The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Some areas go non-motorized; others get heavy machines
The U.S. Forest Service stayed busy around the Gunnison Valley this year, implementing the latest Travel Management Plan (TMP) that calls for improvements to some stretches of Crested Butte’s coveted trails and removes others entirely. And now that the rubber has hit the road, the plan, as it’s playing out, has some in the trail-riding community wondering why they’re being pushed aside.
For Doug Hudson, president of the Gunnison Valley OHV Alliance of Trailriders (GOATs), it’s a trend that’s forcing motorized trail users onto fewer routes in more confined areas of the backcountry, or into conflict with the law. After years of being followed into the far corners of the county by outdoor enthusiasts of all stripes, he thinks it’s an unjust reward for the motos.
“Historically, motorized use has been systematically moved out of the north end of the valley,” Hudson says, listing areas from Baxter’s Gulch to Brush Creek where dirt bikes have been banned, if temporarily. “So many of those trails were just ridden in over time and some were maintained by different groups of people who have been here for a long time. So a lot of people have feelings of ownership of a lot of trails, and to have them taken away is difficult.”
It’s also difficult for Hudson to understand why the Forest Service would employ some of the tactics being used to close the trails being decommissioned—because they were unofficial user-created trails, or too large for the terrain. When asked about the details, he recommends a ride to Spring Creek Reservoir.
The pull-off to Flag Creek trail, Number 422 is a well-worn depression beside the road just past the reservoir. A single track trail runs through fresh snow; a couple of rows of new boulders and the remnants of a double track are covered with dozens of young trees.
Farther on, the single track splinters into the forest and another row of new boulders marks the end of the road. A freshly planted sign informs the public that the road is closed to all mechanized forms of travel, but doesn’t encourage foot traffic either. Here, the field of felled pines is so thick, even foot travel is tricky as you step from tree to tree.
Up the road, there were more 20-foot trees littering the path than one cared to count, until the road ended at a locked gate.
The Forest Service made a similar statement at a user-made bridge that crossed Cement Creek near Deadman’s Gulch. The bridge was removed shortly after it was built to replace a crossing that was taken out in the spring runoff. Gunnison District Ranger John Murphy says the bridge was constructed illegally on public lands without meeting safety requirements. “That totally bypassed any kind of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review and there was no consideration of the impact that bridge would have on other resources,” Murphy says, adding that the Forest Service has applied for a state grant that could supply a bridge in a couple of years.
Hudson wonders why the dramatic removal of unwanted trails didn’t also require a NEPA analysis, considering the potential impacts to the resource.
Instead, the Forest Service uses its travel management planning process to decide which trails will stay, maybe even be improved, and which will go, based on who is using them, their location, their condition and a slew of other factors that were discussed in the years leading up to the release of the TMP last fall. And the Forest Service has another three to five years to implement the plan.
Of special interest to the GOATs and the OHV community is the Crystal Peak trail, Number 583. As an easy route from the Mt. Tilton spur to Cement Creek Road, Hudson says it’s an important part of a 45-mile ride from Crested Butte to Aspen that’s popular with locals and visitors.
“It’s a rugged 45 miles,” he says. If they make it all the way back to Taylor Pass in one piece, riders can decide between two long, tough routes to get back to Cement Creek, or they could take a quick trip on Crystal Peak trail. For some, Hudson says, having the trail available was a matter of safety, at least until this summer.
In the TMP, Forest Service superintendent Charlie Richmond identified Crystal Peak trail as one that was ripe for conversion into a non-motorized trail in a trail system that historically hasn’t had one.
Murphy says, “There were a lot of people, particularly folks who lived up in that area, who wanted at least one non-motorized trail up there. That was the rationale in that decision.” And it’s less of a restriction to motorized travel than it could have been.
Gunnison recreation manager Bill Jackson says the alternative that was chosen is a compromise between the preferred plan alternative and another alternative, which would have closed “many, many more miles” of motorized trails than the current plan, which is what the Division of Wildlife, Gunnison County, the Town of Crested Butte and many others had recommended.
The Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association, Elk Mountain Hikers Club and more than a hundred individuals from Crested Butte South also signed on to support the alternative with fewer motorized routes.
Together, the public comments collected leading up to the official Record of Decision helped push parts of the National Forest in a non-motorized direction. Hudson thinks it’s just a symptom of a larger problem, one that pits a few individuals in one group against another in a perceived battle over fantasyland.
“It seems like some people around here think the public land is all theirs,” he said, recounting part of a conversation he had with a staff member from Senator Michael Bennet’s office. “The public lands aren’t here for us. It’s here for the poor bastard who’s working his ass off 51 weeks a year so he can take a vacation with his family and come here for a few days to relax and have some fun.”
Developing a TMP that will guide all of that fun in certain areas is an arduous task that the Forest Service takes great pains to complete by the letter of the law. That means years of study and consideration, reviewing public comments and putting several alternatives out to be discussed and dissected. But that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect plan.
“[The TMP] was a research project that pulled together over the course of five-odd years. There was an exhaustive amount of effort that went into its development and now it’s being implemented on the ground,” Hudson says. “To assume that all of that work on three and a half million acres of the National Forest is not going to need some tweaking is an unreasonable assumption.”
And a tweaking is possible, but it’s not easy. Murphy says his office is willing to listen. “They’ve been saying it’s a very difficult process to get things overturned but we’re willing to work our way through it,” Hudson says.
In that process, GOATs and the Colorado Trail Preservation Alliance are teaming up with other groups to bring five proposed changes to the Forest Service, including returning motorized travel to the Crystal Peak trail, the descent on Doctor’s Park into the Northbank Campground and several others farther south.
The proposals are, for the most part, new to Jackson, who says the motorized trail closures that are being revisited are trails that didn’t get a lot of attention to begin with. “I was surprised to hear lately that it was a contentious route,” he says. “We considered a lot of these things when we made our decision. The Travel Management Plan is about reasonable access for all users.”
Jackson says he looked at the safety aspects of the Crystal Creek trail as a “bailout” for riders who have had enough. “There are a lot of bailouts between Brush Creek and Cement Creek without Crystal Peak,” he says, adding there are still four trails that lead to Brush or Cement creeks where riders can bail out if the terrain gets too difficult.
“If someone’s hurt and they do what they’ve got to do to get down, that’s alright and we can deal with the consequences later,” Jackson says. “But what’s the message we’re trying to send? Do we have to create bail outs on all of our high alpine trails? There is some risk in riding up there.”
