| Protecting Colorado's mountain parks system
By Joanne Ditmer
May 9, 2009
Where else? Where but amazing Denver would you go to city parks that range from the top of a mountain to the
plains and five life zones between?
That was the marveling message about Denver Mountain Parks in Associated Press
stories across the nation before the Democratic National Convention here last August.
Our mountain parks would
be the envy of any city in the world, an amazing legacy from civic leaders a century ago, who had the unbelievable foresight
to establish these beautiful places to be protected and developed for the public's enjoyment.
The entire state's
1900 population was 539,700, and Denver in 1912 about 200,000, so there weren't the fierce development pressures that spawned
40 other open space groups half a century later.
But they knew these lands were an irreplaceable legacy for Denver's
citizens, and took steps to ensure we'd have them to enjoy decades later. Remarkable trails and outstanding buildings enhanced
the lands. Denver's Mountain Parks are so significant that they are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This legacy includes 22 developed parks and 24 conservation/wilderness areas, today scattered among four counties,
who partner well with Denver, even spending some money for facilities on Denver parks in their counties. Red Rocks is probably
the best known, and it's the only one that makes money.
Others are 89-acre Winter Park ski area in Grand County
- providing $2.2 million annually to Denver parks department, 1,000 acre Daniels Park - with buffalo! - in Douglas, 7 parks
totaling 2,780 acres in Clear Creek and 36 parks of 10,271 acres in Jefferson.
Recent surveys show that at least
68 percent of Denver households, or 400,000, visit a typical mountain park at least once a year. Add Red Rocks, Buffalo Bill
and Mount Evans and it goes to three million. Another survey found that many of those visitors didn't realize they were at
a Denver (ital) Mountain Park.
The mountain parks are 14,141 acres of Denver's 20,000 acres of parks. And get a
scant one percent of the park system's operating budget, and three percent, or about $200,000, of its capitol budget. The
mountain parks had a dedicated 0.5 mill levy from 1912 to 1956, and if that were still in place, it would have yielded about
$4.2 million last year for the parks maintenance, etc.
Unfortunately it was stopped, and so funding and future
of the mountain parks has been precarious at times. I've written for the Post since 1958, and there have been several "Why
does Denver have these parks? Why don't we sell them?" rounds by those oblivious to their true and intrinsic value.
These are the lands that invite people of all ages and family sizes and income to have a mountain experience, to get
acquainted with nature, have a picnic by a stream, take a hike, have a rare solitary meditation. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
rode horseback in the foothills to select sites for his original 1914 plan, choosing lands for watershed and view values,
the tops of peaks, waterways, wilderness areas.
The first was 5,700 acres purchased at $1.25 an acre from the U.S.
Forest Service when the land was threatened by timbering in 1912.
Now Genesee Park, a clause in the sale states
that if ever the land is not used as a park, it reverts at no cost to the forest service.
Actually 93 percent of
the mountain parks have similar deed restrictions so they can't be sold. That was a wise protection against the short-sighted
who only see temporary money value.
Happily Mayor John Hickenlooper and citizens decided it was time for a more
positive outlook for the mountain parks. He appointed a 50 member advisory committee which spent 18 months looking at the
mountain parks and making recommendations.
This dedicated group crafted the Denver Mountain Parks Master Plan,
with project manager Susan Edwards Baird, natural resources planner for Parks and Recreation, and consultant Tina Bishop,
and major funding from Great Outdoors Colorado and The Denver Mountain Parks Foundation, formed in 2005.
Released
in January, the Master Plan is fascinating reading, with an abundance of historic maps, old photos, interesting stories; download
it at http://denvermountain parks.org. The 156-page book version is $35; order from susan.baird@denvergov.org.
Master
plan recommendations, including new funding sources and improved identification for the parks, can restore these historic
lands to world-class quality if Denver and its citizens start now.
"Mayor Hickenlooper wants to plant a million
trees in Denver and we have a million trees in our mountain parks that already help us be a "green city," noted
Bart Berger, founder and president of the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation. "The greatest challenge is to get Denver
citizens to appreciate what we have in our mountain parks, and to understand they are stewards for what we've inherited. The
continued threat is apathy. The most hopeful thing is this re-invigorated interest and effort, and the good relationship we
have with neighboring counties to care for and enjoy these great lands."
(Denver Post columnist Joanne Ditmer
has been writing on environmental and urban issues for The Post since 1962.)
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Article
Published: Friday, December 24, 2004
RETURNING LUSTER AND VALUE TO NECKLACE OF MOUNTAIN PARKS
By Mike
McPhee
Denver Post Staff Writer
Photo: Kathryn Scott Osler
W. Bart Berger, pictured in Genesee
Park near Chief Hosa Lodge, has formed the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises funds to
assist in the maintenance and improvement of the mountain parks system.
In the 100 years since the automobile first
arrived, travel has improved, to say the least.
In 1904, Evergreen was a remote logging camp and summer resort,
reachable only on horseback or by buggy, up Bear Creek on a dirt road from Morrison.
In 2004, Vail is an easy 200-mile
day trip for skiing or fishing and back in time for dinner.
A hundred years ago, Denver's leaders wisely understood
how automobile travel would give city dwellers access into the mountains for a day of picnicking or fishing or hiking, and
enable them to get back down the same day.
With the help of famed park planner Frederick Law Olmstead Jr., Denver
established a necklace of mountain parks - just outside the city - owned and paid for by Denver for the enjoyment of all residents
without charge.
Stretching from Lookout Mountain across Evergreen and over Mount Evans to Sedalia, the parks include
Bergen Park, Dedisse Park and Genesee Park.
Once enormously popular, the little gems today are nearly forgotten,
as interstate drivers speed past them toward the larger national parks and forests over the Continental Divide.
And
there is little money to maintain them.
One man is trying to change that.
W. Bart Berger - who lives
with his wife, Fabby Hillyard, former head of Denver's Theatres and Arenas, among the parks on the western edge of Jefferson
County - has formed the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization to raise funds to assist in the maintenance
and improvement of the mountain parks system.
"I wake up to these parks. I see them every day," Berger
said. "To most Denverites, these parks are invisible and not appreciated. That piques my interest."
Berger,
a fourth-generation Coloradan whose great-grandfather was three-term Gov. Alva Adams, has never shied away from a civic project.
He has spent his 55 years involved in numerous public projects, serving as treasurer of the Colorado Historical Society, as
a commissioner of the Denver Landmarks Commission, and several terms as chairman of his late-brother's WMBBerger Foundation,
which connects kids with nature.
As Berger looked into the parks, he found an odd political reality. Although the
48 parks are owned by Denver, they cover 22 square miles in Jefferson, Clear Creek, Douglas and Grand counties.
With
no financial advocate in government, the parks receive only 1 percent of Denver's parks department budget for maintenance
yet constitute nearly 72 percent of the acreage of Denver's parks and open spaces.
"We want to help fulfill
the mission of Denver Parks and Recreation to preserve, protect and enhance these recreational resources through a public/private
partnership," Berger wrote in a letter to prospective members.
"This is the right thing to do. These
parks don't have a higher and better use," he said.
Berger has no formal agreement with the city but has received
an enthusiastic response from city officials. On Dec. 21, Mayor John Hickenlooper expressed his wholehearted support for the
plan.
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