The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
The struggle to prevent trespassing and for locals to learn new habits
By Katherine Nettles
For the past two weeks, we have looked at several areas undergoing change in a time of sustained population growth and development within the northern Gunnison Valley. First we looked at the Middle Upper Loop, Bridges Loop and GB Loop. Next we looked at Moonridge Ranch, recently purchased and renamed Sunflower Ranch but committed to maintaining valued Nordic trail access. This week, we will conclude with a focus on two centerpieces of our valley: the Woods Walk and Meridian (Long) Lake. Both involve private property with trail easements, and both are fraught with problems of trespassing and ever-increasing visitors.
Woods Walk: Enforcing trail easements
The Woods Walk, a gentle path connecting Crested Butte’s western edge of town to the Lower Loop with a combination of aspen groves and a sunny hillside, has a nostalgic history for many old-timers and mid-timers who can recall the time when it was a simple, unofficial “social trail.” The land was once a coal mine owned by Colorado Fuel and Iron Co (CC&I) until the 1950s. When the mines closed and the railroad tracks were removed, hikers, bikers and skiers used the old railroad grade, according to the Crested Butte Heritage Museum archives. When the land was sold to a developer, hundreds of acres became the private property and subsequent home sites we are more familiar with today.
Brian Lieberman, stewardship manager for the Crested Butte Land Trust, spoke with the Crested Butte News about what he sees as two central issues regarding the trail there—and to a smaller extent, the trails at Long Lake: locals with old habits, and newer users who don’t know better.
“I think that was a pretty big wake-up call for the town,” Lieberman says of the initial land purchase that became Trappers Crossing subdivision instead of open land free to all.
“The easy access that all the residents were used to having right outside of town wasn’t just going to be there forever,” Lieberman says. “But it is such a valued area for us all here, to be able to get out in nature right from town. We all need to walk our dogs, or get out on a walk at lunch. We know how important that trail use is to people here.”
The land trust began talking to the new private landowners as home construction started in the late 1990s, says Lieberman, and asked to put in a trail easement. These have taken shape throughout the last 20-plus years, with the town of Crested Butte holding some easements and the land trust holding others. The land trust completed the final easement (six total) to protect the last bit of the Woods Walk earlier this year. Now the goal is to get people to stick to the trail and not the old paths or destinations.
“I think there is a slight feeling of entitlement out there, especially among those people who knew it before. They have been there for many years, played in those forts before people built houses or owned that property. Crested Butte has gone through our growing pains here, but before the trail use wasn’t the same level of impact that it is today,” Lieberman says.
The land trust has been working with one of the landowners along the Kebler Road access point where there is a lot of unwelcome trespassing.
“I think two things are happening: people are going off trail to take pictures of the flowers, or let kids play in those teepee structures. Or people who know the old social trails are going up along those, and disregarding the new rules,” Lieberman says. “It is becoming a point of contention and irritation for property owners.”
The makeshift teepee structures are actually not part of the trail easement, Lieberman confirms. “You are trespassing if you are there.”
There is also an issue with commercial permits.
“We do request that all people who want to use our properties commercially get a permit,” Lieberman says. “We have a protocol for you to permit that use, and we are slowly trying to clamp down on those. We don’t charge people to use our properties, but we do charge for our staff’s time to review them… to evaluate for their impact and for their appropriateness to our conservation values.”
Whoever holds the conservation easement is responsible for upholding the terms and preventing erosion and excessive impact, says Lieberman. In this case, that is the land trust and town.
“Up until now,” Lieberman says, “we’ve been attacking that through signs, but we are getting to a point where the signs are plenty and more enforcement and education are needed.”
There is plenty at stake, in terms of current easements and the potential to work with landowners in the future. “We do have some risk on these properties that if we don’t manage that conservation, there could be some consequences for that down the road,” says Lieberman. He says the fallout could range from being taken to court or losing access to some properties.
“There is that notion that if we can’t respect that these trails are on private property that access could be jeopardized,” Lieberman says. “Trail easements are a difficult subject in law. But a lot of these private property owners already feel like they’ve given so much. Compared to a lot of other towns we have so much more access to our trails right from town here, but many feel like people aren’t following the rules when they are out there.”
Lieberman says the struggle also wears on potential new contracts. “I foresee that others may be reluctant to provide that on their property if they see the trouble others are having,” he explains. “It seems less enticing to welcome the public on to their property if they are hearing about all the problems.”
Long Lake: A brand new start
The Crested Butte Land Trust just acquired the parcel along the southern side of Long Lake off Washington Gulch via the elaborate land swap among the Valley Housing Fund, the U.S. Forest Service, the CBLT and the Trust for Public Land in late 2019. While the hope is for the land trust to manage the area for better sustainability, Lieberman says he already foresees issues with people trespassing on the Allen Ranch to the north side of the lake.
This year, the land trust partnered with Vail’s Epic Promise program and the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association to reroute the steep trail the Allen family provides from the Washington Gulch trailhead. “It was prone to erosion, getting wider and wider every year, so we put in two switchbacks. But some people are still trying to use the old trail, and cutting barbed wire to get through. We wanted to make the trail more sustainable,” says Lieberman.
He acknowledges that for some people, old habits die hard, and people are not always aware of why an old trail is re-rerouted or closed off. Some people feel nostalgic about a particular cut in a particular trail, after all.
“Change is hard,” says Lieberman. “And change is happening so quickly around here, I understand that it’s hard with us asking folks to do new things—but we can’t continue the way the old times used to be, whether with private property or with resource damage. This continually expanding tourism is not sustainable any more—and we know that comes with sacrifices from the local community. But in the long term it’s going to be more beneficial than if it were left as a totally unmanaged, overrun area.”
Lieberman also offers some insight as to how people can get mixed up about whether they are on public lands or on private land, since this so often changes and often in the course of only a few hundred feet.
“It’s the patchwork of land ownership. It’s hard to keep people accountable when going from public lands to private property or ranch lands as conserved lands with public access. If folks erred on the side of caution and just stayed on the trail, I think we’d have no issues. Some people think trails automatically equal public lands, and they figure, ‘Do whatever you want.’ But trails do not necessarily equal public lands,” concludes Lieberman. “We all live here because we all love to go outside. A lot of time locals are doing stuff they don’t even realize is a problem—so when in doubt, stay on the trail.”
