Routt Powder Riders   --   Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Alternative Proposals

The most recent Friends of the Routt Backcountry proposal suggests motorized recreation parking at the Marina only, for $6 per day and use the Qualey trail to access the Forest on the northeast side of Hahn’s Peak. Again, this makes it very difficult for motorized recreation to access the area near FSR 488 and all the terrain to the west of Columbine.

The Routt Powder Riders suggested the Prospector Trail be groomed and a new parking lot installed at Trilby Flats (FSR 488). Grooming of a connector trail alongside of RCR 129 from Trilby Flats to the existing Quarry Parking Lot will allow for easier enforcement and overflow parking. Plowing out the existing Quarry Parking Lot to its fullest extent and allowing parking along FSR 550 should contain the recreational parking to Forest Lands. However, if expansion is determined to be necessary, we suggested the material excavated out of the hillside for the expansion be used to create a berm to further protect local private property holders from recreational impacts. The Forest Service could further restrict parking at the Quarry to winter use only.

The Prospector Trail would eliminate much of the prosecutable trespass by keeping all recreational users in a geographic low spot, unable to climb up and out onto private property.

A new parking lot at Trilby Flats would allow motorized recreation access to all that terrain to the west of Columbine and provide for overflow parking at the Quarry Lot. It may also eliminate a lot of recreational traffic through Columbine, as those preparing to go north will park at the Quarry Lot and those planning to head west will park at Trilby. This proposal also conforms to the County’s Upper Elk River Community Plan by providing for numerous, small, sensitively located parking areas to better disperse recreational traffic and eliminate congestion.

Keeping the snowmobile trail alongside of RCR 129 not only makes sense logically, as RCR 129 is a motorized route, but it also conforms to the County’s Plan.

And maybe you didn’t know it, but the County’s Plan also states quite emphatically that the County would not take on any new winter road maintenance, which would not be the case if a new parking area were created miles north of Columbine on FSR 550.