Two Successes for Wildlife on the Crystal Trail
This article first appeared in our Winter 2024 edition of Wild Works.
This past June, our advocacy on the proposed Carbondale to Crested Butte trail plan resulted in two significant changes for the benefit of the ecosystems in the Crystal River Valley.
Utilizing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, we convinced both Pitkin County and the Forest Service to commit to a holistic environmental analysis of the entire trail prior to construction or approval of any future trail segment. A holistic analysis ensures that impacts to wildlife from increased recreational use are considered at an appropriate scale to ecosystems and wildlife rather than through a fragmented, piecemeal approach that ignores cumulative effects.
Our second win for wildlife came from Pitkin County agreeing to only build any future Avalanche trail segment adjacent to Highway 133 (Avalanche A segment on the map right) and not through the unfragmented habitat on the east side of the Crystal River (Avalanche B segment). This area is home to deer, big horn sheep, bear, turkey and moose, and provides prime winter elk habitat. Disturbing this area would mean increasing stress on already stressed animal populations, including the state’s declining elk herds.
The original trail plan left open the possibility for a trail alignment (in purple) that would have cut through high-value animal habitat as identified by the Roaring Fork Watershed Biodiversity and Connectivity Study (dark green). As a result of our advocacy, any future trail alignment (in black) will avoid this sensitive area.The group has identified and studied seven different approaches to protect the river. A Wild and Scenic designation is one of those seven options, and it has garnered the most interest and support from the community. Wild and Scenic designation is the most durable form of protection against dams and out-of-basin diversions, and would allow our community to customize the legislation to fit the unique ecology of the Crystal and interests of our community. Other approaches at the top of the list include intergovernmental agreements, Special Management Areas and Outstanding Waters designations. But none are as flexible, and durable, as Wild and Scenic.
Wilderness Workshop supports sustainable recreation uses on our public lands. Taken together, the two wins for wildlife in the Crystal Valley provide an important example of how we should first prioritize wildlife habitat and then only develop recreation where it will have the least impact.
