March 2022 - Parks & Recreation - 16

WE ARE PARKS AND RECREATION
Peaks to Plains: A Colorado Trail Experience
By Chris Barker
D
uring summer of 2016, Jefferson County (Colorado) Open Space
(JCOS), through a partnership with Clear Creek County (Colorado)
Open Space, opened the first segment of the Peaks to Plains
(P2P) Trail in Clear Creek Canyon Park to visitors. This threemile
segment of trail - two miles in Jefferson County and one mile in Clear
Creek County - is a 10-foot-wide, Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible,
stained-concrete surface, with 500 feet in elevation gain, six new or improved
creek access points, an expanded trailhead, and three bridges across Clear
Creek. Each bridge is equipped with overlooks, so that visitors can enjoy the
view out over the water. The trail is multiuse and welcomes a variety of recreational
activities, from cycling and walking to fishing and gold panning.
In fall 2017, the final mile of the
first segment of the P2P Trail opened,
along with a developed recreation
area and a new trailhead. The Big
Easy trailhead and recreation area
has a restroom, 54 parking spaces,
fishing platforms over the water, picnic
pavilions, a geology garden and a
boardwalk in areas where vegetation
needs to be protected. A new bridge
also spans the creek, which connects
to the Mayhem Gulch trailhead
westward up the canyon.
Around this same time, the Great
Outdoors
Colorado (GOCO)
Board awarded a $2 million grant
to JCOS to fund a new, 1.75-mile
segment of the P2P Trail in Clear
Creek Canyon Park, which was referred
to as the Gateway Segment.
The grant was part of GOCO's first
round of funding for its new Connect
Initiative, with $10 million
in grants awarded to close critical
gaps in trail networks across the
state. More than 80 percent of people
in Colorado recreate on trails,
so increasing connectivity has long
been a top priority for the state's
residents.
Project Details
JCOS started on the Gateway Segment
of Clear Creek Canyon Park
in 2018, with a contract for designing
the east entrance of the canyon
just outside of the City of Golden,
Colorado. This 1.75-mile trail connects
with downtown Golden along
Clear Creek and continues west to
Tunnel 1 along U.S. Route 6. The two
new trailheads - one at the entrance
to the canyon and one near Tunnel
1 - feature more than 170 parking
spaces, permanent restrooms and
shade structures. The parking area
at the Gateway Segment of Clear
Creek Canyon Park has the added
features of a bike repair station, a
bike rack with a metal frame crafted
from the parts of cars salvaged from
the canyon during construction, and
a drinking fountain that includes a
ground-level fountain for four-legged
recreational companions.
This project
also included the
first suspension bridge in Jefferson
County. This pedestrian-only crossing
of Clear Creek near Tunnel 1
connects hikers with the restored
historic wooden flume of the Welch
Ditch on the south side of the creek.
Improvements
and
repairs were
made to almost 1.5 miles of the
Welch Ditch Trail, including 0.5
miles of the historic wooden flume.
The wooden flume was originally
constructed to transport water
from Clear Creek through Golden
to points east, beyond South Table
Mountain Park, to help with farmland
irrigation. At its height, the
ditch helped irrigate 4,000 acres and
supplied water to Golden and Jefferson
County for 130 years. Once
the ditch was decommissioned in
2001, it became closed to visitors
From atop the historic wooden flume,
known as the Welch Ditch, one can
see the rugged terrain of Clear Creek
Canyon Park.
16 Parks & Recreation | MARCH 2 0 22 | PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNE FRIANT
March 2022 - Parks & Recreation

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