At the end of January, Bill Beagle received an email from a woman introducing herself as a trustee representing the estate of an Arizona man who had recently died. There was interest in donating to the nonprofit Beagle leads, Incline Friends.

Before his death, this man had shared memories of “climbing a big hill right in my backyard,” as Beagle learned in conversation with the trustee. She seemed to appreciate the call, the history lesson Beagle provided: how the Manitou Incline was a scenic railway until 1990, then an extreme exercise for locals, then a tourist phenomenon, inspiring new friendships and stories of redemption from disease and addiction.

Beagle had no idea what would come next.

Certainly not $500,000.

Upon receiving the transactional paperwork, Beagle said he called the nonprofit’s treasurer.

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“We were both just kind of laughing, and it was this nervous kind of laughter,” Beagle said. “It was like, ‘Is this real?'”

Funds have cleared, Beagle said. Everything looks square to the attorney on Incline Friends’ board.

And while the donor remains anonymous, Incline Friends suddenly finds itself more prominent than ever.

The money grows the organization’s bank account by nearly five times, according to most recent Internal Revenue Service records.

“It’s extraordinary and incredibly humbling,” Beagle said, adding: “It’s almost embarrassing to talk about it, especially knowing how hard some people work writing grants and raising funds. This just dropped out of the sky.”

Filings show the $500,000 is nearly $117,000 more than the latest total year-end assets for Trails and Open Space Coalition, one of the region’s more influential outdoor nonprofits. According to available documents, that one-time sum outpaces annual incomes for other friends groups stewarding local parks and open spaces by as much as 10 times. (An example of a local outdoor nonprofit with a broader, regional focus is Rocky Mountain Field Institute, which reports a yearly budget close to $2 million.)

That nervous laughter might have hinted at pressure Beagle feels. But, no, he said: “I would say responsibility more than pressure.”

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Incline Friends board members have started spinning ideas, Beagle said. 

“There’s no end of challenges you can pick,” he said, “and that’s obviously why the Incline has captured the imaginations of so many people.”

The donation comes on the heels of perhaps the Incline’s most controversial chapter, dating to 2011, when the cities of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs finalized a management plan for the vacated railway. Incline Friends formed that year, not knowing how popular and contentious the trail would become.

After a months-long closure and series of heated debates last spring — long-simmering due to parking issues and traffic in the narrow, residential Ruxton corridor — a reservation system was agreed upon by the neighbor cities. Attendants have been checking in hikers at the base, who book limited spots at no charge. Colorado Springs’ parks department anticipates paying upward of $120,000 for those attendants through 2021.

Incline Friends has opposed the reservation system, and Beagle was mum when asked about financial support for it. He sounded more interested in possibly addressing concerns about the Incline’s free shuttle, what Manitou officials have said costs about $350,000 to run year-round; the cost is shared with Colorado Springs.

“You really have to look at their position,” Beagle said. “It’s a small town with a small budget.”

Incline Friends board members have posed ideas from trailhead bathrooms to educational campaigns related to trail ethics to assisting other outdoor projects in Manitou.

Manitou Incline regime set to remain despite questions of winter, funding

The organization has long envisioned a return trail from atop the Incline, an alternate to Barr Trail, which has been notoriously damaged by Incline descenders. Incline Friends has written $20,000 checks for maintenance in recent years. Last year, $32,000 paid for the construction of a mile-long “bail-out” trail close to the Incline’s halfway point, opposite of Barr.

While that was on Colorado Springs-owned property, the top return path would incorporate U.S. Forest Service land. The lack of progress has been “discouraging,” Beagle said.

“Over the years, we’ve dreamed and looked at things and thought, Well, what’s it gonna take?” he said. “Now we have these financial resources, and now we can maybe make dreams a reality.”