The paved road ends at a gate at the top of Wellfleet Street in Broadmoor Bluffs. Behind it is 343 acres of the City of Colorado Springs' newest open space. The land climbs from 6,650 feet at its eastern edge to 9,000 feet at its northwestern point and holds ravines, granite cliff faces, mixed conifer forest and Gambel oak savanna. Pike National Forest borders it on the west, Broadmoor Hotel holdings on the north, and Cheyenne Mountain State Park and Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station on the south.
The city bought the land in two phases, in November 2021 and March 2022, working with The Conservation Fund. The purchase was paid for with $2.95 million in TOPS sales tax revenue and a $1.25 million Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. Nearly five years later, the city's Fishers Canyon project page still lists the project as "Planning Phase." It says the site has no access except a small network of social trails used by neighboring residents and some remnants of early-20th-century tourism trails from the Broadmoor Hotel.
So when will it open? The trail map won't tell you. The adopted plan opens the canyon in phases, and the step that full opening depends on is a zoning change at the bottom of the hill.
How the Opening Date Has Moved
Each new estimate has pushed the date back a bit, and each one has been reasonable on its own terms.
| When it was said | Source | What it projected |
|---|---|---|
| May 2025 | The Gazette's plan breakdown | A goal of opening trails "next year," meaning 2026 |
| City project page, undated | City of Colorado Springs | "Early 2026" for the start of implementation |
| January 21, 2026 | City's 2026 parks outlook | Rezoning, fire mitigation and design during 2026, with trail and trailhead construction expected in late 2026 |
| September 8, 2026 | Springsmag interview with city staff | Construction underway in 2027, with public access hoped for "by next year" |
The most recent estimate comes from David Deitemeyer, the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services administrator who led the master plan. In the Springsmag interview, he said construction of the trailhead and trail system is now expected in 2027 and that "public construction hasn't begun yet." He also described work the public can't see:
"From a public perspective, it might look like nothing is getting done. But we have been coordinating with utilities, doing some additional investigation on utilities in the area, and we have been doing grant funded fire mitigation this summer."
He pointed out that the city acquired the land in 2022, said "we should hopefully have access by next year," and added that "for a government time frame, that's pretty good speed." That is a hope from staff, not a scheduled opening date. The master plans themselves are 10- to 15-year guiding documents.
Why Everything Waits on One Street
Fishers Canyon has a single front door. Officials have said Wellfleet Street is the only public right-of-way into the open space. The plan calls for a road through a gate at the end of the street, leading to a trailhead parking lot. The phasing is also built around that lot. When City Council adopted the plan in June 2025, Deitemeyer said the park would not fully open until the first parking lots were built.
That puts the steps in this order:
- Rezoning to PK (Park). City attorneys said during the 2025 appeal that the rezoning must be approved before construction starts on the parking lots or any other development. The city's January 2026 outlook listed the rezoning as 2026 work. Our research found no public record yet of a Planning Commission or City Council hearing on it.
- Design and utilities. Trail and trailhead design was scheduled for 2026, and city staff described ongoing utility coordination as of September.
- Trailhead construction. The plan starts with 61 paved spaces, two of them for horse trailers, and allows up to 110 if demand calls for more.
- Full opening. The phases leave room for some public access before the entire open space opens, an approach that came out of public feedback. Deitemeyer summarized what the city heard as "'start small,' 'start to allow some sort of public access but not the entire component.'"
That order makes the rezoning the date to watch. The published sources don't say what limited access might come first, but they are clear that the full opening waits on the Wellfleet Street parking, and the parking can't be built until the zoning is changed.
The Neighborhood Debate Behind the Sequence
Much of that phasing came from the people who live closest to the canyon. City Council voted 5-4 on June 24, 2025, to reject an appeal brought by residents, most of them from the Spires neighborhood and the parts of Broadmoor Bluffs that border the canyon. The concerns they raised included the cost of opening more parks, wildfire, and bear migration. In a February survey run by the city, about 65% of all respondents strongly supported the plan. Among Spires respondents alone, about 65% opposed it.
The adopted plan includes specific responses to those concerns. A fence between the canyon and backyards would sit at least 150 feet from homes, and it would only be built if trespassing became a problem. The Gazette's coverage of the vote also recorded the argument for opening the canyon. One councilmember said existing trails are "overrun" and that Fishers Canyon offers a way to spread visitors out. At full build-out, the plan estimates as many as 217 vehicles a day on weekends.
The "start small" approach was how the plan tried to satisfy both groups, and it is also why the full opening can't move faster than the trailhead.
What the Plan Puts Behind the Gate
Once the first phase is done, the canyon will offer terrain that the rest of the city's park system doesn't have. Deitemeyer told the Gazette it reminded him of Stratton Open Space and the deep canyons of North Cheyenne Cañon. He compared the upper elevations, which are the highest in the city's park system, to the subalpine terrain of Pikes Peak's South Slope Recreation Area. According to the Gazette's breakdown of the plan, the adopted design includes:
- A stacked-loop system of 9 to 10 miles for hikers, bikers and equestrians, running from lower meadows up to granite outcrops above 9,000 feet
- About 3 miles of the Chamberlain Trail as the system's spine
- The Fishers Canyon Trail, a hiking-only route up to Legends Outcrop with a panorama of Pikes Peak, the foothills and the plains, designed to connect to Cheyenne Mountain State Park trails
- A short accessible loop in the lower part of the open space, built for people with disabilities
- Possible climbing on Legends Outcrop and the large boulders, to be decided later through a separate climbing area management plan that the city lists as a high priority for the next one to four years
Neighbors who walk dogs will want to know two of the planned rules. Dogs won't be allowed on the Fishers Canyon Trail, and the trail may close seasonally while raptors are nesting. Both rules are meant to protect wildlife. These are rules in the plan, not rules being enforced at an open site, and we have not found any published rules on dogs or bikes for the other planned trails.
Mountain biking in the upper canyon depends on something outside the city's control. The plan leaves room for it only if the U.S. Forest Service someday approves the undesignated MacNeil Ridge trail in Pike National Forest next door. Cory Sutela of Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates called that possibility "a huge win for the future of a significant regional trail connection."
Where the Chamberlain Trail Comes In
The Wellfleet trailhead is also one piece of a longer trail plan. The Chamberlain Trail is planned to run along the city's foothills from Blodgett Open Space through Red Rock Canyon Open Space, Bear Creek Regional Park, Stratton Open Space and North Cheyenne Cañon Park before reaching Fishers Canyon. In September, Deitemeyer said about 20 of the trail's roughly 32 master-planned miles are built. That count includes shared-use trails and road connections.
The Fishers Canyon plan maps two possible future access points that don't go through Wellfleet Street. One is a Chamberlain extension north to North Cheyenne Cañon. The other is a long hike from the Fishers Canyon Trail down to the state park's Limekiln parking lot. The same alignment would also advance the Cheyenne Mountain Heritage Trail, a planned 30-mile loop around the base of Cheyenne Mountain. The city says it would follow the historic riding trails used by Spencer Penrose.
Deitemeyer described the biggest obstacles to finishing the Chamberlain as partnerships and community buy-in, and gaps where "individual property owners who don't have an interest" sit along the route. None of that changes the order in Fishers Canyon itself, where the planned main trailhead is still at the end of Wellfleet Street.
The most direct way to follow the next step is the city's Fishers Canyon Open Space newsletter. Questions about the project go to the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services team at [email protected].
If you own a home near Wellfleet Street, Broadmoor Bluffs or the Spires, a 61-space trailhead becomes part of what a buyer will ask about, and the sequence above is what it depends on. Michael DuBois tracks projects like this across southwest Colorado Springs. If you'd like to talk through what the Fishers Canyon timeline could mean for your plans, let's connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
