Summer Tours Series – #1 The El Paso Canal

Please note, only one guest per ticket request submission.

Directions/ Parking: – This tour celebrates the city’s sesquicentennial as it features its earliest use of water. Registration check in will begin at 6 PM and take place at Bristol Elementary School, 890 North Walnut Street, Colorado Springs. There will be two groups. The “hiking” group will walk up and down the moderately rough, irregular terrain of the mesa before re-joining the “walking” group. According to our guide, Horst Richardson, “In my near-Westside neighborhood close to Bristol Elementary School, the El Paso Canal continues to be a prominent feature. The canal that helped the city grow by providing water for irrigation in 1871 is still visible here and can be accessed on foot. I will provide pertinent photos and maps.” 

HIKING GROUP: Horst will lead the hiking group from the school parking lot up the hill to the canal and onto the top of the mesa where once two reservoirs dating from 1878 were located for the city’s fresh water supply. After touring the reservoirs with the walking group, they will descend the mesa, look at his back yard through which the canal flowed, then walk to the neighbor’s property to join the walking group. 

WALKING GROUP: This group will carpool a few blocks to the top of the mesa, tour the reservoirs, then return to the school and walk to the neighbor’s property on level ground. 

BOTH GROUPS: Horst Richardson’s neighbor is restoring not only the canal’s channel but also an old flume. We will then carpool a few blocks north to the Catamount Center in Sondermann Park to trace the canal through part of the park. As counterintuitive as it seems, the gravity canal was on its way north to cross Monument Creek just south of Fillmore Street! 

Participants should wear walking shoes, long pants, and bring drinking water. For hikers sturdy hiking boots and walking sticks are also recommended. The tour is not wheelchair accessible.