After more than a year of closure, another summer approaches with gates blocking a popular waterfall west of Colorado Springs.

In Manitou Springs, the nearterm future of Rainbow Falls appears to be uncertain, left in limbo between two jurisdictions.

Land-owning El Paso County officials say they continue to monitor hazardous rock fall while Manitou leaders say they want a solution to parking and traffic caused by the cascade at the end of Manitou Avenue — an all-too-familiar plight for destinations in the town’s tight confines.

“We can’t have (pre-existing) parking because of the rock fall, and there’s no other place to park,” said Todd Marts, who oversees recreation areas as the county’s community services director.

The county cited rock fall

above the preserve’s small parking lot when Rainbow Falls was closed late in the 2021 season. The closure continued through 2022 as Marts said he ordered a professional analysis that resulted in mitigation recommendations, such as netting.

“It’s complicated,” Marts said. “Financially, we aren’t able to do that (mitigation) right now.”

Meanwhile in 2022, the city of Manitou Springs acquired property on Rainbow Falls’ adjacent Serpentine Drive. That allowed planners to move forward on a vision to create a path spanning Fountain Creek from the town’s east-to-west limits. On the west end, they say they’d like to include Rainbow Falls in the Creek Walk concept.

“Kind of like the crowning reward for hiking the Creek Walk,” said Mayor John Graham.

Rainbow Falls’ small parking lot was a problem before the rock fall was announced, Graham said.

“People were parked everywhere,” he said. “We had signs up that said ‘fire lane, do not park here.’ We painted the black top there red so people wouldn’t park. They were still parked everywhere just out of desperation. That became a problem for us.”

People also parked above at a pull-off along U.S. 24, where Serpentine Drive steeply drops toward Rainbow Falls. County and city officials both said they saw that as an unsafe situation, ending at Serpentine’s blind curve where vehicles might blindly speed around.

That tight curve poses “a very inopportune entrance,” Marts said.

He said he explored the idea of incorporating a drop-off with Mountain Metro, which runs a bus through town to the Manitou Incline — another multi-jurisdictional point of controversy over the years, between Manitou and the trailhead-owning city of Colorado Springs.

“The busses just can’t stop there” at Rainbow Falls, Marts said. “That curve is not conducive to a bus safely loading and unloading. I think a smaller bus or shuttle is what we’re looking at.”

But a shuttle begs the same question, he said: Where would riders park?

And where would the money come to pay for the shuttle? asked Susan Davies, executive director of Trails and Open Space Coalition.

She said the dilemma was another reminder of an underfunded county parks department that in recent years has also been tasked with managing another popular, sensitive property on the opposite, east side of El Paso: Paint Mines Interpretive Park.

At Rainbow Falls, “it’s the same struggle with Paint Mines,” Davies said. “Does the county have the ability to properly manage that? I think that answer is still out there.”

Marts called himself “cautiously optimistic” about resolving access this summer.

In a statement, Manitou spokesperson Alex Trefry called Rainbow Falls “a local gem” and said the city was “thoroughly interested in finding a solution towards congestion and access” and “will continue to partner with El Paso County to collaborate accordingly.”

• While projects get underway this summer across Colorado Springs parks and open spaces, officials are looking ahead to priorities in 2024.

Officials overseeing the city’s Trails, Open Space and Parks (TOPS) program recently presented budget projections and preliminary plans for next year that include high-profile properties such as Blodgett, Austin Bluffs and Fishers Canyon open spaces, along with Corral Bluffs and Jimmy Camp Creek parks.

The presentation was also a glimpse at officials’ first attempt to balance a change to the categorized budget, which voters initially authorized in 1997.

Using sales tax revenues, TOPS has dedicated 60% to open space, 20% to parks and 20% to trails, after some offthe-top costs for administration and maintenance. Taking issue with how much of that 60% for open space has gone toward maintenance, advocates pushed for 75% of that share to be set aside for land acquisition. That was approved by voters in April with TOPS’ 20-year extension.

“What’s the trade-off?” parks department head Britt Haley wondered in an interview. “I think it’s just a different way of looking at what we do and how we do it.”

She offered an example from the recent proposal: A southern segment of the Chamberlain Trail — the long-envisioned trail spanning the city’s foothills — is proposed as a priority, alongside starting to develop a new open space in that southern vicinity, Fishers Canyon. Both of those are proposed under the 20% allocation for trails. Jobs at Blodgett and Austin Bluffs open spaces also find themselves under the trails category.

“We heard a little bit at parks board that they’d rather see the open space category fund those things,” Haley said. “We’ll see if we can respond to that feedback. But it’s a limited category, and it’s just a matter of finding the best high-priority items to fund.”

The open space category is projected to account for $7.3 million of TOPS’ entire $13.4 million budget in 2024. After the new stipulation setting aside 75% for land acquisition, that leaves $1.8 million left in the open space category. The proposal has most of that, about $1.4 million, going toward salaries and benefits.

While the proposal assumes a 1%-2% increase in sales tax revenue, it forecasts salaries and benefits increasing closer to 5% and the cost of materials and services going up 3%.

At $500,000, Grey Hawk Park factors as the single most expensive project listed in the proposal. Haley said the goal in 2024 is to build the neighborhood park on the city’s north side after more than a decade of waiting.

While master planning launches late this summer or fall for newly acquired Fishers Canyon Open Space, Haley said 2024 could see access established for the hilly property up against the Broadmoor Bluffs neighborhood.

Additions could also come to an expanded Blodgett Open Space, which will also be the focus of master planning this year. At Austin Bluffs Open Space, hikers and mountain bikers approaching Pulpit Rock could see paved and striped parking off Nevada Avenue next year, Haley said.

She said 2024 won’t be the year for entry into Corral Bluffs and Jimmy Camp Creek out east, but archaeological studies and other research is budgeted for those long-closed lands.

• For as long as the order lasts from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, anglers can catch and keep all the fish they want from a popular lake along Pikes Peak.

CPW announced the “emergency salvage” this month at South Catamount Reservoir as Colorado Springs Utilities dropped water levels ahead of what the company calls ”a major rehabilitation project” slated for the dam. In a news release, CPW said the levels were such that “the reservoir can not maintain a viable fishery through the 2023 fishing season.”

The emergency salvage lifts bag and possession limits for people with a valid fishing license. In this case, they are allowed multiple rods up to four.

CPW stressed the order is for South Catamount Reservoir only — not neighboring North Catamount and Crystal Creek reservoirs, also within the North Slope Recreation Area and also storing Colorado Springs drinking water off the Pikes Peak Highway.

While Crystal Creek Reservoir has reopened after yearslong construction on the dam, Colorado Springs Utilities is now turning its attention to the 87-year-old dam at South Catamount Reservoir.

Starting next year and expected to last through 2025, Utilities has said construction will prohibit vehicles from both South and North Catamount reservoirs.

In a news release, Utilities said South Catamount Reservoir will remain at “lower-than-normal” levels through the 2023 season ahead of the project.