The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Groups work for better communication
The sound of a two-stroke engine with throttle pinned echoes across the top of Reno Divide. Under a tree a group of mountain bikers, having ridden up from the bottom of Cement Creek Road, guzzle water between mouthfuls of peanut butter and jelly.
Wildflowers paint the hills purple and yellow. Out of a four-wheel drive jeep tumbles a family of four with birding binoculars and picnic in hand. The sun shines down bright and warm. It’s an overall bucolic picture of mountain life, one that seems to gloss over years of hard work and head shaking.
Here’s the background. For decades the Cement Creek watershed, of which Reno Divide is at the top, had been a hotbed of mixed use with motorcycles and off-highway vehicles (OHVs) traveling on many of the same roads and trails frequented by mountain bikers, hikers and equestrians. This heavy use caused a fair amount of habitat and ecosystem degradation, as well as the occasional heightened emotion when a dirt biker came up too fast on a mountain biker, or when a hiker refused to share the trail with a dirt biker. It was a situation that needed attention, and because the area fell on National Forest land the party most responsible for its management was the U.S. Forest Service.
Officials from the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest (GMUG) went to work to develop a travel management plan for their forests and the Cement Creek Watershed. Creating the plan took more than 10 years and included substantial public involvement and participation. When the plan was finally released in 2011 it included a series of regulations for the trails and roads that branch out like arteries from the bottom of the Cement Creek Road drainage, as well as the closure of several trails and roads.
At the time of the plan’s release Gunnison District ranger John Murphy, speaking on behalf of the Forest Service, said, “Identifying routes on the forest that are open to motorized use and to which type of vehicle was the result of years of input and participation from hunters, recreationists and other members of the public. Our goal was to provide access to the forest while balancing watershed, wildlife, recreation and forest management needs.”
Implementation of the plan began immediately, but the Forest Service said it would take between three to five years for the plan to be realized in its entirety. It turns out three to five years is a long time to wait.
The Problem at
Cement Creek
The travel management plan was never meant to be a static document, said Murphy from his office at the Gunnison Ranger District.
“Since the beginning we knew there were things about it that were good, and other aspects that would need revision, but it offered a starting point. We’re at a time now where groups are actively seeking to make changes to the plan for a variety of reasons.”
According to Murphy, most of the changes being suggested for the plan revolve around issues created when motorized travelers and nonmotorized travelers cross paths.
“There’s so much animosity that exists between these groups, and they are all really passionate about their uses,” said Murphy. “Some groups think we closed too many trails while others think we haven’t done enough, and there’s been conflict between some of them, with many of the nonmotorized users characterizing motorized users as outlaws, often unfairly.”
Murphy said both he and the Forest Service are taking a timeout with regard to actively managing the Cement Creek drainage. Rather than trying to mediate and problem-solve, Murphy is asking users to talk among themselves to develop cohesive proposals for changes to the travel management plan.
“I recognize there are a lot of problems in the area, especially right when you leave Crested Butte South,” said Murphy. “But we’re limited on staffing and it’s not in our interest to spend a lot of time and resources entertaining proposals if the user groups won’t be able to reach an agreement.”
This stance has encouraged several groups with a stake in Cement Creek to pony up and take active roles either in encouraging better relationships in the area, or in creating stronger alliances.
Building Community
Of all the groups most directly affected by the implementation of the travel management plan, it could be said the dirt bikers took the most heat and lost the most access. Often seen as the bad boys and girls of the forest, they were blamed for everything from disturbing the peace to destroying headwater streams.
“It’s well past time to get rid of that persona,” said Ben Breslauer, president of the Gunnison Valley O.H.V. Alliance of Trailriders (the GOATs). “We really want to get rid of labeling people as user groups. I’m a mountain biker first, a dirt biker second, and a hiker third. Because I do one does not mean I fail to see the draw of the others.”
Rather than encourage the perception that conflict runs rampant between motorized users and nonmotorized users, Breslauer and the GOATs are working to accomplish goals that benefit everyone accessing the Cement Creek trails, not just their specific user group.
“We’ve already spent a good number of hours out on the trails this summer doing maintenance and working on outreach,” said Breslauer. “We know we have a problem with people going too fast on the road so we’re working on education and putting out signs reminding people there is a speed limit and it’s a busy road.”
Breslauer said the GOATs also hope to regain access to a few roads and trails that would help spread out traffic during busy months.
“We’d really like to see a safe reroute of Grassy Trail, which was closed by the travel plan, to get users off Reno Road,” said Breslauer. “Even if a dirt biker goes by a mountain biker in first gear, at an idle, they’re still going to kick up some dust. As a mountain biker I don’t like that, and as a dirt biker I don’t like that, but when everyone is using the same road it’s a difficult situation.”
While putting a proposal into the Forest Service is on the GOATs’ agenda, it’s not the group’s first priority, said Breslauer.
“This is about being a community, not just a user group,” he added. “There are always going to be people who see any sort of confrontation as conflict, but as the GOATs, we’re trying to take a ‘kill them with kindness’ approach, and to instill an ethic of friendliness and courtesy on the trails.”
The local Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association (CBMBA), a biking and trail advocacy group, is also largely on board with this approach working to let their actions lead the way, with huge trail work days and community outreach projects.
“There is a lot of throwing around of the word ‘conflict,’” said CBMBA board member and trail advocate Dave Ochs. “It’s not a fight out there. There are a lot of good things happening, and a lot of the time the motorized users and CBMBA are pretty aligned in what they want for the area. It’s a hell of a place to ride.”
Ochs agrees that, in general, separating users on Cement Creek and Reno roads and in other popular areas is probably a good idea; however, he said, open communication is key.
“CBMBA board members Holly [Annala] and Rob [Mahedy] have spent a lot of time working with other user groups to discuss some of the issues at hand, and there have been huge steps made both in communication and in how the trails are used. It’s been an open process,” said Ochs. “The original travel management wasn’t perfect, but it has kind of made things better. A lot has been learned and now it’s time to look at revisiting areas to make sure all the users’ groups are getting what they need and the prescribed management is appropriate for the area.”
Making Alliances
Taking a different approach to building cooperation around forest travel issues in the Cement Creek drainage, Gunnison County Commissioner Phil Chamberland and High Country Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) public lands director Alli Melton have organized a series of closed-door meetings between groups they consider like-minded—groups that do not include motorized users at this time. The process has a bit of a cloak and dagger feel, though Breslauer did say Melton had reached out to him about meeting with the nonmotorized contingent once it was organized.
The reasoning, said Chamberland, is to get a significant portion of nonmotorized users on the same page before appealing to motorized groups and taking a proposal to the Forest Service.
“When we talk about user conflict, typically that’s between motorized and nonmotorized,” said Chamberland. “In the past there have been meetings where you have everyone involved and they’re all not necessarily on the same page. What I’m trying to do is to get some of this done by getting the quiet user groups together, separate from the motorized groups. We’ll talk to the motorized groups, also, but we’re doing it in phases so that when we have a public meeting we don’t waste a lot of time.”
According to Melton, many of HCCA’s concerns are in regard to the safety of nonmotorized, or quiet users, on Cement Creek Road as it moves up the watershed from Crested Butte South.
“I came into the job in early spring and pretty soon I realized there were a lot of safety issues surrounding the plan, especially on Cement Creek Road itself,” said Melton. “I know there’s a lot of conflict out there between user groups during periods of medium and high use, and I thought it would be better if nonmotorized users could say what they want in a cooperative setting.”
Melton said a step toward alleviating conflict and improving the safety of users on Cement Creek Road could be to authorize the use of the Cement Creek Trail, which runs parallel to the road. The trail was originally put in place by users but was never approved by the Forest Service. During the implementation of the travel management plan the Forest Service closed the trail, much as it had the Grassy Trail, and stated that those accessing it would be doing so in violation of federal law.
“The Travel Management Plan closed trails for a reason and unless there’s a convincing reason to open them back up, we’re not really interested in creating more access,” said Melton. “Even the opening of the access trail has to be balanced against resource and wildlife protection.”
Last week, Melton walked several sections of the proposed Cement Creek access trail. Her goal was to gather some GPS points for mapping purposes and to build a better understanding of how the trail might affect the nearby ecology.
“Right now, everything is just conceptual and any forward movement would depend completely on what the Forest Service decides in terms of appropriateness of use,” she said. “There could be some impacts on wildlife, but if we’re staying really close to where the road already is, it’s unlikely to create more fragmentation, and it doesn’t seem like there would be a lot of erosion based on the routes we took. However, everything would depend on the Forest Service’s decision and on the execution.”
Murphy has already heard from people interested in reopening the access trail, but says any action is still a long way out.
