Alex Zorn/Post Independent
As Colorado Mountain College campuses were filled with graduates over the weekend, state wildlife and college officials will look to make the Spring Valley campus even more attractive for future students.
Last month, the campus received a grant from Colorado Parks and Wildlife to begin planning and designing new and existing trails in and out of the residential campus south of Glenwood Springs.
CMC public information officer Debbie Crawford said the school will work to create a single master trail plan aimed at designing a multi-year approach to maintenance and expansion of the current 3.5-mile trail system located at Spring Valley.
Crawford said the plan will complete three objectives:
• Provide for recommended expansion of the CMC Spring Valley campus trail system, including trails rated for adaptive hand bikes.
• Create an optimal plan to link the existing trail system to nearby public trails in the region.
• Define a maintenance plan for CMC’s current Spring Valley trail system and recommendations for shared maintenance of a future expanded trail system.
Crawford added that the grant will allow CMC to reconfigure the existing trails, so that they are more sustainable and diverse.
About half of the grant money will be used for creating a maintenance plan and realigning current trails and the other half for planning new ones.
The Spring Valley Trails Plan received $17,500 through the CPW non-motorized trail grants.
According to the description, the money will be used to create “a detailed plan for linking current trail systems to create a unified trail system for the Mt. Sopris region,” and “will outline key sources of support for the proposed expansions.”
CPW funded 19 Recreational Trail Grants for 2019, totaling close to $2 million.
Statewide Trails Program Manager Nick Dellaca said applicants presented to the CPW subcommittee for non-motorized grants, which scores the applicants out of 100 and makes recommendations to the CPW Commission.
Dellaca said applicants must score above a 70 to be recommended to the commission. The Spring Valley Trails Plan scored 77.67.
He said CMC’s utilization of different programs from across the region, including Challenge Aspen and Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers, among others, at the Spring Valley campus, was one factor in awarding the grant.
The non-motorized trail grant program is a multi-agency funding partnership that includes Great Outdoors Colorado, Colorado Lottery, Federal Recreational Trails Program funds and Federal Land and Water Conservation funds.
Four of the 19 grants rewarded were used for planning, including the Spring Valley Trail Plan. The four grants totaled $145,448.
Dellaca added that these trail projects “connect Coloradoans to the outdoors with new and improved trails and provide more places for everyone to get outside.”
