Colorado
It may take decades to close all the abandoned gold rush mines.
Mere feet from a prospect pit where miners dug for gold in the second half of the 19th century, bikers whizzed by on the Maryland Mountain trail system west of Denver.
“This one is 15-to-16-feet deep with vertical walls. You wouldn’t have an easy time getting out of it,” said Jeremy Reineke, a project manager with the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety. “You can see how close it is to the trail if a biker decided to take off and miss a corner or decide to go off trail, you could get on this really fast.”
Reineke oversees the closure of mines and prospect pits like this one near Central City, Colorado. The town was situated on what was once considered the richest square mile on Earth because of the gold mining that was a boon to the region’s economy. At that time, the digging involved shovels, picks and mules. And after that hard labor, sometimes there wasn’t enough ore to move forward.
Reineke said there are “thousands and thousands” of unmapped prospect pits.
Soon, the prospect pit near the bike trail will be covered by a metal grate so trailgoers don’t fall in.
It’s critical public safety work, especially as hiking and bike paths are created in former mining areas, said Jeff Graves, director of the state’s Inactive Mine Reclamation Program.
“There have been instances of fatalities in Colorado associated with folks in abandoned mines,” Graves said. “A child fell into a mine shaft just outside of Central City. And so that prioritized a lot of the work here within Gilpin County.”
That was in 1989.
But in a state where mining was fundamental to its early economy, the quiet work of closing up these mines will likely go on for decades.
Around 13,500 mine features have been closed so far, including shafts, adits, stopes, pits, highwalls and hazardous facilities, according to Graves. The state has the capacity to safeguard about 300 each year.
“Maybe we’re halfway through the total, hopefully,” he said. “But likely, we still have at least that many more within the state that need some type of physical safety, closure constructed on them.”
The program addresses hazards that predate Colorado statehood. “Without the mining, Gilpin County would not exist. Probably Colorado as we know it would not exist,” said David Forsyth, director of the Gilpin Historical Society.
He said it’s hard to overstate the importance of mining to the area.
“It was really [miner] John Gregory’s discovery of lode gold up here in May of 1859 that kind of made Colorado’s gold rush permanent,” Forsyth said.
He said news of that discovery drew thousands of miners within weeks.
“The country was still really recovering from the Panic of 1857,” Forsyth said. “And so, a lot of people were still really hurting financially. And easy gold, ‘Hey, I can go out to Gregory Diggings in Colorado and get rich.’”
Few actually made it rich — but the mining did provide jobs.
Forsyth said miners earned around $2 to $3 per day, and houses, stores, schools and theaters were built as the mines operated. But by the early 20th century, mining activity had slowed significantly and halted during World War I and World War II.
“It was not a wartime necessity, and it never really came back after that,” Forsyth said. “A lot of people who had mines up here just parked their equipment inside, shut the door, said, ‘We’ll be back when the war is over.’ And then they weren’t.”
Until folks from the Inactive Mine Reclamation Program came around many decades later — in some cases welding mines closed with old equipment still inside.
“It’s reminiscent of what the miners are doing to some extent, trying to find that original gold,” Graves said. “We’re trying to find what they were looking for and what they caused, what they left in their wake.”
The lack of regulation at the time allowed these mines to be abandoned — and not just in Colorado.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates there are some 140,000 known abandoned hard-rock mining features on federal lands, and hundreds of thousands more may be unaccounted for.
Graves said Colorado’s program benefits from both state and federal funds. Additional money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help by freeing up state funds previously used for coal mines.
Even so, Graves said, efforts to close abandoned hard-rock mines are “certainly underfunded.”
“When you look at the magnitude of the problem, even in Colorado it would take us decades to address [it] at the current funding rates,” he said.
It looks like state governments, as well as the feds, will be paying to clean up after the 19th century gold diggers well into the 21st century.
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Colorado
Families, care providers navigate cuts to Colorado’s Community Connector program | Rocky Mountain PBS
“Typically, between me and my husband, there are no breaks. We have to constantly ask each other to change him and feed him and shower him. I always worry about the future if Elli has to leave and not get help anymore,” said Dina Katan, Batikha’s mother. “The free time is good for my mental health. For me, when Elli comes here and helps, I have time to do things that usually I am not able to do.”
Other parents are concerned that the reduction in hours will make it harder to find care providers. Becky Houle of Greeley is the mother of Hadley, a 13-year-old diagnosed with Angelman syndrome, a rare neurogenetic disorder that causes significant developmental delays and little to no speech.
Hadley used to qualify for 10 Community Connector hours a week and is now down to five, Houle said. With those hours, she previously played unified basketball, went to the park and interacted with others and participated in running errands with her caretaker.
“I worry that the person that provides some of that caregiving role for her won’t be able to commit with such few hours,” Houle said. “I like Hadley to have interactions without us being there, so she can feel like a teenager.”
Tom Dermody, chief budget and policy analyst for Colorado’s JBC, said spending on Community Connector services has risen substantially over the past six fiscal years.
Dermody said that as the program, which started in 2014, has become more popular, costs have ballooned. He said participation in the Community Connector service has increased by 510% since fiscal year 2018-2019, and that annual spending has risen from about $5 million in fiscal year 2018–2019 to more than $66 million in fiscal year 2025–2026.
To cut costs, the JBC not only capped annual hours for the service, but also revised the rules to narrow what qualifies as Community Connector hours. Jane said this makes it harder to consistently reach the five-hour weekly allotment.
“When these changes were made, I did our usual Community Connect on Sunday. After I worked my shift, I noticed that I couldn’t clock in or out because my shift was removed from the app,” Jane said.
After sending an email to her employer, her agency told her that what she did — taking her Batikha to a gas station and showing him how to ask an associate how to find a product — does not qualify under the new Community Connector rules.
Under the updated rules, Community Connector hours must be tied to activities in the community that align with a person’s care plan and build skills or participation, such as volunteering, attending enrichment classes or going to the library alongside peers without disabilities.
The state has excluded simple supervision, passive outings and activities typically considered a parent’s responsibility from qualifying for Community Connector hours. Providers must now clearly document how each hour supports a specific goal.
“It’s unfair that they cut those hours for these kids and they are very strict about how we use those hours,” Katan said. “The new requirements are very specific and not inclusive of high needs kids like Taym.”
Batikha requires full support whenever he goes out, Jane said, and the stricter requirements make it harder to plan weekly community trips.
“He needs hygiene changes. He needs to be fed every two hours. And he can’t be fed anywhere. I want to give him privacy for his feeding,” Jane said.
She now plans to split her five Community Connector hours over the course of a week instead of providing them all on Sundays, as she previously did.
“I care about him and I love my clients so much, so I’m definitely going to stay,” Jane said. “His parents need the time to be able to watch a movie and not worry about if their son is okay.”
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LAKEWOOD — One of the most anticipated events in Colorado high school sports is back on the track.
The annual Colorado high school track and field state championship meet returns May 14-16 for the 2026 edition.
It kicks off May 14 as the Centennial State’s top leapers, runners, jumpers, sprinters, vaulters and throwers take over Lakewood’s JeffCo Stadium.
More than 100 Fort Collins-area athletes across four different classifications have qualified for the state meet.
Follow here for day one live state track & field updates from local athletes, plus some notable scores and results for Northern Colorado and statewide competitors.
This has the potential to be a massive state meet for the Fort Collins area.
Our top local sprinters and relay teams account for more than 40 top-two seeds in their events, while there are field contenders galore and several distance runners in the mix.
— Chris Abshire
It’s a busy year for Fort Collins-area athletes down at state track, with over 100 athletes qualifying from nine local schools.
Fort Collins High School leads the way with eighteen individual qualifiers and seven relay sqauds, but there’s plenty of representation across schools and events.
— Chris Abshire
Here are all the May 14 running finals at the 2026 Colorado state track & field championships:
- 8:20-8:35 a.m.: 5A boys/girls 3,200 meters
- 10:00-10:50 a.m.: 4A and 5A boys/girls 4×800 relays
- 11:00-11:30 a.m.: 4A/5A Special Olympics/Paralympics 100 dashes
- Noon: 4A/5A Special Olympics/Paralympic 200 dashes
- 2:20-2:45 p.m.: Special Olympics/Paralympic 3A/2A/1A 100 and 200 dashes
- 4:00-5:00 p.m.: 3A and 2A boys/girls 4×800 relays
- 5:00-5:35 p.m.: 1A boys/girls 3,200 meters
- 6:00-6:15 p.m.: 3A boys/girls 3200 meters
— Chris Abshire
Here are all the May 14 field finals at the 2026 Colorado state track & field championships:
8:30 A.M.
- 5A girls pole vault and discus
- 5A boys long jump
- 4A girls high jump and shot put
- 4A boys triple jump
11/11:30 A.M.
- 5A boys pole vault and discus
- 5A girls long jump
- 4A boys high jump and shot put
- 4A girls triple jump
1:30/2:00/2:30 P.M.
- 3A boys triple jump
- 3A girls pole vault and discus
- 2A boys high jump
- 2A girls long jump and shot put
4/5 P.M.
- 3A boys high jump
- 3A girls triple jump
- 1A girls pole vault and discus
- 1A boys long jump and shot put
— Chris Abshire
Since the calendar hit 2000, there have been many remarkable achievements from local athletes at the Colorado state track & field meet.
From throws domination to Ray Bozmans’ sprint sweep or multiple sister acts, here are 15 of the best Fort Collins-area performances in the new millennium.
Chris Abshire covers high school and community sports for the Coloradoan.
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