Castle Rock – Douglas County’s rock of ages is tended by the faithful.
The boulder that gave Castle Rock its name is slowly losing ground. Deep erosion could someday topple the stone from its perch high above the town along Interstate 25, but the work of volunteers coordinated by the local Ministerial Alliance is turning back the slow hands of time.
Dozens of volunteers affiliated from Castle Rock-area churches filled in eroded areas 3 and 4 feet deep near the summit recently.
They also put up fencing to keep hikers in the 60-acre Rock Park from making their own trails up the butte, killing plants and causing dirt to slide.
Cindy Brockman, 16, takes the work to heart; the park is just a five-minute walk from her home.
“This is a special place for me,” she said, sporting leather gloves and jeans dusty from hard work at lunchtime. “It’s a peaceful place to come and think. I love it here, I really do.”
The Ministerial Alliance took over the task two years ago, as the fast-growing town turned its attention and crews to ballfields and newer, more elaborate parks.
Before volunteers began fixing up the place, Brockman’s mother told her not to hike some trails she considered too risky. “It’s totally different now,” Cindy said.
The town government called the alliance one of Castle Rock’s best Adopt-a-Park groups.
“It’s great to see all the volunteers who roll up their sleeves and work hard all day long to ensure that Rock Park retains its beauty,” said Rob Hanna, the town’s parks and recreation director.
Alliance volunteers have cleaned up the park and added 1,000 feet of stable trail and 48 wooden steps to help slow the wear on the side of the butte, fixed up the parking lot, repaired a rock wall and waged war on noxious weeds.
“Now the place is just getting loved to death,” said Bob Finch, who manages St. Vrain State Park near Longmont and who designed Rock Park’s master plan.
He recalled when the town bought the property around its namesake rock in the late 1980s, by which time the landscape had been chewed up by neglect and four-wheelers.
He passed on his love of outdoors to his son, Logan, and daughter, Annie, who toiled alongside others last weekend. Logan, 16, built some steps for credit toward his Eagle Scout badge.
“It’s really accessible, it’s right here in town,” Logan said of Rock Park. “You don’t even have to drive to it.”
That’s the sense of selfless stewardship churches hope to instill, said project leader Harry Shea. “What a neat message to send a child, in terms of the importance of volunteering and giving to the community,” he said.
It’s also a neat message for churches, said Earl Hammond, president of the Ministerial Alliance and pastor at Castle Rock Christian Fellowship church.
“Churches have been fragmented a long time because of denomination and doctrine, and this kind of brings us back to what we have in common, which is God.”
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
