Council agrees to take on new Baxter Gulch trail easement

But not without controversy

With a 5-2 vote, the Crested Butte Town Council agreed to potentially accept and hold a new and improved trail easement up Baxter Gulch just south of town. The new easement has been negotiated by local attorney Jim Starr and goes across Lot 19 in the Trapper’s Crossing at Wildcat subdivision.
The current trail easement requires a steep up-and-down with as many as 23 switchbacks while the new easement keeps travelers up on Gibson’s Ridge once on top. The start of the trail would be just south of Crested Butte while the Baxter Gulch portion would lead up toward Ohio Pass.

But the issue had a hard climb of its own. The easement negotiated by Starr came out of the former Foothills of Crested Butte annexation request to the town. Starr’s firm had represented the developers and as part of their payment to the firm, the developers had given Starr and Associates claim to the $5,000 in earnest money they had deposited with the owner of Lot 19. Starr has since negotiated a price of $50,000 for the trail and agreed to donate the $5,000 back to the project. The 1% For Open Space committee has agreed to look at funding the project and Starr was asking the town to simply accept the easement and help pay for trail costs and maintenance.
But just the idea of paying that much for a trail bothered some people. “The Land Trust is clearly a trails advocate but we had some questions about this deal,” said Crested Butte Land Trust President Keith Bauer. “The easement first came with the Foothills at $100,000. Then it went to $65,000 and now as of this afternoon it is $50,000. We have to ask: Is the community getting the best bang for the buck with this? We are in negotiations with two property owners in the same area. We felt we should bring this up to the community. We were surprised when the proposal came to the 1% board without being opened up to the community. It is important to recognize that this is what we at the Land Trust do.
“We feel this needs to be an open process and the whole community needs to be talking about it,” Bauer continued. “We all work best when we all collaborate.”
Starr presented a lengthy outline of the project. “When Baxter Gulch access was shut off by a private property owner in the 1980s, it was a big blow and we’ve been working since then to regain access,” he said. “This makes the trail better than what we have. The current easement has a need for anywhere between 15 and 23 switchbacks. It is estimated those would cost $40,000 to $50,000 to build and they would be costly to maintain in the future. This new alignment has only a few switchbacks and makes the trail shorter. This easement could be cheaper to buy than to use the existing easement and build a trail.
“We aren’t asking the town to contribute any tax money,” Starr continued. “We’ve been dealing with the 1% folks. As far as precedent being set, the Land Trust paid $10,000 in 1999 for a trail easement for the Lower Loop. This isn’t precedent setting for two other big reasons. It is the community re-acquiring access that the public lost and you are creating a cost savings as a result of this purchase, which is a very unique situation.”
Starr said the growing reality was that some trails access might have to be purchased, given the escalating cost of land in the area. He said the council could consider whether to have the trail open to just hikers or to hikers and bikers in the future. He also said the town’s parks and rec master plan calls for a campground at the head of the trail and that “would be a gem of a trail from that point.”
Maureen Hall of the West Elk Mountains Hikers Club urged the council to accept the easement and restrict the trail to hikers only. “Your parks and recreation master plan includes a survey and that survey indicates that hiking trails were the number one desire of the area residents,” she said. “This is your own document.”
John Chandler of the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association urged the council to keep it open to multiple uses. “If the town wants to support this pretty expensive trail easement, we’d like to see mountain bikers allowed. If you end up using public dollars to build and maintain the trail, the whole public should be able to use it,” he said.
Glo Cunningham is a former board member of the Land Trust and a current member of the 1% for Open Space board. “No one is trying to leave anyone out,” she said in response to Bauer’s comments. “Jim is the right person to be talking to the landowner given his relationship,” she said. “As far as the pricing, you negotiate what you negotiate at the time. The Lower Loop cost $1.7 million way back when and it is great. I think we need to do what we can when we can.”
1% for Open Space director Molly Murfee told the council that her board hasn’t yet met to discuss details of the proposal. “We’ve been listening and trying to answer all the questions,” she said. “We don’t do projects and we don’t hold easements, we just help fund open space. We have eight board members and we accept applications. We are looking at this one. We have the funds and we will probably meet next week.”
Murfee said if the board votes to proceed, she would like to sit with the town to iron out details of the project.
Councilperson Phoebe Wilson asked if the board was going to do an appraisal for the trail. Murfee said that hasn’t been decided but understood such appraisals could be extremely expensive.
Land Trust director Ann Johnston said such an appraisal would likely cost in the neighborhood of $3,000 to $5,000.
Councilperson Jim Schmidt said not having an appraisal wasn’t a problem for him. “We are just being asked to accept an easement, not pay for it,” he said. “And we’ve done that before with other easements up there. Everyone agrees this is a better trail. Try to stand ten years from now and ask if this was a good deal. The Lower Loop purchase looks like a great deal now. I want to accept this and I want to keep it open to mountain bikers as well. I think we’d be crazy to not accept this easement.”
Councilperson Dan Escalante said he was concerned with the big picture of having the town always be the entity to take on the costs of things like trails. “The future costs scare me a little bit. A lot of things need to be figured out but in the big picture I think we should move forward.”
Wilson insisted on seeing an appraisal before accepting the easement but fellow councilperson John Wirsing said it was the council’s job to either accept the easement or not. “I don’t think I’d spend my money on this but we are only being asked to accept the easement, so I don’t think it is up to us to require an appraisal.”
Wirsing also said it was very important to get everyone, including the Forest Service on the same page with multi-use access on a future trail. “It is important the Forest Service open it up to connect with the motorized trail up to the Gulch. That only makes sense,” he said. “Whether on shoes or on wheels, it will be an awesome experience.”
Councilperson Roland Mason agreed with Wirsing and emphasized the potential of a campground at the trailhead. “That is something we could eventually market,” he said.
“The Baxter Gulch access is the best thing to come out of the Foothills annexation,” said councilperson Reed Betz. “This is a special situation and offers a special amenity to the town. Everyone wants it and I want to support holding the easement.”
Mayor Leah Williams disagreed. “It’s tough,” she said. “The 1% program money comes from funds generated by the public. It’s a fee and there is a real responsibility to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. We already have access up there. I am also concerned that if we accept this it sends a message to landowners that charging a high price for trails is okay. The lack of an appraisal concerns me as well. We have access up Baxter’s Gulch and while it may not be perfect, it can work. I’m uncomfortable at this time accepting this easement.”
Despite the mayor’s concerns, the council voted 5-2, with Williams and Wilson voting against the motion, to have the town staff start due diligence toward accepting the easement.
Murfee said the 1% for Open Space board would be discussing the funding aspect as early as next week. The council will delve further into accepting the easement as more details become available.