Friends of the Peak

06/25/2026

New Executive Director of the El Paso County Parks Department, which oversees more than 7,800 acres of open space, regional parks, trails, and nature centers serving residents across the county. El Paso County looks forward to the leadership and vision Janna Tidwell, from Addison Parks and Recreation in Addison, Texas, where she previously served as Director, will bring to the Parks Department as she begins her role on June 15, 2026.

El Paso County is pleased to announce that Janna Tidwell has been selected as the new Executive Director of the El Paso County Parks Department, which oversees more than 7,800 acres of open space, regional parks, trails, and nature centers serving residents across the county.

To read more about the announcement, visit: https://www.elpasoco.com/el-paso-county-announces-new-executive-director-of-parks-department/

06/23/2026

Tired of having to squeeze through this minor obstruction when hiking up the lower Barr Trail the last few years?
Yeah, we were too.
So a few of our volunteers fixed it on Saturday.
The bigger rock (with the pick mattock on it for scale) was too big to move, so we pried the smaller rock (55"x32"x12") away from it and leaned it against the hillside.
And now there's a nice clear path.

06/06/2026

In case you Missed it this winter~ Colorado grants $2.5 million to launch long-term vision for tourism and recreation around Pikes Peak Ring the Peak Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance

The grant will help finish the Ring the Peak trail, develop campsites and bring “boots-on-the ground” ambassadors to educate hikers

05/23/2026

Pre-season activity on Barr Trail.

In March we were contacted by an Air Force recruiter who asked if he could have a group of new recruits help us with any of our work.

Guess what our answer was…
If you guessed “YES”, you’re correct!

We agreed on a workday where the volunteers would carry fence posts and fence rails up Barr trail from our stockpile at an elevation of 6,900’ to a storage location 0.9 mile up the trail at an elevation of 7,500’. On March 26 a group of 26 recruits and recruiters met us and got the job done.

Having all this lumber staged up the trail where it is needed will greatly increase our productivity on Barr trail post and rail days this summer. Speaking of which, the first post and rail day (i.e., days when we fix the fences) is scheduled for Saturday, June 6.

By the time you read this, we will have had our first workday of the season. So check that schedule on our website
https://friendsofthepeak.org/volunteerwithus/
and pick out some days to join us!

Happy Trails to All!

05/14/2026

Our calendar is finally out! You can sign up right here: https://friendsofthepeak.org/volunteerwithus/

And..... our first workday is very soon: Sunday, May 17, 2026.
Sign up today and start working on earning your new FOTP hat!
Be the first kid on your block to earn one!

03/25/2026

These turkeys probably did the Manitou Incline and were coming back down Barr trail. Until they saw and heard me. All together there were twelve. 🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃

12/09/2025

We had our annual year-end event on November 2, but it seems that nobody took any pictures there. We'd like to share that Geoff Rutecki was recognized with the 2025 Volunteer of the Year award. Susan presented him with a hardbound copy of the AdAmAn club's centennial book, autographed by all living members of the club. Congratulations, Geoff!

Since we didn't have any pictures of Geoff at the the banquet, I looked in our 2025 photo archive for pictures of Geoff on the trail. The problem with that is that he almost always had his head down, working. But I did find this one picture. Geoff is coming down Barr trail from the "Corral" (or Top of the W's) towards the Incline bail-out, about 2:30 pm. He told us there were no more problems we needed to address that day, so we could all head back to the trailhead. This was in September, on day 1 of our 3-day Slip-n-Trip project before the Pikes Peak Marathon.