If you've walked, run, or ridden the High Line Canal Trail through the middle of Greenwood Village this summer, you may have noticed new ground disturbance, trenching, or staging equipment near Marjorie Perry Nature Preserve. The easy assumption is that it has something to do with the canal itself, maybe a plan to get water flowing through the ditch again after a dry stretch. That assumption is wrong, and the actual explanation says more about how this trail works than most residents realize.
The canal running through your neighborhood and the trees growing along it are, as of this year, being treated as two separate problems with two separate solutions.
What's Actually Going In at the Preserve
The project has a plain bureaucratic name: Miles 26-33, Greenwood Village Irrigation System Design. That mile range covers the stretch of the High Line Canal that runs through Greenwood Village, and the first phase of construction is centered on Marjorie Perry Nature Preserve. It's not a canal restoration project. It's a groundwater well, drilled specifically to feed a new irrigation system that will water the tree canopy along the trail, independent of whatever Denver Water decides to send down the ditch in a given season. The High Line Canal Conservancy, which coordinates capital projects across the trail's eleven jurisdictions, lists a second phase for this stretch that could begin construction as early as this fall.
That timing matters for anyone who uses the preserve regularly. If you're on Segment 12, the stretch of trail that runs past the preserve between the Orchard Road Trailhead and the Belleview Trailhead, expect more of what you've already been seeing this summer, and expect it to continue or expand once the second phase gets underway.
Why the Canal Can't Do This Job Itself
Here's the part that surprises most people who assume the canal is a reliable water source: it isn't, and it never really has been. Denver Water only sends water through the canal intermittently between April and October, and only when river conditions and demand from remaining irrigation customers line up. Even when water is flowing, the canal is an unlined dirt ditch, and Denver Water's own estimate is that it loses 60 to 80 percent of whatever water enters it to seepage before that water gets very far. The canal holds a water right dating to 1879, which by Colorado standards is fairly junior, so it's often the first source cut off when the South Platte gets tight.
Put plainly: even in a good year, the canal was never built to reliably keep a row of mature cottonwoods alive along a five-and-a-half-mile stretch through the middle of a city. It was built in the 1880s to move water toward farmland, and it did that job poorly enough that Denver Water eventually estimated the canal wasn't a dependable irrigation delivery method at all.
| Canal water | New well water | |
|---|---|---|
| Season | April through October, and only intermittently | Year-round, independent of river flow |
| Reliability | Subject to South Platte conditions and a junior water right | Controlled locally, dedicated to the trail |
| Efficiency | 60 to 80 percent lost to seepage | Delivered directly through new irrigation lines |
| Purpose | Originally built for farmland irrigation | Built specifically to keep trailside trees alive |
That's the shift happening at Marjorie Perry Nature Preserve right now. The city isn't waiting on the canal to solve a canal problem. It's building around it.
Where This Sits on Your Walk
Greenwood Village's piece of the High Line Canal Trail breaks into three distinct stretches, and if you use the trail regularly you've probably developed a preference without naming it that way.
Coming from the south out of deKoevend Park in Centennial, the trail enters Greenwood Village and becomes what's mapped as the Greenwood Village Amble, a 4.6-mile stretch running through Little Dry Creek Park to the Orchard Road Trailhead at 4011 E. Orchard Road. This is the horse country section: open bridle paths, rolling pasture views, crushed gravel underfoot, and a steady mix of equestrians, cyclists, runners, and dog walkers sharing the same corridor.
From Orchard Road, the trail continues north to the Belleview Trailhead at 4200 E. Belleview Avenue. This middle stretch, just under three miles, is the one that runs past Marjorie Perry Nature Preserve, and community trail data consistently ranks it as the most popular segment in the Greenwood Village area for both running and biking, averaging 4.6 stars across more than 400 reviews.
Past Belleview, the trail crosses into Cherry Hills Village and slows down. This final stretch runs about 2.9 miles to Three Pond Park at 4100 S. Colorado Boulevard, passing through Blackmer Common under a heavier cottonwood canopy, with a more pastoral, unhurried feel than the busier middle section.
Together those three segments make up the 5.47 miles of High Line Canal Trail that fall inside Greenwood Village, which is a small piece of a much larger network. The city maintains roughly 40 miles of trails in total, spread across 280 acres of parks and 186 acres of open space within its 8.3 square miles.
The Other Trails Nobody Talks About
The canal gets the attention because it's the longest connected stretch and the one that ties into a 71-mile regional trail, but Greenwood Village's equestrian infrastructure is worth knowing about even if you don't ride. Rollin D. Barnard Equestrian Park at 1001 East Orchard Road and Alexander Lane Equestrian Park at 2501 East Alexander Lane both sit close to the canal corridor, and there's a dedicated equestrian crossing where the trail meets Monaco Street near Crestline Avenue. None of this shows up if you only think of the High Line Canal as a paved or gravel path for walking the dog after work. It's a working piece of infrastructure that different residents use in genuinely different ways, on the same ground.
The trail's dual identity, working irrigation ditch and neighborhood amenity, is exactly why a project like the one at Marjorie Perry Nature Preserve exists in the first place. A canal built to move farm water in the 1880s was never going to be the thing that keeps a residential tree canopy healthy in the 2020s. Greenwood Village is finally building the infrastructure that does that job on purpose.
What to Watch For This Fall
If phase two of the irrigation project moves forward on the timeline the Conservancy has laid out, expect continued or expanded ground work near the preserve through the fall months. There's no indication of a full trail closure, but anyone who runs or bikes Segment 12 regularly should plan for the kind of temporary disruption that comes with trenching and utility work: uneven surfaces, staged equipment, and possibly short detours around the active work zone.
The bigger picture is a canal corridor that's quietly being rebuilt from a nineteenth-century irrigation ditch into something closer to what residents already treat it as: a permanent, well-maintained neighborhood trail that doesn't depend on how much water the South Platte has to spare in a given April.
If you're curious about how a specific stretch of the trail near your own street fits into that plan, or you just want to talk through what's changing in Greenwood Village more broadly, John Chrisbens is happy to talk through it. Let's Connect.
