Aspen makes improvements to Glory Hole Park

The City of Aspen is undertaking a three-week project to enhance pedestrian safety and accessibility at Glory Hole Park.

The project will run from Sept. 22 through Oct. 3, Monday through Friday, closing nine parking spaces on S. Original St., which runs alongside the park. The city stated in a public notice that its priorities for the park at this stage are to “enhance the park entrance and to restore the pedestrian walking path throughout the park.”

“Our parks are beautiful and they should be accessible for everybody to be able to use,” said Steve Barr, City of Aspen parks operations manager.

Barr said the city plans to resurface the existing trail that winds through the park, which has deteriorated into cracked and bumpy asphalt, with “stabilized crusher” — a sand material that he said holds together and is not subject to erosion. The new path, which will be mostly flat, will be accessible to those in wheelchairs, on crutches, or who use other adaptive methods of transportation. 

He added that they will reconstruct the park entrance, as the old entrance “wasn’t becoming of what an entrance to that park should be.” They will use 2-inch thick, flagstone pavers, which Barr described as patio stones, but thicker. 

If all goes to plan, Barr hopes the city will complete the project in two weeks, rather than three.

“We’ve been trying to get into that park for a number of years and do a bigger re-do, while still keeping the character of it,” Barr said, adding, “It really needs some updating.”

Matt Kuhn, Parks and Open Space director, confirmed that the focus on accessibility is part of a larger trend with Aspen parks, many of which were built 40 to 50 years ago.

“At that time (they) certainly weren’t built with accessibility in mind,” Kuhn said of the parks. 

Along with Glory Hole Park, the city is improving accessibility at Wagner Park while it replaces the playground. Kuhn said they are using “poured-in-place rubber” — a smooth rubber surface — rather than woodchips, to improve access for those who use adaptive modes of transportation. He hopes to be finished with the project in October.

The city has also recently improved the accessibility of the path to the picnic area in Herron Park, and laid down “stabilized crusher” on the ground of the archery range at Cozy Point Ranch.

Nate Gillette, a program director at Challenge Aspen, said the movement toward accessibility is good for everybody — including a wide variety of mobility levels.

“I think it’s in the name, right, it’s a ‘public park,'” he said. “And the public is a pretty varying group of folks.”

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.