Group asks forest service to shift focus to winter travel planning | News

After finalizing the management plan for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests, the Forest Service is expected to turn to winter travel planning. Winter travel planning helps determine which activities are allowed where, and includes setting wildlife corridors to minimize conflicts between humans and animals.

Regulating over-snow vehicle use is a critical component of winter planning. Brittany Leffel, Winter Wildlands Alliance (WWA) Colorado Policy Manager, works with ski resorts, backcountry guides, small businesses and outdoor recreationists to propose a plan for winter outdoor use zones.

“Many areas across the GMUG that are very popular for over-snow vehicle use and usually parallel to those popular areas are popular cross-country ski trails,” Leffel told the Daily Planet. “We have heard some genuine concerns from different user groups.”

WWA is advocating for GMUG to start the winter travel planning process as soon as possible. The San Miguel Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) signed a letter authored by WWA in early October in support of both winter travel planning and addressing challenges with over-snow vehicle use.

“This is really just the first step in that process, to gather all of the non-motorized stakeholders, ranging from advocates to local governments to small businesses to owners,” Leffel said. To gather “everyone across the forest…who has a stake in winter travel planning.”

Prior to the GMUG final forest management plan’s approval, San Miguel County had submitted objections about the area north of Ophir, Bear Creek and Bridal Veil Falls being designated for Winter Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) motorized use. The county’s concerns are due to avalanches in the area. Many of the proposed motorized areas in the plan go across avalanche paths.

“It’s a safety concern because we do the avalanche mitigation on those south slopes just north of Ophir as well as the safety above the road as it ascends up onto the overpass,” Starr Jamison, San Miguel County natural resources and climate resilience director, said during a BOCC meeting on Oct. 3.

San Miguel County was in favor of modifying the Bear Creek, Bridal Veil and North Ophir Winter recreation opportunity spectrum designation to “semi-primitive non-motorized.” This would still authorize the local district ranger to manage the zone for permitted motorized uses and let Telluride Helitrax operate with its current permit in this zone.

In response to San Miguel County’s objections, the Forest Service wrote, “Based upon the national protocol for establishing recreation opportunity settings, including the consideration of existing travel decisions and desired potential future management options, (it was) determined (that) these areas should be managed with a desired winter recreation opportunity setting of semi-primitive motorized.”

Specific winter travel planning in GMUG forests could help regulate over-snow vehicle use. The first step in winter travel planning is to create a winter recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS) map, which details existing access and helps determine future usage areas. The broad assessment helps planners identify which areas are appropriate for motorized travel, where sensitive wildlife habitats are located and where potential conflict zones might be (such as where parking takes place).

Some stakeholders have expressed worries about safety, given that over-snow vehicles are able to travel farther into previously inaccessible areas.

“One of the biggest concerns is the new technology of timber sleds and the places that people are really able to go with those machines now,” Jamison said.

The GMUG has already done some localized winter recreation planning, such as in the Red Mountain Recreation Area.

One of the end goals of winter planning is to create a map, similar to the one for summer motor-vehicle use, that illustrates which routes are open to over-snow vehicles, which allow cross-country travel (or Nordic travel) and which zones hold critical wildlife habitat.

WWA also collects data from snowmobilers, nordic skiers, backcountry skiers and others to determine which users are using what area. Locally, Leffel has analyzed popular zones including Head, Molas Pass and Red Mountain Pass.

Leffel encouraged the Forest Service to address over-snow vehicle planning at a forest-wide level, in order to ensure that all the forests in the zone have the same rules and regulations.

“Having a forest-wide approach makes the process more equitable,” Leffel said. “Each forest has its very own set of unique needs and users. So what you see in Telluride is not the same as what you see in Grand Junction and Gunnison and Crested Butte and so on. We really think that it’s beneficial to take on this whole process as one forest, instead of doing it piece by piece.”