and buck-and-rail fences defining paths. Quillen also showed boardwalks that would keep people above sensitive ground, and stone steps similarly envisioned to prevent erosion.
Not everyone is pleased by the concepts.
“This is upsetting to me,” said Mike Pach, who contracts with the county to lead photography workshops at Paint Mines.
The additions are “basically gonna ruin the whole scene,” Pach said, questioning also if the low barriers would effectively keep people off the rock.
He said he’d like to see more staff and security on the ground: “I’d rather see our money spent that way instead of putting what I feel is unnecessary stuff inside the park.”
Funding was the immediate question from attendees at the open house. Williams said costs of the proposed concepts were uncertain without final designs and engineering work.
Trails and Open Space Coalition Executive Director Susan Davies asked if damage and vandalism were continuing at Paint Mines. Williams told her yes.
“Then my question would be, If we find this price tag is too big, and we continue to see that degradation, are there other ideas on how to protect it?” Davies asked.
An underfunded county parks department has been one of Davies’ main points of advocacy over the years. While county parks benefit from sales tax revenues across the Front Range — from Douglas to Jefferson to Larimer counties — El Paso County lacks such a program. (The equivalent is the city of Colorado Springs’ Trails, Open Space and Parks program.)
“If (the county) can’t take care of it, if they don’t have the resources, then maybe they need to step away,” Davies said.
She mentioned the closest national monument, Florissant Fossil Beds, in Teller County. “Could it be something like a monument? A place that is protected, it’s resourced, it’s a place people can still visit, but there’s adequate funding?”
Palmer Land Conservancy holds a conservation easement over sections of the Paint Mines — a guiding document that calls for the geology to be protected amid recreation.
Paint Mines represents “this incredibly challenging tension” between conservation and recreation everywhere, said Palmer Land Conservancy President and CEO Rebecca Jewett.
Jewett carefully considered the question of the county managing the park into the future.
“I’ll say this,” she said. “If it got to the point where the values of the conservation easement are not being fulfilled, we take that responsibility very seriously. And we will talk to the county about solutions to ensure that.”
While recognizing Davies’ question on resources, Williams said initial funding could go toward the “low-hanging fruit” among proposed concepts — protective barriers before a more costly visitor center, for example.
Protective measures were underway, he said, referring to a donation by Lyda Hill Philanthropies for fencing, trail closures and revegetation. During summer weekends, educational docents will be on site, Williams added.
The county sees the Paint Mines as “extremely significant” he emphasized. “There are very few places like it.”
Similar to the Badlands of South Dakota and the Painted Hills of Oregon, Williams said, but with unique challenges. “The Paint Mines in and of themselves, it’s a very condensed site near a very populated area,” he said.
He assured attendees at the recent open house: “No matter what … our goal 100% is to preserve this site. It’s way too important to allow something like financial resources for us not to.”
The county expects to schedule another open house in the months ahead; a draft master plan could be presented then. The hope is to finalize the document by the end of this year or early next year.
The county is collecting feedback from a survey posted on a project webpage: tinyurl.com/3bs46x5d .
Local Colorado Springs, CO
Most Popular
Comments / 0