The origin story of Staircase Park has always been a little hazy — fitting, perhaps, for a hidden riverside spot that for years felt more like a local secret than an official Town park.
The diminutive pocket park, accessible from Oak Run Road and nestled next to the Crystal River, has been beloved by Carbondalians for decades. Exactly how many decades was unclear — until The Sopris Sun tracked down former Carbondale Public Works Director Peter Ware.
“I built that stairway! We called it the ‘stairway to heaven,’” Ware said from his home in Grand Junction.
Now, about a year shy of its 40th birthday, the “stairway to heaven” is showing its age. Staircase Park, now managed by the Town of Carbondale, has closed indefinitely due to deteriorating stair stringers — the angled structural beams that support the staircase — as well as erosion beneath portions of the concrete landing.
According to Carbondale Parks and Rec Director Eric Brendlinger, the Town is currently consulting carpenters and concrete contractors to determine whether a temporary repair can safely reopen access to the park.
“This would regain access to the park while we design and budget a more sustainable access to the park,” Brendlinger said. “For now, though, the park is closed due to this issue.”
Brendlinger said that the Town has surprisingly little historical documentation about the park itself. Neither the Town’s 2003 nor 2015 parks master plans mention when the staircase was built or why the park was originally developed.
That informal origin story tracks with Ware’s memory of the project.
“There was no master plan,” he said with a laugh. “As I recall, I kinda had to manipulate the budget a little bit to get the wood.”
Back in the late 1980s, before homes filled in the surrounding neighborhood, Ware said the area was little more than an overgrown riverside field with a rough footpath leading down to the water.
“It was really gnarly down there,” he recalled. “We cleaned it up a little bit. We had a couple fire rings down there. The kids would come down and fish. I’d go over there and eat my lunch.”
A carpenter by trade, before becoming public works director, Ware said building the staircase became a passion project.
“I love building stairs,” he said. “There’s a little bit of math and science to building the right kind of stairs, so that interested me.”
The original structure was built primarily from large timber, with some concrete work near the base. Ware said public works crews occasionally helped with heavy lifting, but much of the project happened informally, during an era when Carbondale government operated with a distinctly small-town feel.
“It was back in the good old days,” he said. “It was still a small town.”
Ware remembers the staircase becoming locally iconic almost immediately. A photograph of Kathy Farrar and her children descending the stairs even landed on the front page of the Valley Journal on Sept. 24, 1987.
Over the years, the staircase has undergone periodic repairs. Brendlinger said portions of the stairs have been replaced several times over the last decade, but the latest structural issues are more serious.
“A citizen let us know about the present situation where the stringer has rotted out, so [it’s] unable to hold a replacement stair,” he said.
The Town is now exploring longer-term replacement options, including prefabricated metal stairs, concrete or treated wood. Any future rebuild will depend on budget constraints and current building code requirements.
For the dog walkers of the Crystal Village neighborhood, it’s been disappointing to lose a favorite local route. But for now, park users are respecting the closure, which is marked with caution tape and an orange-and-white striped barricade.
“I think this park functions well as a neighborhood park and is a quiet gem for those that know it and use it,” Brendlinger said.
For longtime residents like Ware, the staircase represents a particular era in Carbondale history — one shaped less by formal planning documents and more by local knowledge, volunteer spirit and scrappy initiative.
“I might come by and check it out during Mountain Fair,” Ware said. “I don’t care if it’s open — they can’t kick me out of there.”