Irwin property owner closes Green Lake Road

Forest Service looking at options to get it back open

By Mark Reaman

Multiple property owners in the Ruby Mining District of Irwin had a challenging month in July with a massive number of people crossing private property to access the National Forest. J.W. Smith, who owns a mining claim about a mile above Lake Irwin, this past weekend erected a gate across the road that cuts through his property and is the most popular route for people to access Green Lake at the base of Ruby and Owen. Smith recently built a house on the property that he has owned for 16 years.

Smith says in that time, he has seen “exponential growth” in human and vehicle traffic. “Fifteen years ago, while I camped on the property during the summer, there might have been 10 hikers a day, with some days having no one come through. Last summer, while I was here building the house, the average was around 50 people a day,” he estimated. “This summer, there have been about 100 to 250 people hiking through a day, and close to 100 vehicles. This has had a major impact to the area.

“In a week, there will be hundreds of people cutting through my property. Walking through a high alpine environment quickly destroys vegetation and leaves a trail for others to follow,” he continued. “There are dozens of cars a day parked on the .9 mile section of private land around Ruby. I have personally seen 14 vehicles that are not adequate for the rough high-clearance, four-wheel-drive road, get stuck by my house. These small, stuck cars are then filling and altering the road, making it easier for the next low-clearance vehicle to make it up a jeep road. What is really frustrating is people are filling the ditch using my rock walls or lumber from the yard or asking me to tow them out—sometimes in the middle of the night.”

Smith said a number of things have pushed the situation over the edge, including wildflower tours and a drone video on a local promotional website, Travel Crested Butte, encouraging people to head up to Green Lake. “There is no legal easement, no facilities for this amount of traffic and it is a liability for property owners to have a Disneyland-type crowd come through. It is not like the old days where people were respectful and friendly,” said Smith.

Gunnison District forest ranger John Murphy said the agency does not have a “perfected access [a written easement] across these private properties.” But Murphy maintained that the agency’s position is that the public has a legal right to use that road to access national Forest Service lands due to the historic use of the road.

“The Green Lake road appears on both our Motor Vehicle Use Map as well as our Visitor Use Map,” Murphy explained. “The Green Lake road is very popular and is used by the public to either hike or drive to the lake.”

Murphy said he was consulting with his bosses about how to respond to the current situation with Smith.

Smith emphasized he does not want to shut down access to Green Lake but would like to find a solution with the Forest Service that is a good fit for both private property owners and hikers. He said he has been trying to work on a hiking trail with the Forest Service to Green Lake that skirts the private property but the area was exploited before the trail was in place.

“The Forest Service can try to achieve an easement through this land by having a travel management plan in place, describing a limit on user numbers, the environmental impact, surveys, signage and intended use, which could take years,” Smith suggested. “Or certain user groups could obtain property owners’ permission to access public lands through such things as the Colorado Recreation Use Statute. That too would come with certain limits, given the situation. Keep in mind it is not only me but more than a dozen other property owners that comprise about 200 acres at the base of Ruby.”

Forest Service public and legislative affairs officer Lee Ann Loupe in Delta said the regional office is aware of the conflict. “There is a dispute on whether a public right-of-way exists on the roadway,” she said. “We are not aware of any recorded easement but are still doing research on this access route and historic use.”

“We anticipate working with Gunnison County as well and looking for resolution to this issue. In the meantime, the private landowner has closed the access at his property to public access. This will take some time to address the situation and identify options,” Loupe continued.

Smith said he has been seeking options for years with little cooperation from the U.S. Forest Service. In fact, almost exactly two years ago Murphy went up to Smith’s property and watched as people trespassed on Smith’s land. In a July 25, 2014 story in the Crested Butte News, it appeared Smith and Murphy had reached some common ground.

In that story, Murphy said, “JW agreed to remove the signs [warning people not to use the road through his property] and we agreed to do some things to better inform the public of the fact that they are on private property for a section of the road. This will include some new signage and possibly some kiosks with maps on the road and at the Irwin campground.”

Since that article appeared in 2014, Smith said he has been contacting the Forest Service to follow through on the promises and to acquire a legal document showing access. He said that when he purchased his property in 2001, the road was shown as a private road named Green Lake Road on maps of the area. Now the road is being shown as Forest Service Road 826. In 2010, Smith said he was given a Gunnison Basin Federal Lands Travel Management plan from the Forest Service.

Smith claims the document made him feel he had a legal right to put up the gate. He said it is clear that “this document states that public access across adjacent private lands is determined by the landowner. Those routes that enter public lands by crossing private lands with no recorded legal authorization are not considered part of the federal public transportation system.”

Murphy said this week that having a Forest Service road go through private property, especially in old mining areas, is not unusual. “There are many, many roads across the forest that cross private property,” Murphy said. “These routes are oftentimes historic routes built prior to the proclamation of the forest. Maintaining public access to the forest is important to us so we sometimes have to resolve these types of situations in court and we have several avenues available to do so. It is possible that this road closure will result in legal action by the Forest Service to get the Green Lake road reopened to the public.”

Smith said the numbers and types of people using the road now have no connection to its historical use. He said he wants to find a positive resolution for everyone that allows access to Green Lake but doesn’t inhibit his rights as a private property owner with a private road crossing his property.

But he said the situation is worse than ever this summer, with no response from the Forest Service or from the Mt. Crested Butte Police and he feels he needed to take action.

So he installed the gate last Friday. But that isn’t stopping everyone. Since the gate has been put up, he said numerous people and cars are still passing through under Smith’s multiple surveillance cameras.