CASCADE, Colo. -- Environmentalists say the future of Pikes Peak, a beacon to settlers and gold seekers when the West was won, is threatened by the road 300,000 people drive each year to its 14,110-foot summit.
The Sierra Club, usually a strong foe of roads of any kind in scenic areas, is suing the city of Colorado Springs and the U.S. Forest Service to force them to pave the 19-mile road. All but six miles are gravel.The group says the city, which operates the road through a separate enterprise, has ignored its own studies, and the recommendation of the Forest Service, that the road be paved to reduce environmental damage caused by the tons of gravel used to maintain it.
City officials say they don't have the nearly $15 million needed to pave and stabilize the road, but environmentalists say something must be done and soon.
"Perhaps it's appropriate that they call it America's Mountain, because like so many other things in America they took it and trashed it," said Gail Snyder, Sierra Club member and a member of the Pikes Peak Advisory Commission.
The city shut down the commission after the lawsuit was filed last month, saying Snyder's presence on the commission could harm their case.
"Pikes Peak or Bust" was the goal of gold miners in 1859. The man for whom it is named, explorer Zebulon Pike, first saw it from 150 miles away in 1806 and abandoned an attempt to climb it, warning no man ever would.
He was wrong, of course, and the view from its summit inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write "America the Beautiful" in 1893.
More than a century later, in some areas beneath the road, trees buried under gravel have died.
One reservoir below the road, apparently not contaminated by the gravel runoff, is a sparkling blue. An adjacent pool, apparently hit by the runoff, sometimes seems almost gray. At one point along the road, water from a culvert has cut a gully 17-feet deep in the hillside.
The gravel slides down the slopes, damaging the hillsides that support the road, said Snyder, co-author of one of the city-ordered studies that recommended paving the road.
Snyder said the city keeps stalling on paving the road because sponsors of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb say that would make it too dangerous. Dust from the gravel gives the race a certain cachet, slows drivers down, and gives more traction if the road is wet.
Paula Vickerman, spokeswoman for Pikes Peak -- America's Mountain, said: "We love the hill climb. But it is not a factor in our decision on what to do environmentally."
She said the city and her organization, which she described as a government-owned enterprise, "desperately wants to make these improvements."
The city doesn't have the money and cannot even promise to spend it in the future because it cannot commit future councils to spend the millions of dollars needed.
"It's our goal to get it done in the next six to eight years," she said.
Snyder said the lawsuit was filed because the city refused to formally commit itself to any time period. The Sierra Club first urged the paving of the road in 1972.
John Fredell, senior attorney for the city's utility administration, said the Sierra Club wants to "either close the highway or force the people of Colorado Springs to pay for improving a national asset."
Snyder said: "Personally I believe it would be better for the mountain if it was closed. But I have promoted the highway because it gives visitors from a range of physical conditions the opportunity to go to the summit."
Vickerman said 87 percent of the people who drive up the road are from outside Colorado Springs and "it would be unfair for Colorado Springs residents to pay for damage largely caused by outsiders."
The Sierra Club has criticized the city for proceeding with plans to pay up to $15 million for a new visitor's center at the summit. But "Summit House is falling off the mountain. We have 40 hydraulic jacks holding it up," Vickerman said.
Fredell said the city is preparing to hire a consultant to determine the best way to fix the road. Some have questioned whether paving would work at that altitude.
Dan Hopkins, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said his agency has maintained a paved road for decades up Mount Evans, itself more than 100 feet higher than Pikes Peak, with no problem.
"Technically or from an engineering standpoint there is no problem with paving" at that altitude, he said.
Fredell also said the road might have to be closed if it becomes too expensive to operate.
"Nobody has wanted to run this highway. The city took it over from the state."
No one is publicly calling for the road to be closed, though there is an alternative to the highway, a Swiss-made cog train that carries 200,000 to the top each year.