COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The effort to build a new trail to the top of Pikes Peak is entering a fifth summer — what figures to be "a big year," according to the project leader.
Since 2020, Rocky Mountain Field Institute's Carl Woody has overseen progress on a rerouted Devils Playground Trail hampered by pandemic-related complications. While often short-handed and slowed by health and safety precautions, the focus the past few years has been on building retaining walls and timber checks aimed at resisting erosion — what has been the long-viewed problem for the existing trail up the backside of the 14,115-foot mountain.
But now construction has reached a point "where we can really just focus on that full bench tread and cranking out linear feet," Woody said.
