Lake Irwin to get major renovations

Other projects include Taylor River, Horse Ranch Park

[  By Katherine Nettles  ]

The collaboration between the Gunnison County Sustainable Tourism and Outdoor Recreation (STOR) committee and the National Forest Foundation (NFF) continues to pay dividends for the county’s public lands, trailheads and recreation areas as the two entities plan some big projects set to start this summer. The largest is a major improvement project at Lake Irwin that will last through 2027, closing the campground area for just more than a year starting in the fall. 

Joe Lavorini, Rocky Mountain region forestry coordinator for the NFF, and Gunnison County stewardship coordinator Nick Catmur shared updates with county commissioners on Tuesday, March 10 about their combined STOR and NFF plans. The two entities have partnered since 2018, each contributing funding and gathering further funds through grants like the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA). 

The county and NFF updated their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support the county’s stewardship coordinator position for two years beginning in March 2026. The NFF and Gunnison County also agreed to collaborate on an annual work plan for the coordinator position, with an annual budget of between $124,800 and $249,600. The county contributes $125,000 and the NFF contributes $124,600.

Lavorini said it’s important to sit down with the commissioners each year to make sure their goals are aligned. He said the STOR committee’s strategic plan “is sort of the North Star for us.” 

“We did shift the language in the MOU,” said Catmur of the move away from general goals to a more specific work plan this year. “A lot of this comes from the STOR strategic plan.”

Lavorini said the NFF’s strategic planning for the next five years identified three areas for focus: 1) land and water restoration, which includes reforestation and disaster recovery work; 2) wildfire resilience work to reduce wildfire propagation risks: “This is a huge focus for our organization,” said Lavorini; and 3) recreation enhancement to ensure accessible, sustainable, high quality opportunities for people to connect with nature. “This is what Nick is working on here,” he said of Catmur’s position.

Along with an updated MOU between the NFF and STOR, the combined strategic planning has created a list of projects to tackle this summer and fall. The work plan includes managing the county stewardship fund, GAOA projects like the upcoming Lake Irwin reconstruction project, trail maintenance and Horse Ranch Park reconstruction project. 

Lake Irwin

Lake Irwin will be getting some major improvements in late 2026 and 2027. 

“This is a full reconstruction of the campground and the day use,” said Catmur. The campground was funded by a GAOA grant and bundled with the day use area after advocacy from GMUG district manager Dayle Funka and former district manager Matt McCombs. The NFF is issuing a request for proposals (RFP) this month for the project and hoping for work to start this fall. The goal is to start by doing demolition on the campground in the fall but leave the day use area open. 

“There will be a 2027 blanket closure for the summer,” said Catmur of the entire campground area at Irwin and portions of the day-use area. He recognized it would be extremely difficult managing recreation in that area next summer (2027), but that it would result in a huge improvement.

The estimated cost for the whole Irwin project is $4.2 million, with the campground improvements accounting for $2.5 million and day use area an additional $1.7 million. Day use improvements will include better delineated parking, replacing the current bathroom and adding a second bathroom facility, adding a pavilion, picnic area and picnic tables and potentially adding a bump-out boardwalk to separate vehicular traffic from foot traffic along part of the lake’s edge. 

“There is a ton of stuff in that plan, we currently have $3.2 million in agreement with NFF funds and the Forest Service,” said Catmur, “And we are looking at how to get the remainder [of funding].” 

Catmur relayed that Funka feels strongly that the area not be closed for more than one summer season, so the focus will be to finish the entire project by fall 2027.

Other items on the workplan are to help Western Colorado University develop a visitor use management strategy, help identify non-federal trailhead improvements to implement or develop plans for at least one high priority trailhead for summer 2026, collaborate on the wildlife crossings effort, work with the US Forest Service staff to better understand their vision/goals for the Snodgrass Recreation Emphasis Area or any of the other recreation emphasis areas named in the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) Forest Plan, and developing a fundraising plan for the county’s stewardship fund to include new potential fund partners and outreach to those partners.

A project at Horse Ranch Park, also along Kebler Pass Road, would extend and improve parking at both the Horse Ranch and Cliff Creek campsites. Catmur and Lavorini said Paonia is leading on that project, but the funding is not entirely in place yet.

Several projects in Taylor Canyon are also part of the combined work plan, including a new put-in access to be constructed on the Taylor River at The Slot rapid. 

“There are some non-federal dollars that were awarded to NFF,” said Catmur of additional funding.

Lavorini reviewed the vegetation management plans for 2026. “We have a number of projects going on in Taylor Park this year and over the next few years, on both public and private lands.” 

Lavorini noted that the work the NFF is doing in partnership with Gunnison County and the Gunnison National Forest “has served as a model for the rest of the state and the country.” He said it started in 2020 with just two NFF employees on the regional team, and there are now 20. He added that there are now about 120 staff members working around the US “in gateway communities just like this.”

County commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels, who also serves as a STOR member, commented on the partnership’s success over the years as well.

“I feel like the STOR committee is so effective and unique because of the way so many stakeholders are represented there and the strategic planning that we’ve gone through,” she said.

Puckett Daniels also reflected on previous comments that the NFF works like an extension of the National Forest and “do things that are a little bit more flexible than maybe what the federal policies and procedures do.” She said having Catmur as the STOR coordinator works like an extension of the county’s work, “and allows us to have a voice in the room about what’s happening with public lands management and recreation management,” she said.