Reservations required to visit your public lands, and no more dispersed camping!

[Hummer]

[And this doesn't include the local Forest Service managers goal of outlawing all dispersed shooting in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests.]


Brainard lake and Mt. Evans

Reservations required to visit starting in June

By John Meyer
The Denver Post

Timed-entry reservation systems will be implemented soon for access to Brainard Lake and the road to the summit of Mount Evans, two of the Front Range?s most scenic recreation destinations.

Officials of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests who manage those destinations are still working out final details, but the decision to require passes in advance of visiting has already been made. Plans are to have the systems in place when the two areas open in early June, weather permitting. Reservations will only be available in advance through Recreation. gov. ?We?re expecting passes to be available for purchase beginning in late May,? said Reid Armstrong, public affairs specialist for the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. ?We will have another announcement just before they go live.?

Brainard Lake is scheduled to open on June 4 and Mount Evans on June 11, although both dates are weather dependent. The Mount Evans pass applies to the road from Echo Lake to the summit, a popular drive just 60 miles from Denver.

Last year, Brainard Lake was restricted to 80% of its parking capacity and Mount Evans was closed to vehicular traffic due to the pandemic, although cyclists were allowed to ride the road from Echo Lake to the summit of Evans.

While COVID-19 remains a consideration, the measures coming this summer are also intended to better manage the huge growth in visitation numbers that took place across both forests in recent years and exploded last summer.

?We do hope the system is going to reduce potential COVID exposures at the entrance stations, parking lots, bathrooms, parking lots and trailheads by dispersing arrival times,? Armstrong said.

?We?re hoping the system is going to improve customer experience by allowing visitors to better plan their visits and have a safer, less crowded experience while they are at Brainard or Mount Evans. It will also work toward our long term goal of reducing crowding in these recreation areas and traffic congestion on the road near the welcome stations. Hopefully we will be able to accomplish all of those things with this.?

Those aren?t the only changes that are coming. Some areas of those forests where ?dispersed? camping was allowed ? meaning areas that are not developed for camping ? will be converted this year to day use only.

The Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests stretch along the Front Range from Jefferson County to the Wyoming border but do not include Rocky Mountain National Park.

?We have about five areas identified across the Front Range that we are looking into converting to day use only to allow them to heal and for us to come up with a better management plan for them,? Armstrong said. ?These are places that were heavily trampled last year by dispersed camping. That has an impact on municipal water supplies because people are pooping ? there are no facilities ? there are tents and cars and campers compacting vegetation.

?That doesn?t necessarily mean all of them will be day use only forever, but we need to take a pause while we look at these areas and figure out a better way to manage them so it?s not wall to wall to wall tents and campers along an entire road,? Armstrong said. ?It may be that next year an area reopens and another needs a break.?

Armstrong said bearproof containers will be required this year for campers across almost all of the Arapaho and Roosevelt forests.

[Mtneer]

Have to agree with banning dispersed camping, long overdue. Really don't want to lose our home due to some home-free pissant neglecting their banned fire.

But I'm displeased about not having any place to shoot without lots of driving.

[Tim K]

I wish they’d do that near me. I’m out rucking regularly during the summer months near my home and I see untold numbers of morons with fires. Depending on how dry it is, my response to them varies from a polite warning about the impending visit from law enforcement to outright hostility.

[TheSparkens]

One of the issues that are a problem in Colorado is we are a watershed state that supplies water to much of the west. Another would be we are a high planes desert. We are not like other areas of the country that a few years after destroying the land in the many ways we do it does not repair itself it takes 20 years or more for trials from people or off-road vehicles to repair itself.
The biggest problem is the total and complete ineptitude of the biologists in this state to manage the wildlife and rivers without wasting massive amounts of money. Every weekend the Douglas County and other county rescue workers are out rescuing some ass hat that has no idea how to handle themself in the high country while the fishers and hunters pay for these rescues. If you want to go out then maybe you should pay for it like everyone who hunts and fishes.
I have had land for over 40 years in Park County that is all private and now they are telling us we can't camp on our own land because of the impact it causes, to the environment while they then put up houses on the sides of each hill and destroy what was beautiful. ALWAYS and I MEAN ALWAYS
FOLLOW THE MONEY.

[BladesNBarrels]

I have had land for over 40 years in Park County that is all private and now they are telling us we can't camp on our own land because of the impact it causes, to the environment while they then put up houses on the sides of each hill and destroy what was beautiful.

I did not know that they could restrict camping on your own land. I had 75 acres for about 30 years with a well and no electricity south of Hartsel on Highway 9.
Sold it a while back.
Whenever I asked the County if I could shoot and camp, the response was it is your land and as long as you don't interfere with your neighbors you can enjoy it.
Hmm, times are changing!

[colorider]

This effects hunters too folks. Day trips only or you have to camp in a pay site. Many of which are closed during hunting seasons.

[.455_Hunter]

The whole concept just demonstrates the Colorado of my youth (80s and 90s) is gone forever.

[colorider]

More government control over what you can and can't do. More control over what you can do for entertainment. It's sad. We disperse camp every weekend in the summer. It's what we do. It's our summer lifestyle. This could potentially end that for us. The camp and riding areas that will still allow overnight dispersed camping will be even more absurdly crowded than they have been. I understand that budgets are tight in the forest service, but they could spend some money by simply patrolling the areas more often and better. By more often I am talking a few rangers in the areas each weekend. Keep people from camping where they are not supposed to, enforce fire ban laws, cite people riding off trail etc. They simply do not do this and the outcome is what we are seeing now.
That is a fact and not just my opinion. I have talked at length with a Park County Sheriff about this.
Colorado is simply becoming California one step at a time. If I did not own a successful business here (that would be almost impossible to relocate) I would have been out of here a few years ago.

[Hummer]

Understand that the reservation system and areas closed to dispersed camping are in two limited areas. But if dispersed camps are prohibited in large areas of the forest that would deserve opposition. I personally much prefer dispersed camping over campgrounds. The US Forest Service has a long history of closing public land and campgrounds because they can't or won't manage it. Rather than fielding personnel far too many work from behind computer screens and I think they have little respect for the peoples right to use public land.

Those of us who live in the mountains enter NIMBY territory when we advocate for shutting the public off from public lands. I do favor bans on open camp fires and heavy fines and jail for those who violate. But that too, takes management. Here, sherriff's officers and fire department volunteers were very busy last year chasing fire ban violaters. Mandatory fines that are big enough to hurt is whats needed, IMO.

[DDT951]

Understand that the reservation system and areas closed to dispersed camping are in two limited areas. But if dispersed camps are prohibited in large areas of the forest that would deserve opposition. I personally much prefer dispersed camping over campgrounds. The US Forest Service has a long history of closing public land and campgrounds because they can't or won't manage it. Rather than fielding personnel far too many work from behind computer screens and I think they have little respect for the peoples right to use public land.

Those of us who live in the mountains enter NIMBY territory when we advocate for shutting the public off from public lands. I do favor bans on open camp fires and heavy fines and jail for those who violate. But that too, takes management. Here, sherriff's officers and fire department volunteers were very busy last year chasing fire ban violaters. Mandatory fines that are big enough to hurt is whats needed, IMO.

Fire bans should not be blanket bans. They should be based upon actual conditions. Just saying "no fires anytime" is unreasonable.

[DDT951]

Have to agree with banning dispersed camping, long overdue. Really don't want to lose our home due to some home-free pissant neglecting their banned fire.

But I'm displeased about not having any place to shoot without lots of driving.


It is public land. The public has a right to use it.

Your private property right end at your property lines. If you don't like pissants in the mountains on public land, maybe you should buy enough land that you never have to be close to the public land pissants use?

[Mtneer]

Wildfires don't respect property lines, no matter how much land you own. And you lose your right to use public lands when you build fires during bans.

[colorider]

I am totally expecting a fire ban for the whole summer regardless of conditions. Several of the locations where we camp and ride are already showing High Fire Danger. I am kind of a camp nerd. I actually don't mind not having a camp fire. our group has several propane fire pits that we bring with us. Much easier to maintain, everything does not smell like smoke and there is zero worries about catching shit on fire. I do miss using the chainsaw and splitting wood though. Wild fires and forest fires close camping areas really quick and close for a long time. Far to many people are too stupid to have a camp fire.

[colorider]

Wildfires don't respect property lines, no matter how much land you own. And you lose your right to use public lands when you build fires during bans.

Last summer while camping in the Buena Vista area we called the local authorities every weekend because of other camp sites having fires during the fire ban. I'm not talking small camp fires, I'm talking huge camp fires and total stupidity. When I called one weekend the person who answered the phone at the sheriffs office actually said "You have to be shitting me". I met them at the bottom of the dirt road and escorted the sheriff to the camp site location. Every person at the camp site got a ticket and fine. Me and a few buddies spent the next few hours escorting the sheriff to several other sites and watched him give out ticket after ticket. People are stupid and you can't fix stupid. These tickets and fines are substantial too. Several violations per person.
I would have approached the camp sites with my buddies and left the sheriff out of it, but our observations of the sites and the people's state of mind it was best to let the authorities take care of it.

[NFATrustGuy]

After seeing this thread, I checked on my favorite drive through Rocky Mountain National Park via Trail Ridge Road. They, too, are implementing a reservation system. It seems now I have to plan my July motorcycle ride by the time the July reservations go on sale in June or I take my chances of getting a leftover reservation slot the night before.

In years past, I avoided the road on weekends because it was so busy. Now, I'll have to be at the park entrance well before 9am to avoid the reservation system. I won't have the option to turn around in Grand Lake and drive eastbound because you need a reservation until after 3pm. Wanna bet there will be a line a mile long before 9am and 3pm? Leave it to the government to really dork things up. I'm sure 500 cars idling at the entry gates will be great for the environment.

[Goodburbon]

Fire bans should not be blanket bans. They should be based upon actual conditions. Just saying "no fires anytime" is unreasonable.

I wish this was reasonable...but we all know that the average joe is a moron who will burn down the entire forest to roast a hot dog.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Colorado is broken.

[DDT951]

I wish this was reasonable...but we all know that the average joe is a moron who will burn down the entire forest to roast a hot dog.

Maybe some of the problem is the forest hasn't been allowed to burn. That is a natural cycle.

We have beetle kill that burns easily. But fire kills beetles. Forest fires that are natural and can burn their natural course, keep the forest in balance.

Then there are lodgepole pine. They require forest fires to repopulate.
https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/lodgepole-pine-trees-love-forest-fires.php

But over the about 100 years, and accelerated the last 50 is people have built houses in the mountains. Those people don't want forest fires damaging their property.

Even those without houses want their treed property defended from fires because treed property is more valuable than bare land.

But we look at the forest in terms of a decade or two and what property is worth in that time frame.

Think about like olive trees that grow slow.

"The olive tree is a symbol of planting today for the benefit of future generations"

The evergreen trees you see all over the forest are not a decade old. The cycle is they grow. They burn. Aspen come. Pine reseeds ands grow. And the circle continues long past any of our lifetimes.

So a philosophical question: Why should we be spending tons of public money, fighting natural cycles, to protect man-made structures where people built knowing they are in an area where the natural cycle is forest fires?

[colorider]

Close the forests but openly allow homeless to piss, shit, do drugs and drop all their used needles and trash on the streets. Yes, Colorado is broken.

[DDT951]

Close the forests but openly allow homeless to piss, shit, do drugs and drop all their used needles and trash on the streets. Yes, Colorado is broken.

But some counties (think Park County) have restricted camping on ones own property because of a lone nut.

Robert Dear lived here.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3338082/Cabin-dwelling-recluse-attacked-Planned-Parenthood-happily-married-father-art-dealer-turned-pot-smoking-oddball-sought-sadomasochistic-sex-online-divorce.html

So, the solution, only allow 14 days camping so they can chase people off their land.