Colorado’s latest state park management plan could be a model for the nation

A pleasant but obscure state park in Colorado is revamping its 33-year-old management plan, and park managers everywhere should take notice.

Castlewood Canyon State Park is located about midway between Denver and Colorado Springs. Once the site of a dam and reservoir, the park offers an easily accessible wild escape for city dwellers and suburbanites.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife, a division of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, is now soliciting public comments on a new Park Management Plan for Castlewood Canyon. CPW is hosting an online forum on January 15 to discuss its vision. An in-person forum is scheduled for January 22.

Among other proposed changes, CPW is thinking of dividing the park into different management areas. It also wants to spend money on improving the park’s infrastructure, including roads and parking used for access.

Kara Van Hoose, the Northeast Region Public Information Officer at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said the new vision for Castlewood Canyon was inspired in part by existing management plans at Golden Gate Canyon State Park and other CPW holdings.

“We pulled framework and best practices from other parks,” Van Hoose told Public Parks. “Some other parks are divided into different zones, some aren’t. It just depends on the needs of the landscape.”

The new planning process is long overdue. Castlewood Canyon State Park’s Park Management Plan hasn’t been substantially revised since 1991, CPW says.

“The new Park Management Plan will ensure protection of its natural resources along with providing a high-quality visitor experience now and into the future,” Larry Butterfield, the parks’ manager, said in the agency’s announcement.

Lessons for well beyond Colorado

This management planning and public comment period may only pertain to this particular state park, but the future challenges CPW foresees likely pertain to other protected areas.

The draft management plan notes that metropolitan Denver and Colorado Springs are inching ever closer to Castlewood Canyon State Park’s boundaries.

The southeast Denver suburb of Parker is known for its fast growth spurt and ever-expanding housing and shopping developments, and it’s only about a 30-minute drive to the park.

Meanwhile, the city limits of Castle Rock are now set less than a mile to the west of the park boundaries. Colorado Springs to the south is also steadily expanding closer to Castlewood Canyon.

Already receiving about 200,000 visitors per year, CPW thinks visitation to the park is set to boom.

Not only does this promise more congestion, but there’s a looming demographic challenge as well.

As America is aging, the average age of park visitors is rising in tandem.

Castlewood Canyon boasts moderate trails that help visitors escape civilization, but there are plenty of rugged areas that attract rock climbers and other more adventurous types.

Even the moderate trails are getting more challenging for older visitors as temperatures rise. CPW says it’s increasingly having to rescue older hikers suffering from heat stroke during the hottest summer days. There is very little shade available along the Castlewood Canyon trail system.

Photos: Castlewood Canyon State Park, Colorado. Nathanial Gronewold, Public Parks.

“Heat exhaustion and lower extremity injuries are the main visitor issues for law enforcement staff,” CPW says in the Management Plan. “The rugged terrain of the Park makes search and rescue efforts challenging.”

Challenges common to all parks

Castlewood Canyon State Park is a contiguous protected area encompassing over 2,600 acres (1,050 hectares) surrounded by conservation easements. The easements are in place to maintain somewhat of a buffer between the park and development.

Public Parks has visited Castlewood Canyon State Park twice, once in the spring and again during winter.

Much of the park was once underwater. A reservoir and dam were there until the dam burst in the 1930s, flooding downtown Denver in a famous disaster. Visitors can spot the remnants of the dam and a bridge still standing there today.

Most of the trails are manageable by even casual hikers, but they’re not wheelchair accessible throughout. There are more difficult trails, like the Cave Trail and Climbers Trail, though even these “difficult” trails are still classified as “dog friendly.”

Hikers will traverse along open areas until coming into more canyoneering country. The trails can be icy and dangerous in winter.

The bluffs that surround the trail systems attract avid rock climbers. Birds of prey nest at Castlewood Canyon, so the park is popular with birders. Visitors can also enjoy picnicking at the park, but camping isn’t permitted.

The Castlewood Canyon State Park Management Plan is drafted with a host of geographic, climatic, and administrative challenges in mind. Most of these challenges will be familiar to park managers virtually everywhere.

First, there’s the budget squeeze.

Even as visitation rises, CPW is facing funding challenges as costs increase and there’s more competition for public funds. Rising government debt and tax burdens are also placing pressure on lawmakers to introduce more fiscal austerity, and Colorado is no stranger to these forces, either.

CPW has addressed this partly with a new “Keep Colorado Wild” initiative that allows motorists to purchase state park passes when they get their vehicles registered. This will improve CPW’s budget, but the agency doesn’t yet know what the long-term impact will be.

Entrance fees may go up at some point.

Toward the end of 2024, the state announced higher entrance fees for State Forest, Chatfield, and Golden Gate State Parks. As of January, it will now cost $12 to visit and enjoy these three popular protected areas.

CPW is also finding it harder to recruit staff as the salaries it offers can’t keep up with a skyrocketing cost of living.

The draft management plan warns of “staffing shortages resulting from difficulty in retaining full-time staff due to increased cost of living and housing shortages in surrounding areas.” CPW says it has the budget for four full-time staff at Castlewood Canyon “though not all have been filled in recent years.”

Then there’s climate change.

With older visitors traversing the park on ever hotter days, rescues for heat exhaustion are becoming more frequent.

An even greater concern is wildfires.

Castlewood Canyon State Park is found in Colorado’s arid Front Range. Currently, northern Colorado is in a state of drought. Modeling shows these droughts becoming more frequent and longer in duration, and the park is filled with and surrounded by grasses and brush that dries to what’s effectively kindling during these dry spells.

The area’s growing population is also increasing the risk of wildfires. They can be sparked by lightning, but blazes are frequently caused by human carelessness.

Zoning for the future

The new Management Plan may be revised, but the draft CPW is now circulating paints a picture of how the parks authority hopes to help Castlewood Canyon thrive in the face of these future challenges.

CPW proposes dividing the park into four management zones: a Protection Zone, a Natural Zone, a Passive Recreation Zone, and a Development Zone.

“Castlewood Canyon inherently has different zones because of how the park is constructed and the dividing highway,” Van Hoose explained. “It also follows the thinking that different land needs to be managed differently.”

This zonal approach is designed to enable focused conservation and improvement work in specific areas of the park where different projects are needed.

For instance, work on updating the park’s main visitor center and surrounding parking could fall to teams responsible for the Development Zone. Work toward compliance with federal and state endangered species laws would presumably happen in the Natural and Protection Zones.

“Zoning is based on desired future conditions,” CPW explained in the draft. “Any zone can incorporate seasonal closures or other temporal needs to achieve management focuses.”

The Plan outlines in detail how the zonal system would be set up and utilized.

The Development Zone would be a place to focus on the needs of “high-density recreation” and “high social interaction” where foot and vehicle traffic is highest. CPW says it’s considering allowing some fishing, mountain biking, and horse riding in this zone, though these are not currently listed as available activities on the Castlewood Canyon website.

The Passive Recreation Zone appears to be focused on the trail system, especially those trails popular with casual day visitors. The aim of this zone, CPW says, would be to “manage to maintain the natural character and provide sustainable recreation” among other goals.

The Natural Zone would be those parts of the park that experience the least human disturbances. People still visit these areas, but they’re more likely to encounter nature than other people. The focus here would be on “providing low-impact, non-motorized, and dispersed recreational opportunities” according to the draft Management Plan.

The Protection Zone would essentially be off-limits to humans, or access would be heavily restricted. Emphasis would be on plant and animal species protection.

“There are canyons, riverbeds, rock formations, etc. in Castlewood Canyon, so we have to be mindful about managing those differences,” Van Hoose said.

The draft Plan also outlines lower-priority management initiatives.

Castlewood Canyon State Park will join the global “dark sky” movement but only in a casual sense.

Denver and Colorado Springs are too close for the park to escape their light pollution. Managers say they’d like to get the park an official dark sky designation, but since there’s no camping at the park it likely isn’t eligible.

Managers also want the park to conduct a climate vulnerability assessment. The potential for wildfires is a concern, but flash flooding is another climate-linked problem.

Other ideas the draft is floating are considered of only minor importance.

CPW says it would be nice to install solar panels on the roofs of buildings, but this improvement ranks low on its priority list.

Members of the public have until February 9 to share their thoughts on the new Castlewood Canyon State Park Management Plan.

“Public input will be reviewed and used to inform the draft plan,” CPW said. “The management plan is expected to be published later this year.”