If you've heard this fall that the Ute Pass Regional Trail is "finally connecting," you've heard half the story. A new stretch of paved and gravel trail through Cascade is on track to open this fall, and for the first time you'll be able to walk or ride continuously between Cascade, Chipita Park, and Green Mountain Falls without touching the shoulder of Highway 24. That part is real, and it's been two decades in the making.
What isn't happening this fall is the part everyone actually wants: a car-free route down to Manitou Springs. That piece is stuck, and the reason it's stuck says something useful about who really controls trail access up here.
What Actually Opens This Fall
El Paso County Parks has been building a 1.5-mile paved and gravel segment starting at the Fountain Avenue and Highway 24 intersection in Cascade, near The Wines of Colorado, and running to the existing Teller County trail connection at Winnemucca Road. The segment includes an official trailhead and a portal for the Ring the Peak Trail, the long-discussed loop around Pikes Peak. Roughly $400,000 of the funding came through a Pikes Peak Outdoors grant, part of a larger $3 million push tied to a Great Outdoors Colorado award for regional recreation projects.
What this segment actually does is close the gap between Cascade and the trail network that already links Chipita Park, Green Mountain Falls, and the Teller County line. Jason Meyer, who has overseen the project for El Paso County Parks, put it plainly: you won't have to drive between Cascade and Green Mountain Falls anymore, you can take your bike on a nice day and just go. Green Mountain Falls resident Wes Ritner described the current reality before this fix: sections with no trail meant you were either running on the highway or making your own path through the brush.
The trail has come together in pieces over more than two decades, and the timeline explains why this year's segment matters more than it might look on paper.
| Year | What Was Built | What It Connected |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Initial trail construction begins | Foundation for the 11-mile vision |
| 2006 | Segment extended | Links to Teller County |
| 2008 | Connector segment | Ties the first two pieces together |
| 2013 | Historic route segment | Links out of Manitou Springs, along the Ute Trail alignment |
| 2026 | Cascade to Winnemucca Road | Closes the gap so Cascade, Chipita Park, and Green Mountain Falls form one continuous stretch |
Add it up and this fall's opening finishes the piece that makes the canyon towns function as one walkable corridor for the first time. That's the part worth knowing if you live in any of them.
Why the Trail Still Stops at Cascade
The remaining gap, roughly a mile and a half between the new Cascade trailhead and the existing trail near the Manitou Incline, is the hardest section of the entire project. Meyer has been direct about what it involves: the route would run through Colorado Department of Transportation right of way, cross Fountain Creek, and pass over land owned by Colorado Springs Utilities.
"We have some very large stakeholders that need to be engaged with us and aligned on timing and funding. We're going to need partnerships to get that last space done."
As of this fall, that final segment is on hold while the county prioritizes other work in its regional park system. There's no construction timeline, and the design work for the crossing itself hasn't been finished.
It's worth knowing that Colorado Springs Utilities shows up more than once in Ute Pass trail decisions this year. The same utility that owns the watershed property blocking the Manitou connection is also in talks to close the Crystal Trail, a backcountry route near the North Slope Reservoir popular with advanced hikers, to make way for an infrastructure project. In exchange, the utility has proposed putting more investment into the Catamount Trail instead. Different trail system, same landowner, same year. If you're trying to predict what happens to trail access around Green Mountain Falls over the next few years, Colorado Springs Utilities is the name to watch, not just the county parks department.
Something to Actually Walk To
The timing lines up with a second piece of news that gives the newly connected loop an actual destination. The Columbine Pour House, inside the 115-year-old Green Mountain Falls Lodge at 10755 Ute Pass Avenue, is now officially open. The building was known as the Columbine Inn and later the Columbine Lodge and Hotel long before it became today's Green Mountain Falls Lodge, and the new bar takes its name from that history.
Owners Shannon and Bobby Jackson both teach at Paragon Culinary School and have deep ties to Black Bear Distillery just down the street in Green Mountain Falls, where Bobby remains the lead distiller. That connection matters because Black Bear closed its own tasting room last fall to focus on a new restaurant project in Woodland Park, which left the distillery without a place to pour its own spirits, including its Irish whiskey. The Columbine Pour House has stepped into that role, carrying the full Black Bear lineup alongside a menu built around charcuterie boards, crostini, sandwiches, and salads, a workaround for a space without a full commercial kitchen. The room seats 40 inside around the original stone fireplace and another 20 on a side patio with a mountain view.
For anyone using the newly connected trail, that's the kind of stop that didn't exist before this year.
The Rest of the Season, for the Record
A few other things wrapped or continued as summer turned to fall. The Green Mountain Falls Summer Music Series, hosted by Building Ute Pass Community at the GMF Farmstand, closed out its run on September 9 with a set from Manitou Strings, following earlier performances from Tenderfoot Bluegrass and Look'ee Here. The weekly Green Box art walks are still going, meeting every Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Farm Stand and led by Dr. José Antonio Arellano, who's been part of the Green Box program since its 2006 festival.
One more thing worth flagging if you use the town pool: Green Mountain Falls' outdoor pool, running since the 1940s, is wrapping its final season as the town pursues a larger aquatic project tied to a Gazebo Lake Park expansion.
If you're planning to walk the new Cascade segment before the weather turns, a few practical notes:
- The new trailhead sits off Spring Street in Cascade, right at the Fountain Avenue and Highway 24 intersection, near The Wines of Colorado.
- The surface is a mix of paved and gravel, built to also serve as a pedestrian sidewalk along a stretch that has never had one.
- There's no posted date yet for when the Manitou Springs connection gets designed, let alone built, so plan on driving that leg for now.
What This Actually Changes
For residents of Cascade, Chipita Park, and Green Mountain Falls, this fall marks the first time in more than twenty years of piecemeal construction that the canyon towns function as one continuous stretch you can walk or bike without a car. That's a genuine shift in daily routine, and the Columbine Pour House gives it somewhere to end up.
The bigger version of this story, a car-free link all the way down to Manitou Springs and the broader Front Range trail network, is still tied up in negotiations between the county, CDOT, and Colorado Springs Utilities, with no completion date attached. Anyone telling you that piece is imminent is ahead of the actual paperwork.
We track these details because they're the kind of on-the-ground shifts that shape what it's actually like to live along this stretch of the Pass, not just what shows up in a listing description. If you're weighing a move within the Ute Pass corridor, curious what a property near the new trail segment is worth, or just want a straight read on how these towns are changing, Michael Turner and the team are happy to talk it through. Book an appointment whenever you're ready.
