Author: R. Scott Rappold

For many of us, skis are much more than planks of wood and plastic. They’ve gotten us safely down steep, snowy mountains. We’ve endured blinding storms and frostbite-inducing temperatures in them. We’ve waxed and tuned them meticulously, likely taking better care of them than we do our cars. But when their time is up, when…

There’s a lot of history in this old church. Colorado was not even a state when, in 1872, four brothers founded Payne Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first black church in Colorado Springs. A stately stone building later was built on the triangular lot at South Weber Street and Pueblo Avenue. It’s where the…

Not long ago, hikers could pick about any peak or green valley in Colorado Springs’ mountain backdrop for a hike, bike or run. The options for a getaway within minutes of town were endless. Then the Waldo Canyon fire happened. Then the Black Forest fire happened. Then round after round of flooding. Nearly two months…

Conquer your fear of ghosts on this trail that leads to an abandoned mine and ghost town high on Pikes Peak, lasting testaments to a failed effort to scratch some valuable minerals from the peak. This is a great fall hike, but wait too long after the snow begins falling and snowshoes – or at…

Every time she goes for a walk in the network of canyons, gulches and cliffs of Corral Bluffs Open Space, Jackie Hilaire finds something new. A turtle fossil. Petrified wood. A rare bird. Even the way the light reflects off the hoodoos seems to change daily. “We’re finding more and more stuff every time the…

Earlier this year, I heard about a new brewery in town. So I drove to 2935 North Prospect St., where I hoped to find – and weasel some free samples from – Lofty Brewing Co. Instead I found a dark, empty storefront in an out-of-the-way office building. I snooped around, asked some neighboring business owners,…

There is a place that embodies stately old Colorado Springs, “Little London,” “Newport of the Rockies,” it’s Glen Eyrie. The grand castle built by Gen. William Jackson Palmer, the pristine gardens and meticulously groomed meadows speak to the elegance and refinement Palmer sought when he established a city at the foot of Pikes Peak in…

“Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race, and grant through the invocation of thy holy name; that, whoever shall drink it, may gain health in body and peace in soul.” – Roman Catholic prayer…

Grant Wilson was roped to a giant sheet of ice 220 feet above the rocky ground, when the gravity of his situation occurred to him. “The whole face kind of popped and shifted a little bit,” said Wilson, an ice climbing instructor in Colorado Springs. “It’ll wake you up.” He made it down from the…