ARTICLES
OPEN SPACE AND TRAILS BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Oct. 1, 2015
Newspaper Articles/ Letters to Editor/Public Comment:
Open Space
Pitkin, Eagle County open space programs honored for Emma preservation, Sept. 18, 2015,
Aspen Times
Moose are moving closer to Aspen, Sept. 18, 2015, Aspen Public Radio
Volunteers help restore Aspen's North Star preserve, Sept. 20, 2015, Aspen Times
Column-Update from Filoha Meadows, Sept. 22, 2015, Aspen Daily News
Trails
LoVa Trail advocates want on governor's list, Sept. 24, 2015, Glenwood Springs Post
Independent
Letter to the Editor: Hail to the trail, Sept. 28, 2015, Aspen Times
Pitkin, Eagle County open space programs honored for Emma preservation Staff Report, The Aspen Times Sept. 18, 2015 Pitkin and Eagle counties were honored with a special award this week for conserving more than 450 acres of contiguous farmland in the Emma area of the Roaring Fork Valley. The Colorado Open Space Alliance presented the counties with its 2015 Blue Grama Award for Outstanding Achievement on Tuesday during its annual conference in Snowmass Village. The Blue Grama Award is named after the native prairie grass that is Colorado’s official state grass. The counties teamed to acquire land in three stages near the county line in Emma. The purchases included the Saltonstall Ranch and adjacent Glassier Ranch. Those properties are now called the Glassier Open Space. The counties bought 145 acres of the Saltonstall Ranch for $5 million in January 2013. They bought 137 acres of the Glassier Ranch for $5.9 million in January 2014. The counties added to their acquisitions by obtaining conservation easements on 49 acres of Emma Farms for $2 million earlier this year. Emma Farms owner Tom Waldeck previously placed a conservation easement on 67 acres of the cattle ranch. The counties were assisted in funding by Great Outdoors Colorado, the town of Basalt and the Midvalley Trails Committee. Aspen Valley Land Trust co‐holds the conservation easements at Emma Farms. The properties continue to sustain cattle operations, farming or both. Dale Will, executive director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, and Toby Sprunk, director of Eagle County Open Space, accepted the award. In an interview in August, Will said he was proud of the acquisitions in Emma because the ranches could have been converted into “nasty suburban development or a country club.” Acquiring the properties protects agricultural lands, preserves wildlife habitat and maintains open space vistas. A member of the Open Space and Trails board snapped this photo of a bull moose in the Meadowood subdivision near Aspen. Credit Facebook/Pitkin County Open Space and Trails Moose are moving closer to Aspen Marci Krivonen, Aspeen Public Radio Sept. 18, 2015 Pitkin County’s Open Space and Trails Department is planning to put up signs about moose on some of its properties after several reports of sightings. It’s the first time in recent memory moose have been spotted at places like the North Star Nature Preserve, along the Hunter Creek trail and near the Roaring Fork River in the midvalley. Education materials on how to behave around moose are prolific in areas like the Maroon Bells. Now, Assistant Director of Pitkin County Open Space Gary Tennenbaum says his department will add them to their properties. "These are all pretty new sightings and so, we’re definitely adapting to the fact that moose are moving in. We want to get information out to people so they know how to interact with moose in the area." Moose breeding season, or rut, started in mid‐September. Tennenbaum says the animals may be covering more ground in search of a mate. He expects the signs will start to go up later this year. Volunteers help restore Aspen's North Star preserve Scott Condon, The Aspen Times Sept. 20, 2015 Nature got helping hands Saturday from about 55 volunteers at the North Star Nature Preserve east of Aspen. Crews coordinated by the Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers planted about 1,200 willow and cottonwood seedlings and clippings along the banks of the Roaring Fork River. The targeted areas were devoid of natural vegetation due to efforts decades ago to make it more productive as cow pastures and hay fields, according to Gary Tennenbaum, assistant director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails. Saturday’s project was designed to restore vegetation along about 500 linear feet of the river. Workers started in frigid temperatures at 8:30 a.m. and were stripping off layers of clothes in the heat by 11:30 on a picture‐perfect day. “You can look right across the river and see what the (riverbank) should look like,” said Cedric Campinos of Frederick, Maryland, who was part of a crew of 17 volunteers from the Colorado Outward Bound School in Marble. Campinos is in a 30‐day program at the school for 17‐ to 23‐year‐
olds. Working on service projects was among the activities. Volunteers of all ages worked the project. Ned Sullivan of Aspen was among the older volunteers. He said he appreciates the nature preserve, so he decided to help out Saturday. He said he “wanders through” North Star a couple times per year to see nature at its finest and spot signs of wildlife. It’s just nice to walk through here,” he said while on a break from planting seedlings. Justin Knapp organized five colleagues from Blue Green Vacations, owner of the Innsbruck Inn at Aspen. The company supports environmental initiatives and pays employees to volunteer on two service days per year. “This is where we could get the most people,” Knapp said. One of his colleagues added, “We love the outdoors, too.” Nate Tattersall of Snowmass Village volunteered his time “just to stay involved in the community.” Given the low temperatures to start the day, he was thinking the ground might be hard to dig, but the sun hit the sandy soil early in the morning and created perfect working conditions, he said. Tennenbaum said the project was more than an aesthetic improvement. The denuded riverbanks were more susceptible to erosion. The river is threatening to destabilize the soil around a stand of mature cottonwoods. The river will still eat away at the bank, but at a much slower pace, he said. All the seedlings and cuttings used for the project were taken from North Star. Cuttings from willows were taken from the property, planted in 650 containers and grown at a nursery for about four months, according to Randy Mandel of Golder Associates, which helped Pitkin County Open Space and Trails plan the project. The tiny plants had leaves Saturday and will likely have a survival rate of 75 to 80 percent, he said. Larger willow stakes were being cut and planted at the site Saturday. They will have about a 50 percent survival rate, Mandel said. “The important thing is we’re preserving the local genetics,” Mandel said. David Hamilton, executive director of Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers, said crews were laying down an organic fiber called jute 10 to 15 feet back from the riverbank to help with stabilization, digging holes, putting in stakes and then planting and watering the willows and cottonwoods. The area was seeded at the end of the day. Volunteers were fed lunch and dinner. “We were really looking for even more people today,” Hamilton said, citing the popularity of the North Star Nature Preserve and public participation this summer in a long‐term management plan. Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers has done about 10 prior wetlands restoration projects, so it has learned best practices, Hamilton said. The North Star work was the second‐to‐last project on the nonprofit organization’s list this year. It coordinated about 2,700 volunteers over 140 days. The North Star project was one where participants were able to bring their children. The youth coordinator kept them busy with age‐appropriate tasks while parents worked. Wetlands restoration isn’t as physically demanding on volunteers as building a trail. “Swinging a Pulaski all day will take it out of you,” Hamilton said, referring to the long‐handled tool with a pick on one side of the head and an ax on the other. Nevertheless, the wetlands restoration is as important as anything the organization does, he said. The 55 volunteers will know they played a part in restoring North Star’s habitat. Update from Filoha Meadows Steve Skinner, Aspen Daily News Columnist Tuesday, September 22, 2015 Now that the access to Filoha Meadows is about to be restricted I feel OK writing about it. The meadow is mostly under the jurisdiction of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, and we wouldn’t want to bring too much attention to this hidden gem in our midst. When it comes to throngs of visitors, places like this are best viewed from behind closed signs or in photo books on coffee tables. The Filoha Meadows protected area is just shy of 200 magnificent acres, most of which are on the east side of the Crystal River below Redstone. It was named by Dorothy Johnson, wife of Dr. Bernarr Johnson, who still lives on the edge of the meadow. “Filoha” means “hot water” in Ethiopian. Johnson worked in Ethiopia and planned on using the hot springs on their land for therapy and warmth. The area is protected for several reasons. There is a profusion of rare orchids, grasses and fireflies that thrive in the hot spring‐fed marshy meadow. On any given fall morning, steam from iron and lithium hot springs seeps can be seen rising from many outlets throughout the meadows. The environment created by the unique, misty conditions gives rise to rare flora and fauna. The tract of land has been set aside for study and select public gawking. These days, elk are bugling about in the meadows. They’ve come down from high up on Elephant Mountain, and the males are looking for a good time. Elk cows size up the bulls. The bulls with the biggest bugles often get the prize. Another way the bull attracts the cow is to lie back on the bed of reedgrass and spikebrush and urinate up into the air and onto their hair. This gives the bulls that unmistakable ready‐to‐rut cologne – the reek that females seek. In our area the only mammal you will find larger than the charging elk in the meadows are the not‐too‐distant and somewhat solitary and elusive moose. I have seen no moose, in the meadow or otherwise. I’d like to, but from a distance. Since I started observing things more closely in Filoha Meadows I have been treated to some natural eye candy. From beavers to butterflies, it’s all beautiful. I had not seen a blonde bear in our area before and was somewhat taken aback when I recently looked up from my observation perch across the river from the meadows only to see a good‐
sized blonde bear just a few dozen feet away on the riverbank. It scooted off when my 14‐
pound cocker‐poodle went bounding toward it. The bear did a few sidestrokes in the Crystal, and was across the river and headed for the steep scree of Elephant Mountain in no time. That scree that you can see from Highway 133 also holds many secrets. There are several mines on Elephant that were active until about a decade after the Crystal River Railroad stopped running between Carbondale and Redstone in 1930. The rail bed is still visible across the meadows, and a little sleuthing leads to the five mine openings scattered about a rocky crevasse. Harry E. VanDycle originally opened the lower mines in 1889. Those were mined for iron oxide, used in making paint pigment. Later, two other mines were excavated in search of gold and other precious minerals. Richard Rhinehart explored the mines and published an article about his adventures in Rocky Mountain Caving in spring, 2005. His crew opened up closed and hidden passages and discovered many caverns in the limestone. In the lower mine he noted that there were more than 500 rare Townsend’s big‐eared bats. The species was listed as threatened in Colorado, and the Elephant Mountain site is one of only 11 roosting sites in all of Colorado, according to the article. When the caves were discovered in 1899, The Denver Post wrote, “The caves are five in number, one being very large, all of them filled with magnificent crystals and the walls hanging thick with stalagmites and stalactites, producing a beautiful and entrancing effect, rivaling in their splendor anything yet discovered in this part of Colorado.” Last weekend I walked among these cave entrances, entranced to learn more about the rare crystals and hot vapors now locked behind U.S. Forest Service security bars. The ground and tailings are still littered with mining tools, tracks, cables, machines and structures. The gear is bulky and heavy, and not going anywhere anytime soon. The crevasse in the earth alongside the mines is deepened by years of erosion and runoff from rains and rockslides. Walking down from the mines I came across a big steaming fresh pile of excrement, the type of which I was unfamiliar with. Not deer, not dog, too big to be human. My senses heightened as I looked around for Blondie – I was on his side of the tracks now. I scurried back to my observation deck without encountering much besides beavers, magpies, flickers and skeeters. Oh, and yes, a snake. Steve Skinner hears that there are sheets of mica on the elephant’s ear, but he has not seen them yet. Much of the information contained in this column was revealed in the Filoha Meadows Nature Preserve Management Plan, which was published by Pitkin County in September 2008 and is available on the Pitkin County website. Additional information came from carbonatecreek.com. LoVa Trail advocates want on governor's list John Stroud, Glenwood Springs Post Independent Sept. 24, 2015 A new initiative announced by Gov. John Hickenlooper earlier this summer to identify and fund missing trail links in Colorado could be just the ticket to give the stalled Lower Valley Trail project new life. Garfield County commissioners this week agreed to join mayors from Glenwood Springs, New Castle, Silt, Rifle and Parachute in signing a letter to Hickenlooper asking to include the LoVa Trail on his “16 by 16” list of trail projects to be prioritized for state funding next year. Last week, Hickenlooper also announced his plan to spend more than $100 million over the next four years in an effort to make Colorado “the best state for biking in the country.” “We need to get on that map, and with this new initiative I can’t imagine a better trail project … to be part of a statewide network,” said Larry Dragon, executive director for the nonprofit LoVa Trails Group. “If you’re not a squeaky wheel you don’t get on anything,” Dragon said of the effort to make the governor’s priority list. “This is intended to be a bit squeaky.” LoVa has been working for more than 15 years to plan and build what it eventually envisions as a 47‐mile, non‐motorized trail running parallel to Interstate 70 and the Colorado River between Glenwood Springs and the Mesa County line. So far, only two short, dead‐end segments of the trail have been built just outside of Glenwood Springs at a cost of about $1.6 million, thanks to funding support from Garfield County, the city of Glenwood Springs and state grants. One trail segment extends west from Mitchell Creek, and the other extends back to the east along the Colorado River at South Canyon. That short stretch includes its own missing link — a 1.8‐mile segment that would cost more than $4 million to construct due to the steep grade between I‐70 and the river. A master plan completed by the LoVa Group in 2003 maps out the trail through Garfield County, linking each of the communities along the I‐70 corridor and potentially connecting to a trail system extending into Mesa County and on to the Utah state line. “In addition to being the most needed regional trail in this area, the LoVa Trail is part of a much larger dream,” reads the letter that’s headed to the governor and other state officials. “It is a key component to a bike trail system, running east to west, paralleling I‐70 through the entire state from Kansas to Utah. “Without the LoVa Trail, the dream of having a safe route to ride a multi‐day bike trek from Denver to Grand Junction is impossible without this trail’s completion,” the letter states. It goes on to point out that each of the participating communities have planned and constructed trails within their jurisdictions that could be made part of the network. Other existing trail links include the 42‐mile‐long Rio Grande Trail between Glenwood Springs and Aspen, and the Glenwood Canyon bike path. “However, the hoped‐for bike trail to the west of Glenwood Springs … is the missing link,” the letter states. Recently, Glenwood Springs City Council agreed to take the lead on any new grant proposals to help complete the South Canyon trail connection. However, the city was unwilling to commit to any matching money at this point. Two years ago, Garfield County had agreed to build another short section of the trail near Glenwood Springs using $560,000 in federal Transportation Enhancement funds, plus about $100,000 in county money. However, following LoVa’s decision last year to pull back and focus its efforts on helping local communities with various trail projects, county commissioners decided to scrap the project. LoVa also now has the support of the Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association, which recently was awarded city money to plan several new soft‐surface mountain biking trails on public lands in and around Glenwood Springs, including in the South Canyon area. The LoVa trail is seen as a critical link to access that trail system in the future. Letter: Hail to the trail Editor: Just rode alone up the Hummingbird, surrounded by brilliant fall colors. It’s one of the most beautiful trails in the world. Four breathers, one clean dive and a heart filled with joy. Blessings and thanks to all who built it. Art Daily Aspen