Photos by Dan England.
Claire Sandford and her group of a half-dozen seniors have biked the George S. Mickelson Trail in South Dakota and explored many other world-famous paths across the country. On Saturday, they chose to bike the Poudre River Trail.
That trail is a little out of their way, as they’re all from Longmont, so it was a bit of a drive to get there. But they wanted to celebrate the completion of the trail’s final segment with hundreds of other Northern Colorado residents and elected officials in what they believed to be the most appropriate way possible: riding for as long as they wanted.
“We may go down to Greeley, or we may not,” Sandford said at the celebration in Timnath.
Sandford and her group of seniors ages 64-74 now have that luxury. The completion means they can ride the 45 miles from Bellvue to Island Grove Regional Park in downtown Greeley without ever leaving the trail.
Claire Sandford (right) and her group of a half-dozen seniors celebrating the completion of the Poudre River Trail.
Larimer County and the Town of Timnath stitched the last piece of the Poudre Trail between north Windsor and south Timnath together with a $2.4 million project. Saturday’s celebration at Timnath Community Park celebrated that last piece as well as the 50-year process of building the entire 45 miles.
“For many years we’ve referred to the trail as the Fort Collins section and the Greeley/Windsor section,” said Timnath Mayor Robert Axmacher at the event. “Now it’s together. It is with great pride that this Timnath community joins in this celebration.”
Greeley and Fort Collins worked separately on the trail for decades. The two cities and their surrounding towns built it in completely different ways: Fort Collins and Larimer County relied on the open space sales taxes approved by residents to fund the trail, while Greeley, Windsor and Weld County formed a nonprofit to gather grants and donations to build their side.
But both Weld and Larimer elected officials, as well as workers from Great Outdoors Colorado, the organization funded by the Colorado Lottery that doled out millions in grants for its construction, spoke at the celebration about the collaboration it took to connect the trail.
“Today, the Poudre River Trail stands as an example of what can be accomplished when communities work together over the long term,” said Greeley Mayor Dale Hall, who also served on the nonprofit board for many years and helped work on the trail as a Weld County commissioner.
To symbolize that teamwork, a string of elected officials from Windsor, Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley and Weld and Larimer counties didn’t do a traditional ribbon cutting. Instead, they connected one. They pinned several pieces of fabric in different colors that represented all of the governing bodies into one flowing ribbon.
Elected officials from local cities, towns and Larimer and Weld counties connect a ribbon to symbolize the completion of the final section of the Poudre River Trail in Timnath.
At least a half-dozen officials spoke about the long-time dream held by both counties to knit the disparate concrete chunks into one trail.
“We’ve talked about what it would look like to connect our communities,” said Windsor Mayor Julie Cline. “Now that is a reality from the foothills to the plains.”
The Colorado Lottery chose to give a Starburst award to Larimer County for finishing the trail without mentioning Weld’s nonprofit board and the miles of the trail they built through Greeley and Windsor. But awards aren’t why Fred Otis spent 30 years as chairman of the nonprofit board. He wanted a beautiful place to train for marathons and ride his bike, and he wanted Northern Colorado residents to be able to see the Cache la Poudre River.
The day before the celebration, Otis and Susie Hall, Dale’s wife, rode the entire trail for the first time. Dale dropped them off in Bellvue. The ride was long and arduous, just like the effort that gave him the opportunity to ride.
“It was positively euphoric,” Otis said.
Hundreds of people gathered to listen to speeches by elected officials to mark the completion of the Poudre River Trail.
