Front Range
Pineries Open Space protects Palmer Divide forest and meadow
A Porch Note from Colorado Porch — plain-English local details for all 64 Colorado counties.
Up on the Palmer Divide, north of Colorado Springs, the Black Forest is easy to picture only as subdivisions and fire scars. Pineries Open Space tells the older story. The 1,070-acre site rolls gently across ponderosa pine forest, grassland meadows, wetlands, and small ponds, and it holds elk, whitetail deer, raptors, and turkeys.
Conservation is woven into its identity, not bolted on. The Palmer Land Trust holds a conservation easement here to protect the scenic, wildlife, aesthetic, recreational, and ecological values of the land. The first phase of improvements opened up the space itself along with a large trailhead, a restroom, and about nine miles of single-track trail.
The 2013 Black Forest Fire burned through this ground hard enough to delay the public opening for years. That history is part of why the place feels the way it does. The trail network reads less like a fresh amenity and more like one chapter in a long recovery — a stretch of forest that was nearly lost, then gathered up under an easement and tended slowly back toward health.
Maps, current access, and stewardship details live on El Paso County’s Pineries Open Space page, and they are worth a glance before a first visit since trail conditions on recovering land can shift.
Sources
Official or primary sources used for this note. Local details can change, so confirm before acting.