Boulder – It’s not quite a diabolical plot to deprive rope-swing enthusiasts of summer fun and liberty, but the numbering certainly is ironic, said Boulder resident Kevin Hotaling.
City ordinance 6-6-6 states no foreign objects – such as rope swings – can be attached to trees without approval from the city manager.
Earlier this month, a Parks and Recreation employee climbed up a cottonwood tree at a popular summertime swimming hole in Boulder Creek and cut a rope that swung over the water.
In an ongoing battle that pits tree health and human safety against tradition and classic summer fun, the city yanks rope swings that Boulderites attach to trees. Residents usually put them back up within days.
“It’s pretty ridiculous,” said Hotaling, 25. “I’ve never seen anybody get injured on the swing. People going up and down to put the swing back is what’s dangerous.”
City officials acknowledge the cat-and- mouse game played with residents, but said the swings expose the city to lawsuits.
“The last thing I want people to think is Boulder doesn’t want people to have fun,” said Helen Gavin, a risk management expert for the city. “It’s a public-safety problem.”
Wiping out all risk is impossible, but a rope swing – unlike jagged rocks, rushing water and cliffs, for instance – is not part of the natural environment and therefore the city must make a concerted effort to take them down when alerted, Gavin said.
Hotaling is with B-Rubber, a group clad in pink bandanas and maroon shirts that hangs out at the Boulder Creek most summer weekends and is “dedicated to the Boulder Creek, for the advancement of society,” according to its website.
At the popular Boulder Creek swimming hole where residents splash, belly flop and inner-tube in the water, Hotaling said the 26 3/4-foot braided rope was restored to all its glory last Sunday, tied to a branch about 30 feet above the water.
City officials took it down Monday. And residents climbed back up Saturday.
Tucker Pattridge, 23, of Ward, has been playing on the rope swing since he was 10. Saturday, he came to the creek after work for “all the cute girls in bikinis and the rope swing.
“It’s just nice after a hard day of work. It’s an adrenaline rush, swinging on it and just letting go.”
For Hotaling and his troops, the battle is one of attrition.
“It costs us $12 to put up a rope,” he said. “It costs them much more to send a city employee up there.”
Still, if the rope-swing war had Geneva Conventions, it appears both sides would be in compliance.
A posting on the rebels’ website reads:
“Remember that the city offers this up for us for free and the parks department has accommodated all of us thus far, so no belligerence, no glass and no charcoal.”
And so swings Boulder’s rope- swing controversy, back and forth.
Staff writer Vimal Patel can be reached at 303-954-1638 or vpatel@denverpost.com.
