The Santa Fe Trail, near the middle of Colorado Springs, fails to offer a genuine wilderness experience. Interstate 25 lurks a few hundred yards away, and the noise of hundreds of thousands of nearby residents creeps into your riding or running or walking escape.

But the trail is a precious slice of the Springs because it offers the suggestion of wilderness, and it’s enough of a suggestion to fool you into peaceful moments of departure from what ails you.

It’s the right time to escape. A $289,650 renovation, funded by 75% federal funds and 25% local funds, has lifted the trail to its best condition in recent memory, and this careful repair job by El Paso County comes just in time for summer. The renovation, to be completed May 15, makes the trail safer and more inviting to the road bikes pedaled by casual cyclists.

I’ve spent hundreds of happy hours since 2003 pedaling my way to nowhere and back. I start at Woodmen Road and endure the mostly uphill ride north until I get tired, then turn around and enjoy the mostly downhill ride back to my car. You can, if ambitious enough, ride the trail all the way to Palmer Lake, a 17-mile one-way journey.

The best sections of the trail wind through secluded grounds of the Air Force Academy. Over the years, I’ve seen elk, coyote, bears, hawks, herons, 4-foot snakes and a lone beaver. A friend has spotted a mountain lion, and my neighbor’s dogs survived a painful and expensive encounter with a privacy-demanding porcupine.

And here’s the good news: Unless our federal government goes bankrupt, the wildest sections of the trail will remain wild. I don’t expect the Air Force Academy to suddenly decide to slap development alongside the path.

The great blessing of living in the Springs is our abundance of urban recreation. In little time, a Springs resident can drive to Red Rock Canyon, North Cheyenne Cañon or the Santa Fe Trail for a quick escape. (This is a partial list.) You remain in city limits, and part of you realizes that bustle is just around the bend. But the beauty and release are real.

Jim Patton has, like me, been riding the trail for years. It never gets old.

“You’re isolated from the civilization that’s only a few hundred yards away,” he says. “You don’t see people. … You’re just out by yourself, and that’s a great feeling.”

Torrential, record rains in the summer of 2015 damaged the heart of the trail. For road bikes — traditional cycles with skinny tires — the ride became perilous. The rains resulted in FEMA funds and renewal.

El Paso County project manager Jason Meyer has overseen the effort to refresh the trail, and it’s been a success. Damaged sections near Monument Creek in the Air Force Academy were covered with 6 inches of new surface. This is not pavement. It’s softer and superior to pavement.

“It’s night and day difference,” Meyer says at his office. “It’s a nice sustainable surface. I think it’s going to last for years and years.”

Sometime this summer, on a day you’re feeling stressed, a day you require a break, ride or walk or run to the heart of the Santa Fe Trail. Start at Woodmen or at the parking lot near the Air Force Academy’s north entrance and journey to lonely stretches near Monument Creek.

You won’t encounter wilderness. You’ll only think you’ve encountered wilderness.