Town cameras count lots of mammals on nearby trails

Can you believe that July was the most crowded time for trails?!

by Mark Reaman

All sorts of critters, from humans to moose, coyotes and elk were captured on the Crested Butte trailhead cameras last summer. Those cameras are situated at four primary trailheads located in town and are meant to gather baseline data to count users on the trails. Last summer, from June through October, was the second season to gather the data.

Cameras were set up at the Deli Trail, the Green Lake Trail, the Woods Walk and Red Lady Open Space Trail. The Red Lady camera only gathered information until late July as it was then stolen and not replaced.

In a report to the town council, Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Trails director Janna Hansen said a total of 89,674 users were tallied including 8,562 dogs across all the locations.

The Woods Walk was the most popular trail with 50,681 users, the majority of them (61%) being hikers. Hansen said that trail is a difficult place to capture accurate counts due to the “braided trail network” so close to town. The camera was located near the pinch point heading out to the Lower Loop so she said actual users on the trail directly adjacent to town “are likely substantially higher.”

The Deli Trail camera recorded 31,834 users with most of them (77%) being bikers. Many were recurring users leading to the conclusion that many people use that path to commute to and from town. Green Lake had 6,343 users with two-thirds of them being hikers. The Red Lady Open area counted 816 users between June 10 to July 28.

Some of the more unique stats include that eight one-wheelers were spotted on the Deli Trail, 6,690 dogs and one donkey were recorded on the Woods Walk, and the busiest period for all trails was (surprise!) the first week of July.