Summer 2014 workdays complete Intemann Trail
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The Intemann Trail is now open all the way from the turnoff at the Palmer/Red Rock Loop Trail in Section 16 to the Iron Spring in Manitou Springs. Intemann Trail Committee (ITC) volunteers played a part this summer in the work that made that possible. Finishing work we started in 2013, we completed a reroute from the trail west of Crystal Park Road, through the Manitou Mesa Open Space, which used to terminate at an overlook. The reroute, about 500 feet in length, was needed to connect into the roughly 100-acre Iron Mountain Open Space, which the City of Manitou Springs recently purchased between Manitou Mesa and Pawnee Avenue (see map). Separate Iron Mountain workdays this summer by local volunteer groups and a contracted trail machine operator (coordinated through the City of Manitou Springs) allowed the trail to open between our reroute and Pawnee. Most of that work was along the front face of Iron Mountain. A dirt road, cut in by the previous property owner, is being used as the trail from the back of the mountain to our reroute. For legal reasons, Manitou has tentatively named the trail through that open space the “Iron Mountain Trail.” In previous years, the ITC had built the Intemann Trail portions west from Pawnee to the Iron Spring and east from our new reroute to the Palmer Trail – a total distance of about 4 ˝ miles. With four lengthy switchback sections, the Iron Mountain portion is at least 1 ˝ miles long. For the ITC, getting the trail all the way through fulfills a goal that dates back to our group’s formation in 1987. With the ITC disbanding after 2014, we have offered to meet with the mayor of Manitou Springs to discuss a transition of the trail maintenance we performed for the city during that 27-year span. |
(click for full-size, printable map (PDF))