FRANKTOWN, Colo. — With its rich history and diverse natural landscape, Castlewood Canyon State Park near Franktown is gearing up for a new management plan.
The plan serves as a guiding document for the park and its staff and gives Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) a blueprint for how to manage the park for the next 10 years.
Park manager Larry Butterfield has been heavily involved in drafting the plan, and it will be his job to ensure that CPW staff is adhering to the plan.
“I really appreciate having a guiding document to ensure that I am doing the absolute best for the park visitors, the natural and cultural resources,” said Butterfield. “And just coming up with the best ways of caring for this facility and all that it has to offer.”
The plan guides current and future park staff, provides a framework for maintaining natural resources, and identifies opportunities to enhance the park through upgrades to facilities and new projects.
“The thing I really like about the plan is it's going to give connectivity from one group of staff from now to 10 years from now,” explained Butterfield. “It's going to ensure we're caring for the park, and there's consistency for the plan and the park.”
CPW will be holding two public meetings for people to ask questions and give feedback about the plan before it is implemented. To register for the meetings, you can go to CPW’s management plan website here.
The first meeting is virtual and takes place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 15. The second meeting is in person at the Philip & Jerry Miller Library at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 22.
“This resource is the people’s park,” said Butterfield. “It’s very important for the residents of Colorado to get to have a say in how their state parks are managed. They’ll have an opportunity to ask questions and seek answers for how the plan is going and provide feedback for all that the plan has within it.”
The plan is still not finalized. Feedback from the public will be considered, with possible changes to the plan forthcoming.
“We're going to collect all that information,” said Butterfield. “And we're going to utilize that and see how it works with the draft plan that we have.”
If you would like to see the draft plan yourself, you can follow this link to CPW’s website.
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