Years-long work on a new trail to the top of Pikes Peak will go into the summer with a head of steam.

That’ll be in the form of funding that Rocky Mountain Field Institute (RMFI) Executive Director Jolie NeSmith described as a relief.

“Super stoked,” she said of $250,000 recently announced from Colorado Parks and Wildlife — major for the next three years of construction on a re-routed Devils Playground Trail on the backside of the 14,115-foot mountain.

The money is from CPW’s annual round of grants within the agency’s Non-Motorized Trail program. Similar funding for three years kicked off the Devils Playground job in 2019.

But the job has been without that level of financial support the past couple of seasons. Recent years slow progress through the Teller County woods where the U.S. Forest Service has long sought to replace the eroded, hazardous summit path. The agency’s blueprint calls for four miles trending south of Devils Playground’s current alignment. 

RMFI worked through staffing and logistical complications during the COVID-19 pandemic, before the contracted nonprofit changed leadership. NeSmith took the reins last spring.

Going into the project, RMFI’s past leadership voiced confidence in the new trail getting built over four years. That was “super crazy,” NeSmith said. “It’s also why we weren’t getting funding, because I think it’s what we wrote into our grants back then.”

The job, she said, “is really more like a 10-year project.”

RMFI reports about 1 1/2 miles of trail are still to be built. But NeSmith has said the figure can over-simplify construction aimed at “sustainability and durability,” including hundreds of erosion-mitigating steps and walls made of rock and timber. Following the build, RMFI will then work on closing the old trail and restoring the natural area.

This summer, RMFI staff alongside Rocky Mountain Youth Corps hands will start construction above treeline. While contending with the elements above 11,000 feet, “it’s 100% backbreaking work,” NeSmith said.

The Forest Service’s design calls for a path of stone steps and crushed material over the alpine. “It’s not just cutting a trail, it’s all rock work,” NeSmith said. “And it’s having to source that rock material from the natural habitat.”

RMFI plans to launch the job by inviting volunteers to help haul up camp and construction equipment. The pack-in is scheduled for June 12.