About Our Community Involvement Efforts

Advocating for the Land that Makes the Pikes Peak Region Home

Land advocacy is about more than conserving landscapes; it’s about championing the places that shape everyday life in Colorado Springs. Trails & Open Space Coalition works with residents, partners, and local leaders to inspire community involvement and strengthen connections to the land that keeps our region close to nature. Through advocacy, programs, and partnerships, we help ensure the parks, trails, and open spaces that define the Pikes Peak region remain part of our shared future.

From Local Trails to Regional Open Spaces

Trails & Open Space Coalition began in 1987 as a citizen-led effort to expand the region’s trail system. What started as a small coalition of outdoor advocates quickly grew into a community-driven organization focused on engaging residents, building partnerships, and strengthening connections to parks, trails, and open spaces across the Pikes Peak region.

Over the years, that effort has helped build hundreds of miles of trails, expand open space access, and advance policies that support responsible growth and lasting community access to public lands. Today, TOSC continues to work alongside local governments, nonprofits, and residents to encourage thoughtful stewardship of the region’s parks, trails, and open spaces as our home grows.

Turning Advocacy Into Action

Protecting the outdoors takes more than policy or planning. It takes people showing up for the land and for each other. Through community programs, Trails & Open Space Coalition helps people experience the outdoors, care for it, and become land advocates across the Pikes Peak region.

Get Out!

(GO!)

Encourages physical and mental wellness through outdoor activity. By helping people reconnect with nature, this program builds the foundation for long-term land and water preservation.

One Bag Challenge

(OBC)

Turns simple acts of environmental cleanup into a regional movement for trail conservation and civic engagement. It’s a hands-on way to take ownership of the land right in your own neighborhood.

Building Outdoor Advocates of Tomorrow

(BOAT)

Empowers children and adults alike to engage in conservation land research, environmental outreach, and leadership development — helping shape the next generation of conservationists.

Helping Colorado Springs Stay Livable

Protecting the outdoors isn’t one project or one program. It’s a long-term commitment to keeping the landscapes around us accessible, healthy, and connected. Across the Pikes Peak region, Trails & Open Space Coalition helps advance projects that strengthen land access for all.

Trail Expansion and Access

We advocate for expanding and maintaining regional trail systems so people can easily walk, bike, and explore the outdoors.

Open Space Preservation

Working alongside local leaders and partner organizations, we support initiatives that protect our public lands and keep open landscapes from being permanently lost to development.

Habitat and Wildlife Protection

Through advocacy and collaboration, our work supports natural habitats and advances efforts focused on protecting wildlife throughout the Pikes Peak region.

Where You Can See the Impact

Across Colorado Springs and the surrounding region, Trails & Open Space Coalition helps support projects that strengthen land protection and expand access to the outdoors.

Legacy Loop

A revitalized urban trail system helping connect neighborhoods throughout Colorado Springs while improving access to parks and open spaces.

Botanic Gardens Project

A future public destination focused on sustainable land stewardship, native ecosystems, and hands-on conservation education.

Track Chair Access

An effort to expand outdoor access by funding adaptive track chairs, connecting people with mobility challenges to rugged terrain, natural spaces, and the full experience of the outdoors.

Powered By Our Community

None of this work happens alone.

Trails & Open Space Coalition is 100% member supported, powered by people across the Pikes Peak region who believe the outdoors is worth protecting. Local residents, families, businesses, and community leaders all play a role in sustaining healthy ecosystems.

Together, this community makes it possible to advocate for smarter growth, expand trail access, and protect the parks, open spaces, and landscapes that define life in Colorado.

Because when people come together around the places they love, lasting land advocacy becomes possible.

Help Advocate for the Landscapes That Shape Our Region

The trails we walk, the parks we gather in, and the open spaces that surround our communities exist because people continue to stand up for them.

Join Trails & Open Space Coalition and help support the work of land advocacy across the Pikes Peak region. Because protecting these places today helps ensure they remain part of life here tomorrow.