Travelers in the 1800s and early 20th century experienced a pristine, rushing creek and a 30-foot high waterfall enhanced by a rainbow when they ventured west of Manitou Springs along Fountain Creek.

That scene, at what is now El Paso County’s Rainbow Falls Recreation Area, is long gone.

A large concrete highway bridge built above the falls in the 1930s blocked the light source for the seemingly perpetual rainbow. And now the most dominant colors found at the falls have come out of spray paint cans. The paint is so abundant on the bridge structure and on the rocks, trees and almost anything else nearby that many people in the Pikes Peak region have dubbed the area “graffiti falls.” 

“It’s gotten a lot worse,” said Lane Williams, who with his wife Laura founded Manitou Environmental Citizens Action six years ago to clean up the graffiti and restore Rainbow Falls to its natural state.

“It has nothing to do with art and nothing to do with self-expression,” Williams said. “It’s just vandalism.”

Nonprofits such as MECA and county officials continue to look for ways to turn the nearly five acres at the foot of Rainbow Falls into a park that the entire region can enjoy.

In 2013 and 2014, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the county rebuilt the channel and shored up the embankment below U.S. 24 adjacent to Rainbow Falls, adding landscaping and a wide pathway for hikers and emergency vehicles. The $1.7-million work was needed after flash floods poured off the Waldo Canyon fire scar and down the creek.

MECA and the county used that project as a foundation to begin implementation of the 2011 Rainbow Falls Master Plan.

CDOT is about to embark on repairs to the roadway atop the bridge. but others are proposing a longer-term solution of removing the bridge from the recreation area.

Dave Watt, a CDOT project manager, said his office is taking bids to replace parts of the road surface, a job that is expected to begin in mid to late January. Watt said the deterioration was caused by flooding in 2013 and will be paid for by CDOT.

Watt and El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark said the upcoming repairs have reinvigorated conversation about what might be done to deter vandalism in the area.

“It really detracts from the natural beauty,” Clark said, noting that she and MECA have environmental concerns about the ongoing abuse.

Clark said paint on the rocks, trees and other vegetation has polluted the area and could inevitably contaminate the waters nearby and downstream. She said spray cans and other litter has been found by maintenance crews in the creek at the base of the falls.

“The damage that is being done to the environment out there is pretty expensive,” she said.

El Paso County spent more than $2,000 to remove some of the graffiti in 2015. County spokesman Dave Rose said park staff and other volunteers also have been at the falls trying to keep spray paint damage to a minimum.

Lane Williams said the $2,000 cost is “nothing.” According to the MECA founder, his organization has received estimates to have all the graffiti removed “in one fell swoop.”

“It will cost tens of thousands of dollars,” he said.

Williams and Clark said they have discussed the issue with CDOT for years. Watt confirmed that possible redesign of the bridge’s understructure has been discussed.

“What that would look like, I don’t know,” he said.

The county and MECA believe a change in culture is needed to keep stop the graffiti vandalism.

According to Williams, moving forward with the Rainbow Falls Master Plan will help give visitors a sense of ownership. The estimated price tag to implement all facets of the plan would be more than $600,000.

Williams said, “It will become untolerable” if others paint the area after another facelift. The Master Plan includes scenic overlooks above the falls, a possible amphitheater on the property, new picnic areas along the creek’s edge and a trailhead that would lead hikers to Waldo Canyon, Williams Canyon and the Ute Pass Regional Trail.

Clark and Williams say that the long-term solution would be to remove the bridge and the highway exiting Manitou Springs to the west.

“We’re in that conversation right now,” Williams said. “The bridge is the linchpin for everything. If the bridge is gone then the canvas and fundamental reason (to spray paint) is gone.”

And removing the bridge would allow the light – and the rainbow – to return to the falls.

MECA has proposed that CDOT build a wide roadway that curves up to U.S. 24 further east, near Serpentine Drive, allowing Manitou residents an escape route in case of wildfire or floods. The relocation would give commercial trucks a way in and out of the town of about 5,000 people at the base of Pikes Peak.

“The problem is finding the money to get it done,” Williams said.

According to Williams, MECA and the county brought the discussion to people who support the graffiti on the bottom structure of the bridge. He said MECA even proposed a redesign to Rainbow Falls Recreation Area that might include a place to allow graffiti artists to share their work with the public. Williams said the idea would be to monitor the art and make sure vulgar paintings were mitigated.

“They’re just not interested,” Williams said, noting that the vandals don’t want any kind of restriction on when and where they can tag. “The response was, ‘Hell no!’ and ‘You can’t make us stop.'”

Those who want to vandalize Rainbow Falls have figured out El Paso County patrol shifts. They enter the area stealthily at night and during low traffic times, Williams said.

Other people come to the area to look at what they call “art.” A pair of visitors to the falls on Thursday said the paint covered bridge was “beautiful,” adding that the graffiti is simply a form of self-expression.

Sean Syring, 30, who recently moved back to Colorado Springs, said he didn’t know about “graffiti falls” until his friend, 24-year-old Jonathan Belleza, told him about it.

“It’s interesting,” Syring said. “It’s very artistic. I think it should stay.”

Belleza looked around, focusing on cartoonlike paintings high up in the arched supports under the bridge. He looked past profane words, crude paintings of unmentionable body parts and the vandalism on the trees and rocks.

“I love it. I think this place is gorgeous,” Belleza said.