Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Free trails. In July. Right when everybody and their dog is looking for somewhere new to ride and hike. That almost never happens.
But that is exactly what Colorado Springs pulled off. On Friday, July 17, 2026, the city opened seven miles of brand-new, purpose-built trail in the southern portion of Blodgett Open Space. Not rerouted. Not repaved. Built from scratch over more than a year of construction.
And here is the part people miss. This is not one big loop for everybody to fight over. They split it up on purpose.
So you have got 2.5 miles of directional downhill bike-only trail. Bike-only. One way. Which if you ask me is the whole ballgame, because nothing kills a good descent faster than coming around a blind corner and eating a family of four coming uphill.
Then there is four miles of multi-use trail for hikers and mountain bikers to share, plus a half mile of regional trail tying it all together. Add it up and it is seven miles that did not exist a week ago.
They did the boring-but-important stuff too. A new trailhead with 50 parking spaces, which matters more than it sounds when you have ever circled a lot for twenty minutes in your chamois. Four trail bridges. New signage and wayfinding so you are not standing at a junction squinting at your phone.
And crews closed and restored a bunch of the old unauthorized 'social' trails while they were at it. You know the ones. The braided, eroded shortcuts people cut over the years that tear up the hillside. Those are getting healed over. This whole thing was framed by city officials as expanding recreation while protecting wildlife habitat and restoring the landscape, and closing the rogue trails is how you actually do that instead of just saying it.
Here is the thing most people do not realize. This is not some spur-of-the-moment project. It is the first major piece of the Blodgett Open Space Master and Management Plan, the one City Council approved back in 2024. So the plan got adopted, the crews spent over a year building, and now the first chunk is open. That is the system actually working, which is rare enough that I want to point at it.
And they are not done. Construction picks back up later in 2026 in the central and northern portions, with roughly seven more miles expected by the end of the year. So the seven you can ride today is basically half of what is coming.
If you have not spent time up here, let me set the scene. Blodgett Open Space sits in northwest Colorado Springs near Woodmen Road, and it covers 384 acres of open space, trail, and wildlife habitat. It is bordered on three sides by Pike National Forest, so you are riding right up against the big country.
The city bought the original Blodgett land through its Trails, Open Space and Parks program, the TOPS program, way back in March of 2001, then added more parcels in 2018 and 2021. That is a 25-year, slow-build public land story that a lot of folks driving Woodmen every day have no idea about.
The views are the payoff. You get Colorado Springs spread out to the east, and Blodgett Peak, about 9,430 feet, standing up to the northwest. You are in the foothills of the Front Range here, sitting right along the Rampart Range fault.
And it is real habitat, not just a green line on a map. Black bear, mule deer, bighorn sheep, and the peregrine falcon, which was once endangered and clawed its way back. Keep that in mind when you are up there. The wildlife is the reason for the one-way trails and the closed social trails, not just a nice bonus.
One more piece of history worth knowing. The south side of the older Blodgett Peak Open Space got hammered during the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire and has been under restoration ever since. So a lot of what you are looking at up here is land that has been quietly healing for over a decade. Now it is getting new trail on top of that recovery.
Blodgett Open Space is open daily from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. So if you want to beat the heat and the crowds in July, that early window is wide open. Get up there before the parking lot fills, which with 50 new spaces will take longer than it used to but will still happen on a nice Saturday.
The long-standing main trailhead is off West Woodmen Road, and now you have got that new southern trailhead with the fresh parking to work with too.
Look, free public trail in peak season, built to actually separate bikes from boots, in a spot backed up against the national forest with bighorn on the hillside. That is about as good as it gets on the Front Range. Hayley and I have watched a lot of open space plans get announced and then sit. This one got built. Go use it before the second seven miles shows up and everybody figures out what is up there.