The Outsider .. A Salida rancher wants to rethink conservation easements in the face of soaring costs ...Middle East

Jason Blevins

Outdoors/Business Reporter

Sneak Peek of the Week

Balancing the cost of ranching with decades-old easements

“What is not in alignment are the values needed to keep this ranch going.”

— Art Hutchinson, whose family homesteaded in the Upper Arkansas River Valley in the 1860s

“Darling, forever is a long, long time and time has a way of changing things.”

That’s a quote from the wise owl Big Mama in Walt Disney’s “The Fox and the Hound.”

It’s also a sentiment shared by wise rancher Art Hutchinson. His dad forged a conservation easement more than a decade ago on their 800 acres of lush pastures between Salida and Poncha Springs and now he and his daughter, Abby, are grappling with a rapidly changing landscape in Colorado.

The Hutchinsons, whose ranch is the oldest family-owned cattle operation in the Upper Arkansas River Valley, agree with the conservation values in the easement held by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, which champions protection of family-forged agricultural legacies.

“Our values are in alignment with Colorado Cattlemen’s, but what is not in alignment are the values needed to keep this ranch going,” Hutchinson said.

The Hutchinsons thought they had found a new plan to keep their ranch afloat: a possible multiyear deal to host a 2,000-person camping festival with a group that blends bluegrass gatherings with charitable support.

But after tickets were sold, the cattlemen’s land trust, which holds conservation easements on the ranch from 2011 and 2013, determined the Campout for the Cause event was too big and intense — it’s the largest event the 30-year-old group had ever considered on a conserved property — and denied the festival.

Now the Hutchinsons are wondering if there’s a way to renegotiate forever easements inked years before Colorado’s high country became one of the priciest regions in the country.

“I can see the handwriting on the wall,” Hutchinson said. “Perpetuity is not working with the way this state has changed.”

>> Click over to The Sun next week to read this story

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In Their Words

Steamboat Springs council OKs $1.6 million for Mad Rabbit trails

$1.6 million

Steamboat Springs funding for new trails in the Mad Rabbit project

The Steamboat Springs City Council on Tuesday voted 5-2 to approve a plan to direct $1.6 million from its trails fund toward new trails in the Mad Rabbit project.

The funding — originally proposed in December — seemed to be in jeopardy after Colorado Parks and Wildlife renewed a previously settled objection to the Forest Service plan for new trails around Rabbit Ears Pass.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife revived its objection to the project after the final plan approved by the Forest Service altered a negotiated Adaptive Management Plan that would limit development in elk habitat. The crux of the problem involved an elk study that was included in the first draft of the Adaptive Management Plan but not the final version. The final decision also removed Colorado Parks and Wildlife as the agency in charge of monitoring elk movements in the project area.

Routt National Forest district ranger Michael Woodbridge told the council Tuesday that a cooperating agency cannot be a formal objector to a project, so when Colorado Parks and Wildlife in late 2023 objected to the Mad Rabbit project, CPW lost its status as a cooperating agency.

So the revision to the adaptive management plan “clarified (CPW’s) decision-making authority,” said Woodbridge, the district ranger for the Hahns Peak/Bears Ears Ranger District.

The draft of the adaptive management plan had CPW and the Forest Service making cooperative decisions. While the agencies would be cooperating on wildlife and habitat management decisions on Rabbit Creek, the final draft of the adaptive management plan “clarified these are Forest Service decisions,” Woodbridge said.

The Forest Service, in a statement provided to The Sun, said the Mad Rabbit project was scaled back over several years of review as the agency balanced new trails, closing illegal trails and protecting elk migration corridors and habitat. The original plan called for 79 miles of new trails and the final decision outlines 49 miles of new trails and closes 36 miles of unauthorized trails across 127,124 acres of the Routt National Forest.

The Forest Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife worked together to create the adaptive management plan but the final plan reflected a disagreement between the agencies on the timing of a possible elk study that would create a baseline to see if new trails were impacting elk populations.

CPW made a late request for an elk study one to three years before any new trails were built. The statement from Routt National Forest spokesman Aaron Voos said “this was a new request that the Forest Service did not agree to.”

The Forest Service and CPW have been discussing ways forward since the state agency renewed its objection to the Mad Rabbit project. The Forest Service will work with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to monitor elk populations and movements during calving seasons.

“The Forest Service intends to work with CPW during and between all phases of implementation,” reads the statement, which noted that a collaborative process includes problem-solving and an increased likelihood of agreement “however it does not guarantee 100% agreement nor deference of decision-making authority.”

The Steamboat Springs council fielded 118 pages of emailed comments from residents, many urging the council to delay or deny funding for the Mad Rabbit project due to the renewed disagreement between CPW and the Forest Service.

Several speakers at Tuesday’s council meeting urged the council to approve the funding to support trails. Others objected to directing lodging taxes to the plan without a baseline elk study to accurately see how the trails might injure elk populations.

“This project is emblematic of the positive change we strive for in our community and it will provide valuable recreational opportunities for future generations of all type of trail users,” said Craig Frithsen, the president of Routt County Riders, which has spent a decade advocating for improved trail access between Mad Creek and Rabbit Ears Pass.

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The Playground

Cuts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund threaten three high-profile acquisition projects in Colorado

“We kind of pulled out all the stops for this.”

— Dale Will with Pitkin County Open Space on the $34 million acquisition of Snowmass Falls Ranch

$45.3 million

Land and Water Conservation Fund support for three projects in Colorado threatened by proposed cuts in the federal budget

As conservation groups scramble to motivate advocates in support of public lands, one item in the Trump administration’s budget is the quiet redirection of $387 million out of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which Trump “permanently” funded at $900 million with his Great American Outdoors Act in 2020.

The slashing of funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, threatens three high-profile and long-planned projects in Colorado, including $34 million planned for protection of the 650-acre Snowmass Falls Ranch outside Snowmass Village.

The Wilderness Land Trust and Pitkin County in 2024 partnered to purchase the property using Pitkin County Open Space Program funds. The idea was to transfer the property over to the White River National Forest by using funds from the LWCF.

The deal marked years of work to protect 614 acres of the 650-acre ranch as wilderness and protect public access across the property to reach the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.

“We had encouragement from the White River National Forest to buy it and we kind of pulled out all of the stops for this,” said Dale Will, the head of Pitkin County’s open space program, noting that the county borrowed $10 million from Great Outdoors Colorado to fund the acquisition. “All of this was encouraged by the Great American Outdoors Act.”

The LWCF funds for Snowmass Falls Ranch ranked high on the conservation fund’s annual list and support looked likely until the Trump administration’s “big, beautiful bill” proposal to redirect LWCF acquisition funds toward maintenance of existing public lands.

Another project threatened by cuts to the LWCF is an acquisition of 855 acres around Cliff Lake and the Conejos River in the Rio Grande National Forest southwest of Monte Vista. The Rio Grande National Forest has spent several years vying for LWCF funding to acquire the acreage around Cliff Lake in partnership with the Western Rivers Conservancy, which purchased the property in January. Protecting the scenic Cliff Lake, which feeds the Alamosa River, complements the conservation work to protect the nearby 45,952-acre La Jara Basin property.

A third project threatened by cuts to the LWCF is the $6.3 million purchase of Lizard Head Mesa, where the landowner and the Conservation Fund are working on a deal to transfer ownership of a 313-acre inholding to the San Juan National Forest.

Amy Lindholm, a spokeswoman for the Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition, said the Colorado projects are representative of the conservation fund’s work to patch together disconnected public lands and improve access. These additions to forests and parks are about easing land management challenges by “filling in missing pieces of public lands,” Lindholm said.

These properties in Colorado could easily be sold to developers to create luxury mansions that would cut off critical access to areas on the other side of the properties, Lindholm said.

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund solves land use problems and it opens up more access where people want it and need it,” said Lindholm, adding that the budget was undermining public lands by “stealing money” authorized in the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act. “This proposal is a reversal of the legislation the president asked for and signed into law.”

Informal poll at the Outside Festival: thrifting beats fast fashion

“As a fashion consumer, I like to thrift. I find the best pieces when I’m doing that, or the most unique pieces.”

— Elise Trankina, of Atlanta, at the Outside Festival last month

100 million tons

Annual amount of global textile waste

Sun freelance photographer Alyte Katilius had a hunch that all those colorful outfits on display at the Outside Festival last month were fast fashion: cheap and consequential festival wear.

She had read the recent report by ThredUp — the online thrift store popular with Gen Zers — showing teens and 20-somethings stuck on fast fashion even though the industry uses forced labor and toxic materials to crank out cheap clothing.

Katilius found frugal dressers at the Outside Festival but not many were clad in fast-fashion pieces. As she snapped and interviewed people, she only found a couple wearing what they considered fast fashion and many were festooned in thrifted duds.

“It could be that thrifting isn’t just a ‘cool’ or ‘trendy’ thing to do, but an actual solution to ethical, sustainable and economical fashion,” she said.

>> Click over to The Sun on Friday to see Alyte’s photos of fashionable festivalarians and read Tracy Ross’s story about a company working to convert tons of toxic textile waste into new materials

— j

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