West of downtown Pagosa Springs, Highway 160 leaves the San Juan River as the river turns south and the highway climbs Putt Hill. At the top, the landscape changes from a compact river town into broad flats, old ranch country, neighborhood lakes and ponderosa forest.
For visitors, this side of town offers some of Pagosa’s easiest paddling, fishing, mountain biking, hiking and disc golf. For locals, it is also a working landscape shaped by reservoirs, water diversions, timber projects, grassroots recreation, successive waves of real-estate development and the wildfire potential surrounding it.
You can spend an easy afternoon paddling Village Lake, play a full round of disc golf at Cloman Park or ride the Coyote Hill loop. You can also follow the story farther: back to ranches and Saturday-night dances on Sunetha Flats, forward through an ambitious resort development promoted by some surprising television personalities, and north into the much wilder Piedra country.
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Pagosa Springs SUP Rental
West of Pagosa at a Glance
| Destination | Best for | Important to know |
|---|---|---|
| Village Lake | Wyndham guests, paddling and fishing | Sits directly behind many Wyndham accommodations; PLPOA access required |
| Lake Pagosa | Paddling, fishing and longer shoreline exploration | Larger, more open recreational lake; PLPOA access required |
| Hatcher Lake | Fishing, paddling and mountain views | Largest recreational Pagosa Lake and an important raw-water reservoir |
| Lake Forest | Quieter paddling and fishing | Also appears on some maps as Borns Lake Reservoir; PLPOA access required |
| Pagosa Springs Golf Club | Public golf with mountain views | Its 27 holes are irrigated with untreated raw water supplied through Piñon Lake |
| Coyote Hill | Accessible hiking and beginner-friendly mountain biking | Close to town, with potential for future purpose-built flow trails |
| Turkey Springs | Mountain biking, hiking, trail running, gravel riding and horseback riding | Large forest network with numerous intersections; download a trail map before leaving pavement |
| Cloman Park | Disc golf, hiking, biking and mountain views | Free to play; fundraiser discs and direct donations for the Pagosa Disc Golf Club are available at Pagosa Outside |
| Piedra Road | Scenic driving and access to Piedra country | Leads toward Williams Creek Reservoir, Piedra Falls, trails, campgrounds and the Piedra River |
| Pagosa Views Balloon Rides | Sunrise scenery, families and special occasions | Flights normally begin very early; weather-dependent, so schedule near the beginning of your visit |
| Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts | Professional theater and evening entertainment | A natural indoor finish after a day exploring west of Pagosa |
Begin With a Different Kind of Pagosa
Most first-time visitors meet Pagosa Springs downtown, where the hot springs, Riverwalk and San Juan River command attention. Drive west on Highway 160, climb Putt Hill and another Pagosa begins to emerge.
Open meadows separate wooded ridges. Old ranch pastures survive among subdivisions. Neighborhood lakes reflect Pagosa Peak and the northern San Juans, while the increasingly large forest beyond the homes extends toward Turkey Springs and the Piedra River drainage.
The area commonly called Uptown or Pagosa Lakes can look like ordinary resort development from the highway. Underneath it, however, are several distinct layers of history: ranching, timber, celebrity investment, Texas oil money, timeshare development, land speculation, community recreation and the continuing challenge of protecting thousands of homes built beside a fire-adapted forest.
Before Pagosa Lakes: Sunetha Flats and the Pine Grove Inn
One of the older names worth recovering is Sunetha Flats, the broad ranch and meadow country west of downtown near today’s Pagosa Lakes development.
Before the golf course, shopping centers, timeshares and thousands of residential lots, cattle and sheep grazed these flats. Pagosa’s earliest dirt airstrip occupied part of the open country, and scattered ranches extended toward the forest.
Sunetha Flats also held the Pine Grove Inn and Hall, one of old Pagosa’s livelier social establishments. Local recollections describe it as a dance hall, saloon and part-time casino during the big-band years. People dressed up for special evenings, dice rattled in the back room, music carried across the flats and parking-lot fistfights were common enough to become part of the establishment’s reputation.
Those who could not get a drink inside could apparently find a reasonably well-stocked bar in somebody’s automobile.
Local band members carried names that later became fixtures in the community: Dieselkamp, Mullins, Catchpole, Risinger and Lynch. You can read more in this oral history of twentieth-century Pagosa Springs and another account of the Pine Grove Inn on Sunetha Flats.
Pagosa Lakes did not appear on empty land. It absorbed an older landscape of ranches, hayfields, timber workers, musicians, gamblers and local characters who knew how to make their own entertainment.
Art Linkletter, John Cameron Swayze and the First Resort Dream
The development story begins before Fairfield Pagosa and decades before Erik Estrada appeared in a land-sales infomercial.
Television personality Art Linkletter, best remembered for House Party and the segment that became Kids Say the Darndest Things, was among the early investors in a development west of Pagosa Springs. Another participant was broadcaster John Cameron Swayze, one of America’s first nationally recognized television news anchors and later the familiar spokesman who told viewers that Timex watches could “take a licking and keep on ticking.”
It is an almost perfect period detail: before the former star of CHiPs helped market Pagosa lots, a children’s television host and a famous watch salesman had already invested in the same mountain dream.
In 1969, developer Ralph Eaton bought out Linkletter and Swayze and greatly expanded the project. Contemporary accounts say Eaton acquired additional ranchland from Johnny Stevens and Calvin Perkins, turning a smaller investment into a plan for an entire new community.
By 1975, there were reportedly only 38 homes across what locals called the Eaton Development or Pagosa in Colorado. The vision was much bigger. Eaton imagined lakes, residential subdivisions, commercial property, golf, equestrian facilities, parks and a destination lodge spread across thousands of acres west of the old town.
The Pagosa Lodge began construction in 1973 and opened in 1974. It stood near the same flats where the Pine Grove had once supplied music, gambling and the occasional parking-lot disagreement.
Longtime residents also remember the tall wooden observation tower beside Highway 160. The tower gave sales prospects a view across the enormous development and turned the highway itself into part of the pitch. From above, a buyer could look over ranchland, new roads, reservoirs and ponderosa forest and imagine a house somewhere in the promised community below.
Over the following years, pieces of that promise became real. New lakes joined older ranch reservoirs, the golf course took shape, subdivisions spread through the forest and the Ralph Eaton Recreation Center opened in 1986. The development was still far from complete, but it was becoming more than lines on a sales map.
Eaton’s role remains visible in local names, including the Recreation Center that still bears his name. A regional economic study and longtime residents’ accounts preserve the unlikely Linkletter-Swayze-Eaton origins of the project.
Fairfield Takes Over the Mountain Dream
Outside investment helped drive the next stage. In 1973, Eaton International entered into an agreement with Archuleta County to construct roads and other public improvements for the expanding subdivisions.
Fairfield Communities acquired Eaton’s Pagosa interests in 1983. Under Fairfield, the project became more fully identified as Fairfield Pagosa, with a greater emphasis on resort accommodations, recreational amenities and timeshare ownership.
The vision was enormous. Court records later described approximately 26,000 acres of planned holdings surrounding a commercial core, together with lakes, parks, golf, tennis courts, equestrian facilities and greenbelts. The present PLPOA community occupies a smaller footprint, but the scale of the original proposal helps explain why Pagosa Lakes contains so many subdivisions, roads and scattered pockets of development.
Fairfield entered bankruptcy reorganization in 1990. That left complicated questions about undeveloped land, recreational amenities, roads and which obligations belonged to the developer, Archuleta County or the property owners.
The resort component survived and evolved. Portions eventually became Club Wyndham Pagosa, while the larger Pagosa Lakes area gradually became the largest concentration of homes and residents in Archuleta County.
The enormous inventory of vacant lots also created an unusual arrangement. Association assessments followed the property whether or not anyone had built a house or ever visited Pagosa. For years, dues from thousands of absentee owners helped support lakes, parks, trails and community improvements primarily enjoyed by the much smaller number of people who actually lived here.
In a roundabout way, the empty lots helped pay for the amenities that eventually made the community more desirable.
The Much Later CHiPs Flyby
Erik Estrada belongs to a later and separate chapter.
During the early 2000s, National Recreational Properties Inc., a California land-marketing company, acquired more than 100 undeveloped lots in the Pagosa Lakes area for resale. Estrada, already famous as Officer Frank “Ponch” Poncherello from CHiPs, appeared in the company’s infomercials and became its celebrity pitchman.
Prospective buyers were flown into Durango, transported to Pagosa and shown an opportunity to own a piece of Colorado. The sales ingredients were powerful: hot springs, lakes, Wolf Creek snow, national forest, mountain views and prices that looked inexpensive compared with other resort communities.
The price of the lot, however, was only the beginning. Buyers still had to confront road access, utilities, water and sewer tap fees, construction costs, association assessments and the practical challenge of building on an undeveloped mountain parcel.
When the real-estate market collapsed, some properties accumulated years of taxes, fees and unpaid assessments. A number of those stranded lots eventually came into Archuleta County’s possession and became part of local efforts to create workforce housing—the latest reinvention of land that had already passed through ranchers, celebrity investors, resort developers and television salesmen.
The Estrada chapter is told in greater detail in this Colorado Sun investigation into Pagosa’s orphaned lots.
The complete story is pure Pagosa. Ranchland became a celebrity-backed resort dream. Ralph Eaton expanded it into something resembling a new town. Fairfield added timeshares and more recreational polish before bankruptcy complicated the plan. Another television personality arrived to sell some of the remaining pieces, and decades later, a few of those same parcels were being reconsidered as homes for the people who actually work here.
Somewhere along the way, the improbable sales pitch became a real community.
Paddle and Fish Four Pagosa Lakes
The Pagosa Lakes system includes four lakes where authorized property owners and guests can recreate:
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Hatcher Lake
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Lake Pagosa
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Village Lake
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Lake Forest
These lakes form part of the regional raw-water system while also supporting fishing and small-craft recreation. Access is controlled through the Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association, so visitors should confirm that their Wyndham accommodation, vacation rental or host provides the appropriate guest privileges.
Pagosa Outside rents inflatable stand-up paddleboards and inflatable kayaks that work especially well on the recreational Pagosa Lakes. 
Our inflatable equipment does not require PLPOA boat registration, although paddlers still need valid lake access through an eligible property owner, guest arrangement or participating accommodation. Pagosa Outside has created a map showing generaly where the public access and boat ramps are for each lake.
Not every blue patch on the map is a recreational lake. Piñon Lake and Stevens Reservoir are not open for general recreation.
Village Lake: Best for Wyndham Guests
Village Lake is generally the easiest choice for Wyndham guests because it sits directly outside the back doors of many Wyndham properties. Guests can carry a deflated Pagosa Outside kayak or SUP from their accommodation, inflate it beside the lake and paddle without loading everything into a vehicle.
The lake covers roughly 70 acres and supports rainbow trout, largemouth bass, crappie, bluegill, catfish and perch. Its level can fluctuate during summer because it also supplies raw water to nearby properties and the golf course system.
For a casual morning paddle, family outing or sunset lap, convenience is hard to beat.
Lake Pagosa: More Room to Explore
Lake Pagosa offers a larger, more open paddling experience. Its fishery includes trout, bass, crappie, bluegill and perch, and the shoreline provides enough distance to make a paddle feel like an outing rather than a lap around a neighborhood pond.
It is a particularly good option for visitors staying in a VRBO or other vacation rental that includes PLPOA lake privileges. Morning conditions are often calmer before afternoon winds begin moving across the open water.
Hatcher Lake: Fishing Beneath the Mountains
Hatcher is the largest of the recreational Pagosa Lakes and arguably the most scenic. The developed neighborhood begins yielding to national forest here, with Pagosa Peak and the northern San Juans rising beyond the water.
The lake supports rainbow and brown trout, largemouth bass and yellow perch. It is also one of the community’s most important raw-water reservoirs, which helps explain the extensive forest and fuels work in the surrounding country.
Lake Forest and the Borns Lake Name
Lake Forest is the smallest and often quietest recreational lake. Its protected setting can make it a good paddling option when the larger lakes are windy.
Some topographic and online maps continue to label all or part of this water as Borns Lake Reservoir. The exact chain of naming is not particularly well documented. The old utilitarian reservoir name appears to have survived on maps while the Pagosa Lakes development adopted the more appealing name Lake Forest.
The label should not be confused casually with every other Borns property or lake in Archuleta County. Around Pagosa, old maps frequently preserve the name of a ranch, ditch, reservoir or locality long after development has given the landscape a new identity.
The name Altura creates a similar puzzle on regional maps. It remains an officially recognized locality, but a visitor looking for a conventional town center or ghost-town ruins will find little to explore. It is better understood as a surviving place-name than a destination.
The Mountain Water Behind the Lakes
The Pagosa Lakes are not simply decorative amenities. They are part of a connected system of snowmelt, diversions, ditches, pipelines, reservoirs and treatment facilities.
Much of the water originates in the Fourmile Creek watershed north of town. When PAWSD’s water right is in priority, water is diverted from Fourmile Creek into the Dutton Ditch and pipeline system, which can deliver it to Hatcher and Stevens reservoirs.
The diversion can remove a substantial portion of the creek’s available flow during its operating season. Later in summer, senior downstream water rights frequently call the municipal diversion out of priority, meaning the opportunity to refill Hatcher and Stevens may end around early July—and much earlier during a dry year.
This helps explain why reservoir levels can fall even while water still appears to be running in mountain streams. In Colorado, physical water and legally available water are not always the same thing.
It also connects the forest north of town directly to the faucets of Pagosa Lakes. A severe wildfire in the Fourmile drainage could send ash, sediment and debris into the diversion and reservoirs long after the flames were contained.
The Plumtaw Fire: A Success Story That Almost Wasn’t
The 2022 Plumtaw Fire began about seven miles north of Pagosa Springs during an exceptionally dry spring. It ultimately burned 721 acres in country connected to the Fourmile watershed and Dutton Ditch system.
Years earlier, the San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership had identified this watershed as a priority. In 2021, the Pagosa Ranger District completed fuel-reduction work along Fourmile Road, clearing and masticating brush and smaller vegetation to create a more useful control corridor.
When the fire arrived the following year, that treatment did not magically extinguish it. Weather, aircraft, ground crews and changing conditions all mattered. But the treated corridor gave firefighters additional space, time and options. The fire was stopped without the loss of homes or lives, and the most damaging scenario for the municipal watershed was avoided.
Local filmmaker Christi Bode and the San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership documented the story in Plumtaw: A Future With Fire. You can read the background and watch the film here or watch it directly on YouTube.
It is worth watching before exploring Turkey Springs or Fourmile. The film makes the thinning, fuel breaks and managed patches along the roads easier to recognize—and explains why an untidy-looking forest treatment may be protecting both neighborhoods and drinking water.
Stevens Reservoir and the 2009 Expansion
Stevens Reservoir sits near the eastern edge of the Pagosa Lakes area. It is part of the municipal water system and is not open for public recreation.
The reservoir was enlarged in 2009, approximately doubling its original storage capacity. The work included excavation, wetland construction and mitigation, monitoring equipment, erosion controls and revegetation.
Stevens can receive Fourmile Creek water through the Dutton system and now provides about 1,730 acre-feet of usable raw-water storage. Its expansion strengthened the community’s ability to capture available mountain water when the diversion is legally operating and hold it for later use.
Read from a map, the west-side reservoirs look like neighborhood amenities. Read as a water system, they represent decades of effort to supply a growing mountain community through drought, wildfire and highly seasonal runoff.
Piñon Lake, Golf-Course Water and a Common Misunderstanding
Piñon Lake is visible beside Club Wyndham and the golf course, but it is not one of PLPOA’s four recreational lakes. Its primary job is supplying irrigation water to the Pagosa Springs Golf Club.
That distinction matters during dry summers.
Residents sometimes become frustrated when domestic watering restrictions are imposed or municipal water bills increase while golf-course sprinklers continue operating. From the road, it can look as if treated household water is being poured across acres of fairway while homeowners are being asked to conserve.
That is not what is happening.
The golf course irrigates with raw, untreated water supplied through Village and Piñon lakes. PAWSD has a contractual obligation to provide the course with up to 300 acre-feet of raw irrigation water annually, and water can be pumped from Village Lake into Piñon Lake for that purpose. The golf course does not normally irrigate with treated municipal drinking water.
The water is still part of the larger watershed and drought conversation, but it is not coming from the same finished-water supply delivered through residential taps.
The arrangement helps explain the different jobs performed by the lakes. Hatcher stores raw drinking water. Lake Pagosa and Lake Forest combine storage with recreation. Village Lake supports recreation and raw-water obligations. Piñon serves golf-course irrigation. Stevens provides municipal storage.
Each lake has a job.
Play a Round at Pagosa Springs Golf Club
The Pagosa Springs Golf Club occupies the open center of the Pagosa Lakes community. Its 27 holes wind among lakes, ponderosa pines and neighborhoods, with long mountain views that can make concentrating on the golf unusually difficult.
The course is open to the public, although advance tee times are wise during summer.
It also illustrates how completely the older ranch landscape was rearranged. Water once used primarily for livestock and domestic supply now supports a recreational economy, while pasture became greens, homes, resort accommodations and commercial property.
See the West Side From a Hot Air Balloon
There may be no better way to understand the geography west of Pagosa Springs than to float above it.
Local, family-owned Rocky Mountain Balloon Adventures, also known as Pagosa Views, has been flying over Pagosa since 1986. Its sunrise flights frequently pass above the Pagosa Lakes, golf course, remaining ranch meadows and ponderosa forest described throughout this guide.
From the ground, the west side can feel like a maze of subdivisions, lakes and forest roads. From a balloon, the larger pattern becomes clear. The reservoirs shine among the neighborhoods, fairways curve through former ranchland and the developed community ends abruptly against the broad forest stretching toward Turkey Springs and Piedra country. Pagosa Peak and the northern San Juans rise beyond it all, while views south open across the high desert toward New Mexico.
Because a hot-air balloon travels with the wind, no two routes are exactly alike. One flight may drift close enough to a lake to catch the balloon’s reflection on the water; another may climb high enough to reveal mountain ranges, hidden valleys and distant horizons that cannot be seen from the highway. Elk, deer, wild turkeys, ospreys and bald eagles are also possible morning companions.
The experience begins around sunrise, when the mountain air is generally calmest. Guests can help inflate the approximately 120-foot-tall balloon before climbing into the basket. The flight itself generally lasts around 30 minutes, while inflation, flying, recovery, packing the balloon and the traditional post-flight toast make the full outing approximately two to two and a half hours.
Flights operate year-round when weather permits, with limited winter sunset flights also available. If ballooning is high on your Pagosa list, schedule it near the beginning of your visit. That leaves another morning available if wind, precipitation or cloud cover postpones the original flight.
Most activities in this guide let you explore one piece of the west side. A balloon ride lets you see how the entire landscape fits together.
Coyote Hill: An Easy Introduction to Pagosa Trails
The Coyote Hill trail system is one of the most approachable places to hike or ride near Pagosa Springs. The main loop crosses rolling ponderosa forest without committing visitors to a long mountain climb.
It works especially well for families, trail runners, beginner and intermediate riders and visitors still adjusting to Pagosa’s elevation.
Coyote Hill has also been identified as a promising location for purpose-built mountain-bike trails and flow-oriented riding. Its rolling terrain, road access and proximity to town make it a logical place for a bike-specific trail system if planning, funding and approvals come together.
For now, it remains a quiet multiuse trail and a good gateway into the larger Turkey Springs network.
Turkey Springs: A Forest Built for Wandering
Beyond Hatcher Lake, Turkey Springs opens into a large network of Forest Service roads and trails. This is the west side’s primary backyard for mountain biking, hiking, trail running, gravel riding, horseback riding and winter fat biking.
The country is not dramatic in the same way as the alpine terrain above Wolf Creek Pass. Its appeal comes from its scale and accessibility. Mile after mile of ponderosa forest extends behind the neighborhoods, crossed by old roads, singletrack, meadows and low ridges.
Download a map before leaving pavement. The intersections multiply quickly, signs can be inconsistent and many roads look remarkably similar from inside the trees.
One of Pagosa’s Most Actively Managed Forests
Turkey Springs also provides an unusually visible lesson in forest management. Few easily accessible forests around Pagosa show more evidence of thinning, mastication, timber removal, prescribed work and continuing fuel reduction.
That management is not accidental. Turkey Springs borders extensive residential development, especially the neighborhoods surrounding Hatcher Lake. Homes, water infrastructure and national forest meet along a broad wildland-urban boundary.
The Forest Service, private contractors and local forest-health partners have worked here for years. A 288-acre Turkey Springs biofuels demonstration project undertaken between 2009 and 2011 was one early effort to connect forest thinning with a market for the removed material. Work has continued in the Turkey Springs and Brockover areas, while additional treatments have occurred in nearby PLPOA greenbelts and private neighborhoods.
The immediate results can look rough. Tracks, chips and widely spaced trees do not resemble an untouched postcard forest. Over time, grasses and understory plants return. More importantly, firefighters inherit a landscape where they have better access and more room to work.
Martinez Canyon and the Oak Fire
Martinez Canyon cuts through the forest west of the Pagosa Lakes neighborhoods. It is beautiful terrain, but it also forms a potential pathway between more remote forest, Aspen Springs and the dense residential development surrounding Pagosa Lakes.
The 2025 Oak Fire demonstrated how quickly a local incident can become a community emergency. The fire burned approximately 75 acres, damaged private property, forced evacuations and required a major ground and aerial response.
A final acreage number cannot measure what the fire meant to the people whose land and belongings were damaged.
The larger community was fortunate that crews stopped the fire where they did. Had it become established in Martinez Canyon under the wrong wind and fuel conditions, it could have found a route toward the much larger concentration of homes in Pagosa Lakes.
Christi Bode documented the Oak Fire and the historic flooding that followed two months later in Beyond the Embers. The film gives the event a human weight that a perimeter map cannot provide.
The combination of real loss inside the burn area and the possibility of something even larger helps explain the extensive mitigation work around Turkey Springs, Hatcher Lake and the surrounding greenbelts.
Cloman Park: Disc Golf, Trails and Local Aviation
Cloman Park occupies an unusually valuable piece of public land northwest of town. Visitors can hike, bike, walk dogs, play disc golf and enjoy broad mountain views immediately beside Stevens Field airport.
That location makes Cloman more useful than an ordinary recreation park. Its open ground, road access and proximity to the runway allow it to become a temporary fire camp for crews, equipment, vehicles and incident logistics.
During a major fire, this normally quiet corner of Pagosa can change almost overnight. Helicopters, tankers, support vehicles and fire crews arrive, and the adjoining airport and park become an operational base.
The complex has supported aerial efforts during the Plumtaw, Oak and Rio Blanco fires, putting aircraft close to the incident at the moment they were needed most. Without the airport and open staging ground beside it, several already difficult fires could have become substantially worse.
From Ranch Airstrip to Fire Base
Stevens Field began with the same type of local cooperation that built much of early Pagosa.
Before the airport, cattle and sheep grazed the property. Rancher Johnny Stevens donated 40 acres in 1961, and Agapita Gomez contributed another parcel. Local businessmen brought tractors, bulldozers, gravel and wheelbarrows to construct the original strip.
If a pilot needed fuel, Vic Poma could be called at the Texaco station and would come out to fill the airplane. Early airport operators were known to lend a visiting pilot a truck for a trip into town while the plane was being fueled.
That first community-built strip evolved into today’s Archuleta County Airport–Stevens Field, with a paved runway capable of supporting substantial emergency aviation. The full transformation is told in this history of Stevens Field.
The ranchers and businessmen who built the original runway could not have anticipated every aircraft that would use it. Their work nevertheless gave future firefighters a tool that has repeatedly mattered when Pagosa needed it most.
A Tournament-Worthy Disc Golf Course Built by Locals
Cloman Park’s disc golf course did not appear because a resort developer ordered one from a catalog. Members of the Pagosa Disc Golf Club spent years laying out holes, clearing fairways, installing baskets and improving the course through volunteer labor.
That persistence has produced a course capable of hosting serious competition. In 2026, Cloman hosted its first professional Q-Series event—a major milestone for a grassroots course in a small mountain community.
Pagosa Outside offers disc golf rentals for visitors who want to play Cloman or Reservoir Hill. We also sell fundraiser discs and accept cash donations directly for the Pagosa Disc Golf Club.
If you enjoy your round, stop at Pagosa Outside afterward and help support the people who built it. Donations help pay for baskets, tee areas, signs, maintenance and continued improvements.
Cloman is free to play, but it was never free to build.
What Are the Giant Piles of Wood Chips at Cloman Park?
The enormous piles of wood chips near Cloman are part of a much larger attempt to change the economics of forest restoration—and they remain a useful community resource.
Local entrepreneur J.R. Ford developed an ambitious model in which unhealthy forest could be treated within roughly a 50-mile radius of Pagosa, reducing fuels while providing material for local electricity generation and biochar production.
Biochar is a stable, charcoal-like material capable of storing carbon and improving soil structure and water retention.
The strength of the idea was its circularity. Forest treatments would reduce wildfire risk. Material with little conventional timber value would produce energy. Biochar would become a soil-health product. With appropriate treatment levels, the surrounding forest could supply material without the operation continually reaching farther from Pagosa.
Ford pursued the vision with remarkable determination. The electricity component faced difficult financing, utility and market realities, but the larger effort did not simply disappear. It evolved toward sawmilling, forest products and practical uses for material removed during forest-health projects. His son Matt Ford continues moving that work forward in a related but different direction.
The piles should not be dismissed as abandoned remains of an energy experiment. The chips continue finding useful homes throughout the community. They have been used around town-park playgrounds, at the Archuleta County fairgrounds and for landscaping, surfacing and other public projects.
Everyone wants healthier forests and less hazardous fuel loading. The harder question is what to do with thousands of tons of small trees, limbs and woody material once they have been removed.
At Cloman, part of the answer is visible in those giant piles—and in playgrounds, parks and public spaces throughout Pagosa.
Continue North Into Piedra Country
Cloman Park, Turkey Springs and Pagosa Lakes form the developed edge of the west side. Continue north on Piedra Road and the landscape opens into ranches, reservoirs, campgrounds, waterfalls and the Piedra River drainage.
That country deserves more than a short paragraph here. Our complete guide to exploring Piedra Country near Pagosa Springs covers Williams Creek Reservoir, Piedra Falls, the Piedra River Trail, Ice Cave Ridge, fishing, climbing, campgrounds, local history and several worthwhile day-trip combinations.
It is the natural next chapter after exploring west of town: begin with the accessible lakes and trails around Pagosa Lakes, then follow Piedra Road into a much larger and wilder landscape.
Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts
The Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts makes an excellent evening addition to a day west of town. Its professional productions bring actors from well beyond Pagosa and give the community a cultural depth that surprises many first-time visitors.
Pagosa Outside has its own connection with the theater. The Center’s actors take an annual tubing trip with us and reliably rank among our most memorable groups of guests. Put a collection of professional actors in river tubes and the San Juan becomes part float trip, part ensemble performance and part rolling comedy show.
It is a good reminder that Pagosa’s outdoor and cultural communities overlap. The people on stage one evening may be laughing their way down the river the following afternoon.
Suggested West of Pagosa Itineraries
Sunrise From the Sky, Then Onto the Water
- Begin around sunrise with a Pagosa Views hot-air balloon flight.
- Allow approximately two to two and a half hours for inflation, flying, recovery and the post-flight celebration.
- Stop for a late breakfast or early lunch in the Pagosa Lakes area.
- Pick up a Pagosa Outside inflatable paddleboard or inflatable kayak.
- Paddle Village Lake or Lake Pagosa while the lakes are still relatively calm.
- Finish with an evening performance at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts if a show is scheduled.
Easy Half-Day
- Paddle Village Lake or Lake Pagosa.
- Walk or ride the Coyote Hill loop.
- Stop for lunch or an early dinner in the Pagosa Lakes area.
- Add an evening performance at the Center for the Arts.
Active Full Day
- Ride, run or hike in Turkey Springs during the cool morning.
- Paddle Hatcher Lake or Lake Pagosa.
- Play an afternoon round of disc golf at Cloman Park.
- Stop at Pagosa Outside for a fundraiser disc or to donate directly to the Pagosa Disc Golf Club.
Local-History Day
- Drive through the former Sunetha Flats and look for traces of the old ranch landscape.
- Imagine the Pine Grove Inn during its dance-hall, gambling and parking-lot-fistfight years.
- Explore the lakes, golf course and resort landscape created by successive generations of Pagosa developers.
- Look for surviving names such as Borns Lake Reservoir and Altura on old and modern maps.
- Visit Cloman Park and Stevens Field to see how ranchland became a community park, airport and emergency fire base.
- Watch Plumtaw: A Future With Fire or Beyond the Embers that evening.
Gateway to Piedra Country
- Start with an early walk or ride at Coyote Hill or Cloman Park.
- Continue north on Piedra Road.
- Paddle Williams Creek Reservoir or hike to Piedra Falls.
- Stop for ice cream and a little John Wayne history at Sportsman’s.
- Use our complete Piedra Country guide to build the rest of the day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Pagosa Lake is best for Wyndham guests?
Village Lake is usually the most convenient because it sits directly behind many Wyndham accommodations. Guests still need to follow the access rules associated with their lodging.
Can VRBO guests use the Pagosa Lakes?
They can when the rental property provides qualifying PLPOA guest access. Confirm lake privileges directly with the host before planning to paddle or fish.
Do Pagosa Outside’s inflatable kayaks and paddleboards need PLPOA registration?
No. Pagosa Outside’s inflatable rental equipment does not require PLPOA boat registration. Users still need valid access through an eligible owner, guest arrangement or participating accommodation.
Which Pagosa Lakes allow recreation?
Authorized users may recreate on Hatcher Lake, Lake Pagosa, Village Lake and Lake Forest. Piñon Lake and Stevens Reservoir are not recreational lakes.
Why does the golf course run sprinklers when residents have watering restrictions?
The golf course primarily irrigates with raw, untreated water supplied through Village and Piñon lakes under a longstanding PAWSD contract. Residential restrictions generally apply to treated municipal water. The supplies remain part of the same regional water system, but the sprinklers are not normally using finished drinking water from household taps.
What were Sunetha Flats?
Sunetha Flats was the broad ranch and meadow country west of old Pagosa Springs. It held the area’s earliest dirt airstrip and the Pine Grove Inn and Hall, a lively dance hall, saloon and part-time casino.
Was Erik Estrada an original developer of Pagosa Lakes?
No. Art Linkletter and John Cameron Swayze were involved in an early development that Ralph Eaton acquired in 1969. Fairfield purchased Eaton’s Pagosa interests in 1983. Erik Estrada appeared much later as a spokesman for a separate company reselling undeveloped lots during the early 2000s.
Why does my map call Lake Forest “Borns Lake Reservoir”?
Some maps preserve an older reservoir name while PLPOA and local residents use Lake Forest. The precise history of the name is unclear, but it appears to be a surviving geographic label rather than a separate recreational destination.
Where can I rent discs for Cloman Park?
Pagosa Outside offers disc golf rentals. We also sell fundraiser discs and accept cash donations for the Pagosa Disc Golf Club’s continued course improvements.
What are the giant wood-chip piles at Cloman Park?
They are connected to local forest-health, biomass and wood-products work. The material is not simply abandoned debris. Chips have been used at town playgrounds, the county fairgrounds and other community projects.
Why do firefighting aircraft use Stevens Field?
The airport’s long paved runway, proximity to forested parts of Archuleta County and adjoining open space at Cloman Park allow it to support aircraft, crews and incident logistics. The complex has been particularly valuable during the Plumtaw, Oak and Rio Blanco fires.
The West Side in One Story
West of Pagosa is easy to underestimate. From Highway 160 it can look like a collection of subdivisions, stores, timeshares and golf-course entrances.
Spend a day exploring it and another story emerges.
The neighborhood lakes are working parts of a mountain water system. The forest trails double as treatment corridors and firefighter access. A professional-quality disc golf course grew from years of volunteer labor. An airport assembled by ranchers and local businessmen can become an aerial fire base almost overnight. Wood-chip piles connect forest restoration to playgrounds, public spaces and an evolving wood-products economy.
Beneath the subdivisions lie Sunetha Flats, cattle pastures and memories of Saturday nights at the Pine Grove. Above them is a development history populated by Art Linkletter, John Cameron Swayze, Ralph Eaton, Texas investors, Fairfield timeshare salesmen and, decades later, Erik Estrada pitching one more chance to own a piece of Colorado.
That combination—recreation, water, fire, history and local determination—is what makes this more than the developed side of Pagosa Springs. It is a working landscape, and the farther west and north you explore, the more of its story becomes visible.