Iron Springs Chateau Incline Fundraiser
The Incline Friends are having a fundraiser for the Incline at the Iron Springs Chateau on Friday, October 4. For $30 you get dinner (4 entree choices, including gluten free pasta), coffee, tea and water AND a voucher for one free day of parking at the Iron Springs Chateau parking area (any day, as availability of spaces allow). Dinner is at 6 PM and the show begins at 8 PM.
We’ve shed blood, sweat and tears on the Incline, a mixture that creates some solid friendships. Instead of the usual stitch in your side from the Incline, you’ll be in stitches over the improvisational humor of Stick Horses in Pants as they wing some zingers at the totally insane and rockin’ workout that we all know and love.
Make your reservations now (719-685-5104) for a night of laughs and frivolity along with all of your fellow Incliners at the Iron Springs Chateau. The Chateau is generously donating half of the evening’s proceeds to the Incline Friends.
Avoid Incline Sunday August 18th, 2013
The Pikes Peak Ascent was this morning which made it difficult to get to the Manitou Incline until after 8:30 AM. Access tomorrow, Sunday August 18th, 2013, will be tough until late afternoon.
The Pikes Peak Marathon starts at 7 AM on Manitou Avenue and goes up Ruxton and on to Barr Trail. The leaders will be coming back down Barr Trail and Ruxton mid-morning. Slower runners will still be coming down well in to the afternoon.
There will be no parking on Ruxton throughout the day. Runners will be coming down Barr Trail so it’s best to stay off it. If you feel the need to hike the Incline tomorrow, please wait until late afternoon or evening to avoid disrupting the Pikes Peak Marathon.
Incline Champions Breakfast
The Incline Friends are having an Incline Champions Breakfast at 7 a.m. Wednesday, April 17th, at the Double Tree World Arena, 1775 E. Cheyenne Mountain Blvd.
The Incline is a cherished landmark in our community. This will be an “ask” event, as funding is required to make improvements on the Incline while maintaining its unique and rugged character.
Climber and trail runner, Chaz Lalonde, will share stories of summiting Mount Everest in 2012. Several Olympic athletes will also attend. Enjoy a breakfast of champions and help preserve and enrich the Incline experience.
Tickets ($35) can be purchased on the InclineFriends.com home page. Everyone who attends will receive the Incline Friends Tech T-shirt at the event. See you there!
Incline Bench Breaks Rules
If you’ve been up the Manitou Incline this week, you’ve seen something new at the summit. A GORUCK Challenge hauled a lovely bench up the Incline last Saturday.
The bench weighs over a 1000 pounds. It was carried up in pieces but the heaviest piece still was around 500 pounds. The bench is a memorial to David and Whitney Dunlap who were murdered during a burglary in January.
Now Colorado Springs and the Forest Service have decided it needs to be removed. GORUCK thought they had permission for the bench but didn’t get the required permit from the Forest Service.
Since it was announced that the bench must be removed, Congressman Lamborn and Senator Bennet have offered to help find a solution. As of Friday evening, 1,353 people have signed an online petition supporting the bench.
Eric Gove photographed the GORUCK Challenge and wrote more details about getting the bench to the top of the Incline. The story and photos are definitively worth checking out.
Bear Creek Watershed Trails Could be Closed
While this isn’t Manitou Incline news, it affects trails in the Colorado Springs area. The Forest Service is proposing closing 3.5 miles of trails along Bear Creek near Jones Park because of greenback cutthroat trout.
There is an open house tonight, Thursday, April 4th. You can also provide comments through email, by fax or through snail mail through the end of the month. Get the details on the UltraRob blog.
Manitou Incline Dedication Ceremony
Although the Incline has been legal to hike since February 1st, there will be an official dedication on April 1st at 10 AM. From Manitou Springs government website:
The Mt. Manitou Incline is officially open for Recreational Use
After years in the making, the Mt. Manitou Incline is officially open for recreational use. Join Senator Michael Bennet, Congressman Doug Lamborn, Colorado Springs City Council President Scott Hente and Manitou Springs Mayor Marc Snyder in officially dedicating this popular trail. A dedication ceremony is scheduled for April 1 at 10 a.m. at the base of the Incline, located on Ruxton Avenue. The public is invited and welcome to come celebrate the community’s newest “legal” recreational amenity.
Surely one of the most challenging recreation sites in the nation, the Mt. Manitou Incline is a former cable-car route turned trail located at the former site of the Mt. Manitou Scenic Railway in Manitou Springs, Colorado. The trail is a one-mile ascent with an elevation gain of 2,000 feet. The average grade is 41%, reaching 68% at the steepest point.
For the past two years the Cities of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs have been working collaboratively at the local and federal level on issues that needed to be addressed prior to authorizing recreational use of the Incline. Actions required prior to this authorization included multiple agreements between agencies; a US Forest Service Special Use Permit that required federal legislation – pushed through Congress by Senator Michael Bennet and Congressman Lamborn – to officially abandon the corridor as a railroad; important safety improvements to the Barr Trailhead, Base of the Incline Trailhead and the trail itself including debris and hazardous rebar removal and tie stabilization; and parking management and regulations. In addition, a citizen advocacy and fundraising group, The Incline Friends, was created in 2011 to implement education and fundraising efforts surrounding the Incline.
Free seasonal shuttle to the Incline
Beginning May 19, a new seasonal Manitou downtown shuttle will provide free rides from Memorial Park to all the surface parking lots in downtown Manitou Springs and will loop around at the Iron Springs Chateau on Ruxton Avenue, just below the Incline trailhead. The Shuttle will run every 20 minutes from 6 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily though September 7. The shuttle is funded by a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement grant from the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments to the City of
Manitou Springs and is operated by Mountain Metropolitan Transit. The funding will allow the seasonal shuttle to operate for two years.
The Incline Friends Fundraising Efforts
The Incline Friends will be hosting several fundraising events during 2013 to raise money to make repairs to the incline, including an “ask” breakfast with Olympic athletes on Wednesday, April 17. Enjoy a breakfast of champions among world class athletes and fellow Incline enthusiasts. Join the Incline Friends at the Double Tree World Arena from 7 to 8:30 a.m. to help preserve and enrich the Incline experience. The Incline Friends is a 501(c)(3) organization. More information can be found at
www.inclinefriends.com.
History of the Mt. Manitou Incline
Completed in 1907, the Manitou Incline was a 1-mile cable tram built to support the construction of a hydroelectric plant and its waterline. After performing this service the railway was then purchased by Dr. Brumbach and turned into a tourist attraction. The Incline boasted a 16-minute ride to “scenic splendors”, 10 miles of hiking trails in Mount Manitou Park, and claimed to be the “longest and highest incline on the globe.”
Despite being substantially privately owned with public access prohibited, the Incline is one of the most popular hikes in the region attracting an estimate minimum 350,000 user trips annually. This popularity continues to grow. Nearly 20 years of unmanaged trespass and use of the Incline have resulted in significant erosion on the mountainside, dangerous trail conditions, user/neighborhood conflicts, and traffic congestion and uncontrolled parking. In 2010 the three property owners, Colorado Springs
Utilities, the COG Railway, and the US Forest Service, and the Cities of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs agreed that serious safety and liability issues as well as the trail’s conditions and impacts on nearby neighborhoods called for development of a Site Development and Management Plan to address these issues, to allow the Incline to open for legal use and to capitalize on the Incline’s benefits. After two years of working together locally, with legislative support at the federal level from Senator Michael Bennet and Congressman Doug Lamborn, the Incline is now officially open and legal for recreational use.
Thank You
Thank you [member_first_name] [member_last_name] for signing up the Manitou Incline Hike Tracker.
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Incline Hike February 24, 2013
I hiked up the Incline late Sunday afternoon. There was a small amount of fresh snow from in the morning but it was no longer snowing.
On the lower part, I could see ice under the snow from where the sun had melted the snow on Saturday. The upper part was just snow packed. Even though there wasn’t much new snow, there was still the most snow I’ve seen on the Incline this winter as there is still snow from the last couple storms.
The social trail to Barr Trail and Barr Trail were pretty much like the Incline. Where the sun hit it on Saturday, there was ice under the fresh snow and where it had been shaded it was just snow packed.
It’s definitely not safe to be doing the Incline in these conditions without traction devices. If you don’t have any, check out Yaktrax, Kahtoola Microspikes or Stabilicers Lite.
Below are photos from the hike.
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Snowy Incline 2013
After a dry winter, the snows the last couple weeks have finally made the Incline snowy and icy. The rules for the Manitou Incline don’t address conditions on the Incline. They do however say the Incline is an extreme trail and you use it at your own risk.
The awesome photo above was taken this morning, February 22nd, 2013, by Incline regular Roger Austin. It shows just how snowy the Incline is now. It will only get icier and more slippery as the snow melts and refreezes. With the current forecast, it looks like parts of the Incline and Barr Trail will be icy for at least the next week and probably longer.
To be safe hiking in these conditions you’ll need traction devices such as Stabilicers Lite, Yaktrax or Kahtoola Microspikes. If you want something cheaper but more work, you can use Matt Carpenter’s instruction for creating screw shoes. Whatever you choose to give you traction, first try them out on a less extreme trail than the Incline.
You can see more of Roger’s photos from this morning on PikesPeakSports. You can also check out some snowy Incline photos from December 2011.
No Trespassing Sign Photo Op
The Incline Friends are giving you an opportunity this weekend to get your photo with the Manitou Incline No Trespassing sign. The sign was removed the end of January with the Incline becoming legal on February 1st.
This Saturday and Sunday, February 23rd and 24th, the Incline Friends will have the old Manitou Incline No Trespassing sign at the bottom of the Incline from 7 AM until 11 AM. For putting $5 into the donation tube, they’ll take your picture alongside the sign.
They’ll e-mail it to you or they can use your camera if you like. No limit to the number of people in the shot so bring your friends. This will be your last opportunity to get a photo with the sign and the Incline before it’s retired to the Pioneers Museum.
The snows the last couple weeks has finally made the Incline truly snowy and icy. If you plan on heading up the Incline after getting a photo, be very careful. Make sure you have traction devices such as Yaktrax, Kahtoola Microspikes or Stabilicers Lite.
