(Click to see video) Brian’s team works at the bottom, while Larry makes crusher, and Susan gets serious with a shovel. Lindsay and Carol carefully measure the hole so the rock fits on the first try (It did.)
FOTP 2025 Volunteer of the Year
We had our annual year-end event on November 2, but it seems that nobody took any pictures there. We’d like to share that Geoff Rutecki was recognized with the 2025 Volunteer of the Year award. Susan presented him with a hardbound copy of the AdAmAn club’s centennial book, autographed by all living members of the club. Congratulations, Geoff!
Since we didn’t have any pictures of Geoff at the the banquet, I looked in our 2025 photo archive for pictures of Geoff on the trail. The problem with that is that he almost always had his head down, working. But I did find this one picture. Geoff is coming down Barr trail from the “Corral” (or Top of the W’s) towards the Incline bail-out, about 2:30 pm. He told us there were no more problems we needed to address that day, so we could all head back to the trailhead. This was in September, on day 1 of our 3-day Slip-n-Trip project before the Pikes Peak Marathon.
King Soopers Community Rewards Program
Did you know that King Soopers has a Community Rewards program and you can select Friends Of the Peak as your designated charity? It’s easy, cost you nothing, and really helps us out. More info here: https://www.kingsoopers.com/i/community/community-rewards
August 2025 News!
Well, you haven’t heard much from us this spring and early summer but that’s because we’ve been so darn busy.
Here’s a brief rundown of what we’ve been doing.
Over the winter we purchased some carbide tools made for stone masons. These are hand tools with extremely hard carbide edges. We had an unofficial workday/training session for crew leaders to practice using these tools on May 12. These tools give us the ability to tackle tougher jobs with rock.
Our first official workday was on Thursday, May 15 on the Seven Bridges Trail. You might’ve seen pictures from that day if you looked at our Facebook page. Even if you don’t have a Facebook account you can see what we’ve been up to at www.Facebook.com/friendsofthepeak
We’ve posted video there too.
The creek was very high, and 6 inches of clear cold water was running over Bridge 1. We didn’t want to spend the whole day in wet shoes so our crew of 6 volunteers took the very easy detour using the Mount Buckhorn Trail. We got back on the Seven Bridges Trail just above Bridge 1. Our task that day was to install some much-needed rock steps above Bridge 2.
The next day, May 16, was our first day working in The Nature Conservancy’s Aiken Canyon Preserve. We fixed lots of rutted trail, installing check dams. We also installed rock steps leading up out of arroyos.
After a rest day we were back to work, this time for our first day on Barr trail, Sunday, May 18. It was a post and rail day, and the four of us worked on finishing up final repairs to the fence damage caused by the 2023 boulder.
On Thursday, May 29 a larger team went up to seven Bridges Trail just above Bridge Seven. It rained and drizzled all day and later the rain became heavier. The heavy rock work that our volunteers did may very well have saved Bridge Seven from further damage when the creek really flooded. That flooding is what undercut and collapsed N. Cheyenne Canyon Rd. and that’s why you couldn’t get to North Cheyenne canyon on the paved road for all of June and half of July. The flooding also did more damage to Bridge One and eroded the banks so that the bridge
no longer reached the banks. Since then, the Forest Service closed the Seven Bridges Trail and it only recently reopened. This of course messed up our calendar and we had to change dates so that we could keep working on our other high priority trails.
But let’s not forget that all that rain also affected Barr trail, and as many of you know, it caused a good size boulder (we call it the 2025 boulder) to slide down into the trail at a place that is commonly called the “tunnel”. This is where Barr trail passes underneath two huge boulders (you can see them on the Google Maps satellite view). We teamed up with our friends from the Pikes Peak Marathon and removed this obstacle on July 6. We got this done in time that it did not cause problems for the Barr Trail Mountain Race on July 20. There’s lots of pictures and
video of this on our Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofthePeak/videos/1809875143284448 and
https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofthePeak/posts/pfbid02wcozhkH2J57D4QiNAwXP3APkAj4
5EnZ8yDuS4GfkrKUMaNkEo78qqkBoGLj3KiNRl
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16tfrpDvce/
Another place we worked was where a boulder slid down onto Barr trail in 2013, about a mile and a quarter from the trailhead. Some of the boulder had been removed, but erosion had made the trail more dangerous. It needed durable rock steps. Over three workdays we installed five rocks making the passage much safer, as demonstrated by these hikers in the “after” picture. We accomplished this with the help of 12 great volunteers from Trane Technologies in Pueblo.
Moving heavy rocks is one of the hardest parts of our work. It took six volunteers to move this step rock up the trail to where we installed it. Video available at
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AdU8BeoGi/
Here one of the Trane volunteers is using a carbide-tipped chisel to adjust the shape of the underlying rock to fit the step rock we would install.
And here’s the Trane team at the end of the day.
Now that the city has reopened Cheyenne canyon, we can finally get to the Saint Mary’s Falls trail. In the next newsletter we’ll update you on our work there.
Well, that’s some of what we did in our first 18 or so workdays this year (I lost count). But don’t
feel left out- There are still 7 public workdays on our 2025 schedule. Come on out and join us
for one!
https://friendsofthepeak.org/volunteerwithus/
Oh, yeah before you go, did you know that King Soopers has a Community Rewards program and you can select Friends Of the Peak as your designated charity? It’s easy, cost you nothing, and really helps us out. More info here: https://www.kingsoopers.com/i/community/community-rewards
Just another day in the office
We set out to repair fences on Barr trail Saturday June 7. But first we encountered this lumpy rock that had slid down the hillside, about 0.35 miles from the trail head.
It wasn’t blocking the trail but it narrowed the trail enough that we decided it should be moved. But even with 6 people and 2 rock bars, working in close quarters we couldn’t flip it back out of the way. So we had to smash it up to make it small enough so we could flip it. After we flipped it out of the way, Laura is knocking the last few parts of it off that were projecting into the trail.
The rock is now about half its original size. Then we continued to the spur trail and went to get some fence rails and posts from our storage area along Ruxton creek. The creek was still out of its banks, but clear and refreshingly cold. Everyone pitched in to pull the rails out of the bundle.
Then it was time to lug them up the trail. Here’s Alex and Maddie carrying one of the fence rails along one of the more scenic stretches of the trail.
Finally at the worksite about a mile up from the trailhead, that last picture is Mo and Laura digging a post hole. Unfortunately that rock Laura is standing on is just the exposed part of a huge rock that continued down the hillside, so we couldn’t dig a deep enough hole.
We know how to solve that problem but that will have to wait for another day. Why not sign up for next Barr Trail Post and Rail workday and find out how we do it? Better yet, help us do it! www.friendsofthepeak.org/volunteerwithus. Like I said, just another day in the office…..
7 Bridges Trail Update #2 (7/22/25)
Bridge #1
There currently is no bridge #1 on the 7 Bridges trail. Please consider bypassing the first bridge by using the Buckhorn-to-Seven Bridges connector trail via the Buckhorn trailhead (There are USFS detour signs at the TH).
For reference, the Buckhorn trailhead is on the right side of Goldcamp Rd about 100′ before the Seven Bridges trailhead, just before the road passes over N Cheyenne Creek. See image below:
