Hidden Gems plan gets positive response from commissioners

Disagreement over Whetstone not enough to sway county

With changes coming to Colorado’s congressional delegation, organizers of the Hidden Gems Wilderness campaign went to the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday, November 23 to make sure nothing had changed in the commissioners’ support of the plan to set aside some 35,000 acres of the county’s public lands as permanent designated Wilderness.

While the commissioners heard a few people voice concerns, the board was happy to again extend its support of the proposal, as it relates to lands in the county.
The Hidden Gems plan is to set aside more than 340,000 acres in mid-elevation areas, below the land of rock and ice that currently makes up the majority of Colorado’s Wilderness.
If the proposal finds a sponsor in congress and gets approval, it would add 14 new Wilderness areas to the state and add area to 26 more in the White River and Gunnison National Forests.
Gunnison County Gems campaign organizers Laura Yale and Will Roush went to the commissioners to pitch Hidden Gems 2.0, the “reworked” version of the original plan that raised the hackles of mountain bikers and motorized users throughout the four-county proposal area.
The Wilderness designation would permanently restrict the proposal areas to every kind of motorized or mechanized transportation, allowing only foot and hoof traffic. That has driven a wedge in the outdoor community over the merits of such a strict and permanent form of protection.
So before the Gems organizers go back to the state’s delegation, namely congressman-elect Scott Tipton, to discuss the possibility of sponsorship. They are going to the local governments to make sure the new plan still has the support it had before Election Day.
The commissioners have been listening to public input on the Gems campaign for over a year and they weren’t looking to rehash the past. So they asked the crowd gathered in the meeting room to speak out only if they had something new to add to the discussion.
“Pitkin County just last week fully endorsed all of the Hidden Gems proposal areas within Pitkin County,” Yale said. “That’s why it’s a perfect time for you guys to weigh in. And we’re excited to take the proposal to congressman-elect Scott Tipton to start educating him on the benefits of Wilderness in general.”
Roush drew a connection between Wilderness and the community’s ability to adjust to a changing climate. “We also want to work on Wilderness preservation because of the added pressure being put on our natural resources. Wilderness is a way to be proactive about what is coming down the pike and make sure everywhere isn’t opened up to development.”
He showed the room a map of all the roads in Colorado, in which just a few areas were left undisturbed. “Essentially the Hidden Gems Campaign is hoping to protect those areas between the roads,” he said.
Highlighting that encroachment of roads is the most obvious and major change to the newest version of the Gunnison County part of the proposal, which doesn’t include land in the Clear Fork area, where natural gas exploration and extraction is a booming business. That area of the proposal was removed at the request of the county.
In the revised version of the Hidden Gems proposal, there are six proposal areas; five of those are additions to existing Wilderness areas. And not much time has been spent at past commissioner’s hearings on any of those proposals.
They include an addition of about 3,500 acres to the Powderhorn Wilderness, 5,000 acres north of Blue Mesa that will be an addition to the southern part of the West Elk Wilderness, an approximate 5,000-acre addition to the Treasure Mountain Wilderness, more than 1,600 acres to Gallo Hill and 1,680 acres near McClure Pass.  
The sixth proposal area, however, includes more than 16,000 acres on Whetstone Mountain and has gotten a lot of attention from mountain bikers and motorized trail users, who think the public’s preservation of the mountain up to the present day has been enough to maintain its Wilderness quality.
If the proposal goes through as Wilderness, motorized users could lose access to trails on the mountain and the mountain bike community would lose the chance to put an envisioned trail between Crested Butte and Gunnison across the back of Whetstone.
If the proposal doesn’t go through, it would leave the lands unprotected until an alternative is agreed upon. During that time, mining claims and mineral leases could be established that would have to be honored in the future.
Except for two people opposed to the proposal at the meeting, almost everyone in the packed commissioners’ meeting room wore a neon green sticker saying, “GEMS Yes!” The commissioners also got a fresh stack of letters in support of the proposal from outfitters and anglers, ranchers and recreationalists, namely those who like to travel by foot or on horseback.
And among the group were a couple of mountain bikers who stood out to say that they could live with less biking access in exchange for the opportunity to permanently protect so much land.
Crested Butte resident Margot Levy told the commissioners the proposal had been “a model of compromise and building on what we already have.” The Gems campaign has shaved thousands of acres off of its proposal to gain favor from the community, including 1,100 acres taken from the Whetstone proposal area.
Levy told the commissioners about the controversy that had surrounded the designation of Oh Be Joyful as Wilderness. “Now we take it for granted,” she said. “I think we’re creating a situation that is going to stand us very well into the future.”
Crested Butte resident Gary Dotzler spoke up as a mountain biker in favor of the Gems proposal. “It’s obvious that they’ve done as much as they can to talk to the affected groups… and I’m really impressed with the concessions they’ve made for snowmobilers and mountain bikers, like myself.”
But not everyone at the meeting thought the concessions had been that obvious and all of the feedback the commissioners got from the public about the Hidden Gems proposal was not positive. Many of the letters in the commissioners’ packet were from people opposed to the proposal.
After nearly all of the supporters had spoken, former county commissioner and current director of community relations for the Mt. Emmons Project Perry Anderson stood up to speak against the plan that would close more of the public lands off from public use.
“The proposal areas are, and have been, multi-use,” he said. “That multi use is for various activities for various people who like various types of activities. It’s currently enjoyed by many people throughout those areas… and I’d like to see it stay that way.”
Anderson had several points to make about why the proposal is bad for the Whetstone area. He said, “These proposed areas do not truly have Wilderness characteristics if you compare them to the West Elks, Fossil Ridge, Powderhorn or the Maroon Bells.”
Then he suggested if there’s any doubt about the quality of the land, all sides should take a field trip to see the area. He also pointed out that not everyone who comes to Gunnison County to recreate is coming solely for the wilderness.
Then Gunnison Trails president Dave Wiens stood up and waved a finger across the room, pointing to the crowd and said, “Unless you’re wearing one of those [GEMS Yes!] stickers, this is a pretty tough crowd, and I don’t have one on. But I don’t want this to be just one side or the other. I think there’s a middle ground.”
Wiens went on to commend the Gems organization for putting together a well-organized campaign and noted the number of supporters. But he said, “You’ve seen some meetings we’ve called to this room and we’ve filled it up with mountain bikers and none of you guys were here… We could easily have an equal showing.
“As mountain bikers we are for land preservation,” he said. “We are not necessarily for only Wilderness… It’s our belief that Wilderness is at a point in its evolution that it’s not just the Wilderness Act of 1964 and draw the line in the sand. As the future rolls out, there will be other alternatives to protect the land.”
Throughout the discussion, commissioner-elect Phil Chamberland, who is also the president of the Gunnison Valley SnoTrackers snowmobile club—a group that has voiced opposition to the proposal in the past—sat quietly at the end of the line of commissioners. He will take over Starr’s position on the commission in January.
But the current commissioners had heard the arguments of both sides before and asked staff to draft a letter reaffirming the county’s support for designating the areas of the Hidden Gems proposal inside Gunnison County as Wilderness areas. The board will vote on a final version of the letter at a regular meeting December 7.