The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Bear Ranch likely to play a part, but no proposals yet
A controversial land trade proposal involving public property west of Kebler Pass, an envisioned bike trail between Crested Butte and Carbondale, and a well-known billionaire is back, and people on both sides are already rankled.
And the struggle still comes down to competing interests.
From the county’s perspective, finishing a trail from Crested Butte to Carbondale is a top priority, according to Public Works Director Marlene Crosby, and the Bear Ranch could play a part in making that happen.
“That’s always been very high on the Trails Commission’s priority list,” Crosby says. “The Bear Ranch does play in as a significant and large part of the property holding on that whole trail.”
Bear Ranch is a 5,000-acre property owned by Bill Koch, the son of oil-refining entrepreneur Fred Koch, who made billions of dollars of his own with the help of the Oxbow Group. Oxbow has, through Gunnison Energy Corporation, significant natural gas holdings in the area around Bear Ranch. Oxbow also owns one coalmine in the mountains downstream from Bear Ranch and is developing another.
To add to the intrigue of the exclusive property, the Colorado Springs Gazette recently reported that they discovered Koch to be the new owner of Buckskin Joe’s, a former Fremont County landmark that includes 30 authentic Old West buildings and the set for several famous western movies. According to the Gazette, Koch now plans to move those buildings, purchased last year for $3.1 million, to his ranch.
And as Crosby says, Bear Ranch is a big area that will need to be crossed if the 70-mile Crested Butte to Carbondale Trail can be finished.
On the Carbondale side—where Pitkin County has a dedicated tax-stream for trails and open space projects, unlike Gunnison County—the trail is coming along nicely and is actually partly paved and accessible to people with disabilities.
And on the Crested Butte side, work on the project has been slow but steady, with a section of the Wagon Trail completed recently and a move toward improving a bridge along the route west of the Kebler Pass summit that will “push the trail that much farther,” Crosby says.
Farther down, planning a trail gets tricky on Kebler Pass Road, where Crosby says there are steep banks down to the river and more of the same uphill of the road, where a trail would be hard to cut in. Then there is the rock-fall zone on Highway 133 near Paonia Reservoir that would be a safety concern on a hiking and biking trail. And still Gunnison County would have to find a route past the turnoff to Marble.
But the county doesn’t have the $40 million Pitkin County reportedly committed to the vision of the trail between Crested Butte and Carbondale. Crosby says finding a cross-country route from county to county would be far better than keeping the public confined to a corridor along Kebler Pass Road.
The concern from former High Country News publisher Ed Marston, who lives and recreates near Bear Ranch, is that the chance to have the Crested Butte to Carbondale trail could put a hook in the county should Bear Ranch owner Bill Koch want something in return.
Last year, Koch wanted local support for a federal land trade proposal that had been taken to congress by then-Congressman John Salazar, who was one of Koch’s political beneficiaries. That deal would have transferred 1,846 acres of public land running through the middle of Bear Ranch into Koch’s private hands and given 991 acres of private land—including more than 900 acres to the Curecanti National Recreation area outside Gunnison—back to the public.
Given the Oxbow Group’s interests in the extractive industries, there was some public concern that the ranch would be used for natural gas development or something of the kind. But the plans for buildings being proposed on Bear Ranch coming to the Gunnison County Planning Commission, in addition to Buckskin Joe’s, would suggest a retreat with massive homes and fancy amenities. Even Koch has said publicly that the ranch will be used for recreation.
The land trade would have connected the two halves of Bear Ranch, but it would have also removed a large and useful piece of land from the public’s holdings. As Marston points out, the land is the historical access to the Raggeds Wilderness put in place to make sure the public had access to its lands.
That’s where he thinks shady dealings will come from the competing interests of Bear Ranch—long with the county Trails Commission—and the public that uses the swath through Bear Ranch to access the Raggeds Wilderness for hunting and recreation.
Marston wrote in an email, “public lands should not be rearranged to fulfill the desires of one person, or a few persons. I think that is why people react so strongly: If we’re to start changing public access and ownership so that one person can have the kind of estate he or she wants, that’s a bad precedent.”
Last year, as the Bear Ranch land exchange bill was going through the process in Congress, Marston mounted an assault on the idea via the media and ultimately more than a dozen stories—some in papers like the New York Times, the Denver Post and the Wall Street Journal—hit the news.
Whether the fuss raised over the land exchange played into it or not, Salazar wasn’t reelected and Scott Tipton, who took Salazar’s seat, has yet to endorse such a deal. In fact, no deal has been made public yet.
After giving the land exchange an initial letter of support last year, the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners started hearing the concerns from residents in the Bear Ranch area and their support changed accordingly.
Then in January, the commissioners surprised Bear Ranch with a proposed letter aiming at familiarizing Tipton with the issue and making the area’s congressional delegates – Bennet, Udall and Tipton – aware of the county’s position.
At the time, Bear Ranch manager Rob Gill told the commissioners, “To me, it seems premature” to send the letter. “We haven’t had an opportunity to talk with Congressman Tipton (but plan to in early February) and we know there are issues in Delta County… Gunnison County’s process [considering the land exchange] was very open and I think the letter casts doubt on that process.”
Responding to a question from Commissioner Phil Chamberland, Gill said the legislation would probably change after getting input from Gunnison and Delta counties, as well as members of the public on both sides of Kebler Pass.
“I think things will be significantly different,” he said. “I personally think they’ll need to be [significant] for Tipton to reintroduce.”
Curtis Moore, a consultant working for Bear Ranch, was concerned that “This letter might be used by opponents to undermine the process. It’s kind of a bad time for this to be coming out while we’re trying to schedule time with Congressman Tipton. If you’re still interested in the Curecanti parcel, I would ask you to delay this.”
At the end of the January meeting, the commissioners decided to shelve the letter until more detail could be provided about the future of the legislation.
“A bottom line for me is that if Koch gets his way, it will be a much better deal than it would have been last year,” Marston says, “but not a good enough deal.”
In a letter published in the Crested Butte News August 19, Marston accuses the county, ranchers and federal agencies of failing to post signs on the property that runs through Bear Ranch and ultimately hiding the land from the public.
Crosby took issue with the way Marston was painting the efforts she and the Trails Commission were making. The Trails Commission responded to what she called “inaccuracies in Mr. Marston’s letter” in a letter to the editor published on page 4. Meanwhile, the work to take a pedestrian and bike trail to Pitkin County will continue.
