BATCO members worked with the Boulder Off-Road Alliance to set a new trail project record with 11 workdays in 2004. More than 300 volunteers worked over 1,300 hours to build and maintain Boulder County trails. BATCO Board members Massey, Morrison, and Vogelsberg helped to organize the projects and served as crewleaders. We worked four days with New Vista High School student volunteers on the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks trails at Marshall Mesa. We did trail maintenance with Boulder County Parks and Open Space at Hall and Heil Ranch, and devoted two days to installing signs and maintaining the newly designated Forest Service trails at West Magnolia. We finished the year's projects up with three days of construction on a new section of the Forest Service Sourdough Trail north of Brainard Lake Road. It was a great season made possible by the outstanding efforts of the volunteers, project sponsors, and land management agencies.

Yet another year has passed without action on our City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) trail projects. As we've previously reported, the OSMP Board of Trustees in their August 23, 2000 meeting adopted five "near-term" projects following a series of discussions of BATCO's trail recommendations. The first of these, a short (approximately 0.7 mile) connection north from Lookout Road to the Cottontail Trail was completed early in 2001.

Since then, various complications have prevented any additional progress. Insufficient funding, City of Boulder interdepartmental disagreements, and an OSMP focus on other priorities have all contributed to a continuing stalemate in new trail construction. The extended OSMP Visitor Master Plan process consumed much of the department's planning resources. As this process grinds to its final conclusion in the spring of 2005, we are hopeful we can turn our efforts to creating real new visitor opportunities.

We are encouraged by the mention of BATCO's previously approved trails in the draft Visitor Master Plan. These include:

The Rock Creek and Coal Creek trail system ultimately will consist of two trails following Rock and Coal Creeks from west of Superior to the east County line, where the trails will merge. A large portion of the Coal Creek Trail is already a reality. With the County's completion of the 1-mile Mayhoffer Trail west of McCaslin Road, the Coal Creek trail now stretches almost continuously from Coal Creek Drive west of Superior to 120th Street east of Lafayette. During the fall of 2004, the County concluded management plans for Open Space properties at the eastern end of the trail that included a conceptual alignment connecting the trail with Lafayette's Flagg Park. The County also completed a property transaction with Louisville that will allow construction of the remaining missing link in the trail to the north of the County's Warembourg Open Space.

The County gave some attention to the missing segments of the Rock Creek Trail. With the completion of the C-470 Parkway, trail components inside the highway right-of-way and highway underpasses are now available. The County plans to connect these trail segments to the Lafayette end of the Rock Creek trail on the north and under Highway 287 to the County's Rock Creek Farm on the south.

The County is also considering connections west from the Rock Creek Farm to 96th Street and from 96th Street to the Superior Rock Creek Trail segments via the Storage Tek campus. Broomfield and Louisville must approve and participate to complete these alignments.

Boulder County Parks and Open Space opened a new 1.0-mile trail on the Marlatt property west of the Pella Crossing Open Space. The trail now primarily serves fisherman, but it will ultimately become a link in the Saint Vrain Regional Trail.

This year, Boulder County plans to use Transportation tax funds to complete a Cottontail Trail connection between Gunbarrel and Niwot. The County will extend the east end of the trail north to Highway 52 and build an underpass at Highway 52 to connect with the Niwot trail system.

Since 1999 the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Department has been working on a Visitor Plan. After an enormous amount of effort, an initial draft of the plan was published in April, 2004. The draft proposed significant new restrictions on visitor access and sparked immediate controversy.

During late 1999 and early 2000, the first Visitor Plan Advisory Committee (whose members had been hand selected by the Open Space and Mountain Parks Department) developed a report which was published in March of 2000. The results were disappointing. The first committee's report attempted to prioritize the Open Space charter's environmental preservation component above all others. The report asserted that recreational goals are subject to the "overarching environmental values". Similar qualifications exist throughout the report. This prioritization does not exist in the Open Space charter for a good reason. If one use is given absolute priority over all others, it tends to preempt them and may ultimately exclude them. Thus we were concerned with the future development of the Visitor Plan.

A second Visitor Plan Advisory Committee was created at the beginning of 2003 to continue the planning. The process started out on a positive note. Instead of having the committee members directly appointed by the department staff, the OSMP Board of Trustees asked for applications from interested members of the public. BATCO members and representatives of other recreational groups (including the Access Fund, BOA, FIDOS, and BCHA) submitted applications, only to discover at the end of the process that the Board had decided to disqualify any applicants who admitted an association with such organizations. Because we were told previously that representation of such a group would be a positive consideration during the selection process, we were once again disappointed. Despite our unhappiness with the selection process, we continued to observe and attempt to interact with the new Visitor Plan Advisory Committee.

In June of 2003 the second Visitor Plan Advisory Committee published a report that primarily addressed perceived conflicts between visitors and resources. The report proposed a system of management zones and sets of corresponding visitor use rules and restrictions. The Visitor Plan Advisory Committee focus was almost exclusively on negative visitor behaviors and perceived conflicts. Dog issues and off-trail travel received a great deal of attention and the report suggested several rather heavy-handed approaches to eliminate the perceived problems.

The April draft of the Visitor Master Plan reflected the Visitor Plan Advisory Committee positions and caused immediate public protest. Following the publication of a draft Visitor Master Plan in April of 2004, BATCO met with OSMP staff and other stakeholder organization representatives in a Community Group Forum to resolve the various issues and concerns raised by the plan. After more than 25 hours of meetings, the group reached consensus on a number of recommended modifications to the draft Visitor Plan.

Unfortunately, the staff and Board of Trustees of the Open Space and Mountain Parks Department elected to reject the most important of the Community Group Forum recommendations. BATCO, along with other stakeholder organization representatives and community members, is distressed with the department's position. We have appealed the issue to the City Council.

The controversy over the Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) Visitor Plan jeopardizes more than five years of planning. OSMP could have avoided conflict by accepting more flexibility in the plan.

Blanket on-trail requirements are proposed for more than half of all OSMP properties (18,000 acres). Three-quarters of this acreage contains no designated trails. Stakeholder groups are understandably concerned that the on-trail requirement equates to de facto closure. Promises of future trails are an unsatisfactory resolution to the dispute because of budgetary constraints, a $2 million maintenance backlog, and OSMP's demonstrated lack of enthusiasm for new trails.

Neither scientific justification nor widespread community support exists for the all-encompassing on-trail requirement. Stakeholder recommendations do not preclude on-trail restrictions or even permanent closures, they merely allow less restrictive management regulations when appropriate. A more flexible approach to visitor access would resolve this issue.

OSMP's management strategy is also in contention. Stakeholders believe that a proposed guiding principle, Dealing with Uncertainty, prioritizes one Open Space Charter Objective over all others, and will be used inappropriately to reject new visitor opportunities and justify additional visitor restrictions. The OSMP staff always has taken and will continue to take a cautious approach to potential impacts to OSMP properties. At best, the proposed Dealing with Uncertainty principle will have no effect upon the decision process. At worst, it could lead to gridlock, with the ever-present possibility of negative impact being used to veto any proposals for enhanced visitor access. Removing the clause from the plan would resolve this issue.

It is regrettable that OSMP has not dealt with these concerns previously, but it is not yet too late to salvage the Visitor Plan. It will require decisive action by the City Council to do so.

The Open Space and Mountain Parks Department will use the new Visitor Management Plan to determine visitor policies for at least the next ten years. If we want continued access to the existing trail system, new trails, and regional connections to County properties like Walker Ranch and Heil Valley Ranch, we need to be continuously involved in the process. We hope the City Council's involvement will lead to a more balanced final Visitor Master Plan.

BATCO's detailed comments on the draft Visitor Master Plan, the Community Group Forum and Visitor Plan Advisory Committee's reports, our OSMP Conditional Analysis, our Recommended Strategies, and our Management Area recommendations and strategies are available on-line at http://bcn.boulder.co.us/batco/

The Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests Boulder Ranger District has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) for the proposed Brainard Lake Recreation Area. The objectives of the proposed action are to: Improve recreation opportunities, move the majority of visitor activities away from the wilderness, reduce motorized traffic on the western third of the Brainard Lake Recreation Area, and address environmental impacts from existing inappropriate uses. To realize these objectives, the proposal envisions creating new parking, visitor facility, and camping areas east of Brainard Lake in the Red Rocks and Sourdough trailhead areas. Concurrently, existing camping areas and motorized access around Brainard Lake would be reduced. The plan also includes improvements to the surrounding trail systems and the designation of more of the trails as multiple use.

BATCO participated in the Brainard Lake planning process and we are pleased that the present Environmental Assessment (EA) reflects public comments and concerns. We recommended that the Forest Service adopt their preferred alternative (B-2) as the planned action. We submitted a few concerns to the Forest Service.

We were pleased that the Forest Service addressed multiple use access by allowing mountain bikes on the South Saint Vrain, Waldrop, and Little Raven Trails. We believe that equestrian access to the South Saint Vrain and Waldrop Trails is also appropriate. BATCO requested that the proposed alternative be amended to open these trails to horses to provide them a trail loop on the north side of Brainard Lake Road.

The proposed visitor parking and campgrounds in the Red Rock/Sourdough Trailhead vicinity could interfere with the connection between the south and north sections of the Sourdough Trail. The proposed parking lot could also present safety and aesthetic issues for trail users attempting to move from one section to the other. BATCO requested that the Forest Service provide a soft surface connection between the two Sourdough Trail segments that does not require users to travel through the parking lot or on the parking lot access roads.

We were also concerned with the lack of a clear rationale for the EA exclusion of mountain bikes and equestrians from various trails outside the wilderness area (e.g., the loop trail around Left Hand Park Reservoir). We support multiple use trails as the most effective and user friendly allocation of our increasingly limited recreational resources. Forest Service policy in general prefers multiple uses. BATCO requested specific rationale for the EA limitations. Lacking such rationale, we recommended the Forest Service reconsider the restrictions.

In January 2002, Boulder County Parks and Open Space purchased Twin Lakes, a 42-acre open space property containing two reservoirs, in the Gunbarrel area. The reservoirs are used by the Boulder & Left Hand Irrigation Company (B&LHIC) to store and transport agriculture water. Wildlife uses the lakes, surrounding wetlands, and irrigation ditches as habitat and travel corridors. Neighbors walk, jog, view wildlife, and enjoy the lakes’ scenic values.

As the Gunbarrel neighborhood grew, people who use the reservoirs for recreation were trespassing onto private property, raising liability concerns for B&LHIC. In 2002, Boulder County and B&LHIC agreed that the county would purchase a fee interest in the land and the recreation rights on the reservoirs, while B&LHIC would retain the right to use the reservoirs to store water. The County then began a management planning process to address public use of the lakes.

Because of the unregulated historic use of Twin Lakes, dog management emerged as a prominent issue for both recreational users and neighbors. The Board of County Commissioners directed County Parks and Open Space staff to develop a Twin Lakes neighborhood advisory task force to formulate a dog management recommendation for the plan. The Twin Lakes Advisory Group was formed from a pool of applicants who live in the vicinity of Twin Lakes, and who represent differing viewpoints about dog management at Twin Lakes. The group met six times between April and December 2003, and reached a consensus dog management recommendation.

The Twin Lakes Advisory Group recommended that the County permit one lake to have an off-leash regulation while the County’s on-leash regulation would apply at the other lake. This recommendation also extends to dogs being allowed in the water on-leash at one lake and off-leash at the other.

The County's published Twin Lakes Management plan recommends that the East Lake be limited to dogs on-leash, and that dogs continue to have off-leash access to the West Lake.

The 190-acre Mud Lake Open Space is located in western Boulder County, about one mile north of the Town of Nederland. In 1999, Boulder County and the Town of Nederland jointly purchased the property. The Wild Bear Center for Nature Discovery, a non-profit environmental education organization, also bought a five-acre tract within the property

After the purchase, the County and the Town of Nederland developed a management plan for the property. The final plan, approved in fall of 2004, specifies that Mud Lake Open Space be managed to protect the site's remaining ecological and scenic features, while providing quality recreational and educational experiences.

Because of the site's limited ecological values and historical recreational use, the plan includes a significant recreational component. Short trails provide easy access to the lake and connect to Caribou Ranch Open Space from the trailhead. The trail system incorporates existing accesses from Indian Peaks Drive. Trails on County Open Space properties are multi-use, allowing for pedestrians, equestrians, and bicyclists, unless specifically closed to a particular use. Because of the outdoor education facility's proximity, and to avoid user conflicts, the trail closest to the lakeshore will be pedestrian only; all other trails will be multi-use. Trail connections in the southwest portion of the property are planned to link to a future Nederland Town recreation area.

To minimize the impacts of new trail construction, the trail plan uses much of the existing 4.5 miles of social trails and roads at Mud Lake. Existing routes that do not become part of the formal trail system will be reclaimed unless they are necessary for emergency or management access. Approximately 1.6 miles of existing trails will be reclaimed. To reduce impacts to Habitats of Significant Interest, approximately 1.2 miles of new trail will be constructed. New trail construction is scheduled to begin in 2005. When completed, the trail system will encompass more than 4 miles of soft-surface and single-track trails.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) released the final Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on December 17, 2004. Alternative B, the Service’s preferred alternative, emphasizes both wildlife and habitat conservation along with a moderate level of public use. Visitor use facilities will include about 16 miles of trails, a seasonally staffed visitor contact station, trailheads with parking, and developed overlooks. One trail down to the Lindsay Ranch will open soon after the transfer of the Refuge to USFWS, while the remainder of the public use facilities will open 5 years later, when restoration is well underway. Most of the trails will use existing roads, and public access will be by foot, bicycle, horse, or car. A limited public hunting program will be developed in collaboration with Colorado Division of Wildlife.

During the summer of 2003, the USFWS presented four management alternatives for Rocky Flats at public workshops. Alternatives B and D allowed various levels of public access. Alternatives A and C essentially banned public access. Only Alternative D allowed horses.

BATCO supported Alternative B, but requested the addition of some features from Alternative D that we believed would better meet the Fish and Wildlife objectives. We were pleased that several of our suggestions were incorporated in the final plan, in particular, our recommendations that equestrian access be permitted and that a north-south connecting trail be provided.

In the fall of 2004, Boulder County Parks and Open Space opened the Caribou Ranch property between Nederland and the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. Boulder County and the City of Boulder cooperatively purchased the 2,180-acre ranch from James Guercio. An adjacent 1,489 acres are protected through a conservation easement.

The ranch, which encompasses wetlands, meadows, streams, forests, and woodlands, also has a rich cultural history. The Switzerland Trail (the former route of the Denver, Boulder & and Western Railroad), the Blue Bird Mine, the Batesville and North Boulder Mill, the DeLonde Homestead, and the Silver Lake Pipeline are all located on Caribou Ranch.

Because of its importance as a wildlife habitat, the County does not allow dogs on this property. Mountain bikes are also not permitted due to restrictions specified in the purchase agreement. Because of unsafe conditions visitors must stay on-trail and are not permitted to explore the Blue Bird Mine complex beyond the fence. The property is closed during the elk calving period from April 1 to June 30. It will also be closed during September of 2005 to allow the County staff to complete a baseline study of the elk population during the fall rut.

The current trail system consists of the 1.2-mile DeLonde and the 1.8-mile Blue Birds Loop trails. An additional trail connection north to the Forest Service's recently designated Switzerland Trail is tentatively planned for construction in 2006. The main parking lot accommodates 25 cars and one school bus. Parking for horse trailers is available 3/4 mile to the east at the Mud Lake parking lot, from which there is a connecting trail to Caribou Ranch.