Side Streets ~ Neighborhood people and issues

Archive for the 'Helen Hunt Falls' Tag

MAYOR MIGHT OUGHTA APOLOGIZE TO FRIENDS

February 22nd, 2012, 11:30 am by

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Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach

The Friends of Cheyenne Cañon nonprofit was surprised recently to learn Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach is giving the group the heave-ho.

In a brief Jan. 6 letter, Bach said the city will honor a $25,000 appropriation authorized by the City Council. But he warned the group to “seek replacement funding” in 2013.

The note shocked Ron Leasure and Lee Wolf and other Friends leaders.

The city doesn’t fund Friends of Cheyenne Cañon.

Reality is just the opposite.

“We contribute thousands to the city from our funds to keep the cañon alive,” said Leasure, the Friends president. “That letter hurt a little bit. He put some bruises in our organization.”

Leasure and Wolf feel Bach doesn’t appreciate how much their 500-member, all-volunteer group has given the city since its founding in 1992 to preserve the 1,600-acre park, which features miles of trails, Helen Hunt Falls, granite spires and cliffs making it popular for hikers, bikers and climbers.

Friends of Cheyenne Canon leaders Ron Leasure and Lee Wolf

Lee Wolf examines the deteriorating Helen Hunt Falls Visitors Center in this 2009 photo.

Wolf, treasurer and past president, said the group has been subsidizing the city for years. He calculates the group’s cash donations and volunteer hours at $1 million in the past six years.

The Friends build and maintain trails, remove graffiti, conduct major clean-up and maintenance campaigns in the park at the base of Cheyenne Mountain.

“When money got tight in 2009, they were going to close the visitors centers,” Wolf said. “We provided all the funding to pay for a full-time city employee plus the part-time people.”

In fact, the group is about to begin work on one of its single largest contributions to the park.

An artists rendering of the new visitors center.

Demolition is expected to begin this week on the Helen Hunt Falls Visitors Center.

The dilapidated log cabin structure will be replaced by an $80,000-plus log facility to be built with funds donated by the Friends of Cheyenne Cañon.

Then it will be staffed by city employees whose salaries are paid for by the Friends. You get the picture?

“It’s the perfect private-public partnership,” Wolf said. “We give money to the city and they hire people.”

A major source of funding, besides cash donations, comes from Bristol Brewery.

 

All proceeds from the sale of its Cheyenne Cañon Pinon Nut Ale are donated to the Friends group.

Bristol Brewing has dedicated all proceeds from its Cheyenne Canon Ale to pay for a new visitors center at Helen Hunt Falls.

“The new building is a gift from us to the city,” Wolf said. “And the mayor is throwing shots at us?”

So you can understand why Leasure and Wolf were upset to learn Bach announced the city was cutting off the Friends.

I’d say Bach better hope the Friends group doesn’t cut off the city!

The Friends won’t, though, because this group lives up to its name.

“We’ll sit down with the city,” Wolf said, describing how friends resolve misunderstandings. “We’ll straighten this all out.”

I hope so. This city needs all the “friends” it can get!

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PLAYING THROUGH! I’M GONNA BURY THIS PUTT!

July 13th, 2011, 1:16 pm by

Andrea Brown, former Gazette columnist

My former colleague, Andrea Brown, wrote a piece in 2007 about how her family kept the ashes of her mother-in-law, Grandma Brown, in a cardboard urn in a linen closet.

It was a funny piece. Read it here. Of course, Andrea often made me laugh. Even when she didn’t mean to.

Anyway, I thought of Andrea and Grandma Brown when I learned what other folks do with the cremated remains of their relatives.

Turns out, lots of folks spread ashes around Colorado Springs parks, trails and even golf courses.

Playing through!

In fact, back in 1995, maintenance crews at Patty Jewett Golf Course, found a strange-looking substance spread on the 17th green.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Patty Jewett Golf Course boasts spectacular views.

Dal Lockwood, manager of the city’s golf enterprise, tells the story:

“There was a fair amount of stuff spread all over the greens. One of our old guys, an old sage, tasted it. He said it tasted salty. We had it tested. It was cremated remains.”

Wonder if it tasted like chicken?

Anyway, it’s a pretty common practice, as I learned. City parks, trails and golf courses get used for a lot of things besides the obvious.

Of course, weddings are a common activity especially during spring and summer. Some places must be reserved for a fee. Learn more here.

Garden of the Gods Park

 Topping the list are the Garden of the Gods and Grandview Overlook in Palmer Park, says Kurt Schroeder, parks, trails and open space manager for the city parks department.

Both parks offer inspiring views and spectacular backdrops for ceremonies and photos.

Some prefer getting hitched atop Pikes Peak with the panorama of the city as their backdrop.

Others like the American Mothers Chapel at Rock Ledge Ranch or the

Heritage Garden in Monument Valley Park.

 The gazebo and pond at Nancy Lewis Park is a favorite spot for tying the knot. The splashing waters of Helen Hunt Falls in Cheyenne Cañon attract some for their nuptials while others exchange vows at the Red Rock Canyon Open Space pavilion.

And there have been plenty of wedding receptions of Patty Jewett.

But I was surprised how often the same venues are used to spread cremated remains.

“The Garden of the Gods is probably the place the most ashes are scattered,” said Paul Butcher, retired parks department director. “We’ve always had hearsay stories that people scatter ashes in Garden of the Gods, Palmer Park and from the top of Pikes Peak. It happens. We never encouraged it. But I’m 100 percent sure people have done it.”

In fact, Native American groups tried unsuccessfully to stop construction of the visitors center in 1994 by claiming the garden was a sacred burial ground of the Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.

Here’s a link to a video about Patty Jewett Golf Course.

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EVEN OUR WATERFALLS AREN’T SAFE!

March 20th, 2011, 12:00 pm by

Here’s how Helen Hunt Falls normally looks . . . 

Helen Hunt Falls

But lately, its received a paint job it didn’t need. 

Others call it graffiti. 

In this case, it appears to be the work of gangbangers. 

Spray paint mars the signs, rocks along the trail, timbers and around the falls itself. 

It’s an ugly stain on North Cheyenne Canon Park and the falls. 

And it is disturbing to folks who live nearby and those who travel from all over Colorado Springs and  the Pikes Peak Region to hike the canyon. 

It bothers them to think they are at risk of encountering Surenos or Chihuahuas or Maderas or Prospect Lake Barrio or Blythe Street X3 gang members when they walk, run or bike the canyon and its popular trails. 

But the signs are unmistakable. 

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But gang graffiti, or just random forms of graffiti, are not confined to Helen Hunt Falls.

After a couple quiet years of relatively little graffiti, city parks maintenance supervisor Tim Pluemer reports an ugly bloom of the vandalism is underway.

He says it is a chronic problem at the three city skate parks.

And it is spreading to neighborhood parks from Briargate to the Broadmoor area.

No park, it seems is immune.

And it’s a shame that when budgets are so tight, the one member of the parks maintenance staff has devote two days a week simply to scrubbing away the often profane rants and taggings by graffiti vandals.

Graffiti tags of the Surenos gang, based in Southern California, mar a skate park in Colorado Springs.

Graffiti on a playground in a Colorado Springs neighborhood park.

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