Community comes together to build phase 2 of the Lupine Trail

“People take immediate ownership of these properties…”

Nearly 200 people, from native Crested Butte toddlers to second homeowners in their 70s, spent the better part of Saturday building the second piece of the Lupine Trail just north of Crested Butte. It took about six hours for a smooth 1.2-mile dirt trail to emerge from the sagebrush and beneath the aspens on a piece of ground purchased by the town of Crested Butte last year.

“CBMBA couldn’t be more proud of the outstanding results of the National Trails work day on the Lupine Trail, none of which would have been possible without the help of all the great volunteers, donors, trail advocacy, planning and land acquisition organizations who helped make this record-setting event possible,” said Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association director of marketing Dan Devlin.
“Officially we had 182 people signed in, but there were more who didn’t bother with that formality. When you add up the number of hours the boards put in to prepare the trail and the number of hours the volunteers put in on Saturday, it adds up to more than 2,000 hours,” said Devlin.
The property was part of a deal closed in the spring of 2011 between the town and the Kochevar family. About 321 acres of property came under town control. Financed like so many open space projects in the valley by the Trust for Public Land, the acreage will be totally owned by the town by 2013.
Scott Dissel from the Trust for Public Land helped swing a Pulaski on Saturday and said the organization loves helping Crested Butte with its open space purchases. “Crested Butte is truly a unique community. One of the things that is special about working in Crested Butte is that the people take immediate ownership of these properties. They help us as a national organization put local stewardship, local activity, local trail building onto these parcels that we need local partners to help us with.
“Not only do the people of Crested Butte take ownership of these parcels, they take action,” Dissel continued. “The thing that was so exciting about Saturday, was to see 180 people come out and be willing to bust their backs for three to five to eight hours to really make sure that these parcels get used by themselves and by everybody who comes to Crested Butte. It is a very action-oriented community and that is one thing that is very special about the community.”
The town has been holding meetings with trail user representatives for more than a year. When the first 1.4 miles of the trail was constructed last National Trails Day in 2011, Crested Butte Town Council member Jim Schmidt said the group was blown away by the response and wanted to see how to make this second section even better. They talked about who they had not included in the first project and the Adaptive Sports Center came up. So they brought in Adaptive Sports executive director Chris Hensley, who suggested the second part of the trail project accommodate hand cyclists. So it does. This newest section of trail is twice as wide as the first.
Schmidt, who also organized the Kochevar trail users group, said the whole end result is amazing. “It is just one of the most satisfying things people in the community do,” he said. “It’s satisfying because it will be of use to so many people in the community. And really, CBMBA has to be the most organized trail building group in the country. CBMBA is absolutely great.”
Saturday afternoon, the first wheeled vehicles to climb the new trail were two hand-cycles ridden by Jake O’Connor and Chad Belyea.
Adaptive’s Chris Hensley said the whole event was awesome and the trail will be a great amenity for both Adaptive and the valley as a whole. “This was an awesome project. Given the amount of traffic out on the Lupine trails, the width is very appropriate,” he said.
“Plus, we are getting more and more of a repution as a backcountry biking facility and this only helps.”
Crested Butte Land Trust executive director Ann Johnston agreed that the trail day is a great event. “It can be tough, tiring, and dirty work, moving large rocks and swinging a Pulaski or an arbor hoe,” she said. “But we all had big smiles on our faces, because we knew how much we’d enjoy the trail over the years. This incredible trail became a reality in record time, thanks to the throngs of individuals and local organizations pulling together yet again, in classic Crested Butte style.”
Molly Murfee, executive director of 1% for Open Space said, “What is so evident on these trail building days is the years of collaboration you get to see in one final moment. It takes each of us involved in land preservation and access performing our own particular niche well to create a complete whole. In the instance of the new addition of the Lupine Trail, it took the Crested Butte Land Trust and the town of Crested Butte putting forth the vision to preserve both the Kikel and the Kochevar parcels of land respectively. It took 1% for Open Space businesses and their customers, as well as funding support from the Gunnison Valley Land Preservation Board, the town of Crested Butte and the Trust for Public Land to actually help purchase the land. Then it takes the energy and human-power of the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association to lay out a trail that gives us all access to a beautiful piece of property. “
Murfee went on to say, “Just like with an ecosystem it takes all of us to make the whole project work. In the end, we have the incredible pleasure of not only preserving open space, but providing our community with a means to access it. It boosts our economy, our active lifestyles and our spirits.”
Other community trail building projects have included the Lower Loop trail and the Budd Trails.
“It will be hard to top the last two National Trails Day projects,” said Schmidt. “But we have a year to come up with something.”