Long water gulch River crossing ???

[raisinhell2]

I was asked to remove pictures from the sat gulch run. Were the USFS/State sign clearly states river crossings are legal as long as you do not stop or go up or down stream. We did not cross the river at the end of long water gulch due to thinking is wasn't legal. I researched the topic last night and this morning **I found from CORE and Stay the Trail the same rules (no stopping in the river or up or down stream travel) apply the crossing at Long water**. Edit outdated info

I am all about playing be the rules and staying the trail. So lets please keep this discussion to facts. Not opinion or something you heard from that guy . I know many threads you read about trails may be out of date. But I found this info with pictures of rigs crossing the river on known good info sites. Are they wrong ?

Does someone have some written info from USFS, BLM , County, State clearly stating the Law on this They can share with the group? If indeed the crossing is now Illegal and punishable by cash fine, and those sites are out of date. I think we should use our relationship with the USFS to convince the to post a sign or blocking the crossing (as much as I hate those) to prevent anyone who doesn't know from being fined. From my experience of being on trails. If the state or Feds dont want you somewhere They make it very clear and well known with cables and fences and signs just like the cable and fence at the rock leading to the river at long water. I just can't see them not doing that to the river if it involved drinking water.

 

[COS80]

Please share your findings - links or PDFs, whatever you found - because I agree with you, let's get the straight facts on this.

 

[JohnnyUtah2]

It’s my understanding that the Longwater/Hackett Gulch “loop” has not been open to the public for some time. It was, at one point many years ago, legal to cross the Platte and join up with the other trail. According to several GPS mapping systems, including Gaia and COTrex, those trails are now closed at the county line (I believe Teller/Park).
It’s also my understanding that there is/was a barrier made of concrete blocks and steel cable at the county lines to physically block access to the Platte River. It was installed by the national forest service and has since been ripped out and pulled off the side of the trail by vandals. I personally observed the barrier that had been removed by vandals. This was not surprising given that my local club has been finding similar vandalism and trespassing on closed sections of trails in other areas of the state (specifically front range trails).
I would encourage everyone to know the trail system before going and staying out of any closed sections, and report any damage or vandalism to the appropriate authorities.
I don’t want to blame any specific person or group for this behavior, but I feel like the increase of OHV use and a general lack of respect for our trails, as well as this type of blatant vandalism is eventually going to cause them to be closed permanently.

 

[raisinhell2]

Please share your findings - links or PDFs, whatever you found - because I agree with you, let's get the straight facts on this.

Here it is . Park county closed all their trails you can not cross from teller to park county . The river isn't the issue. it's crossing the county line .. Here is a map from the motor use map showing the county line . We should not even be in the area before the river. The trail on the other side of the river is closed as well. take a look at the map . This info came from a friend at Colorado search and rescue . The end of trail is marked by a brown stick sign . which I saw yesterday knocked down and covered with weeds on the side of the trail . Seems they are only enforcing crossing the river not the county line as the rules of the trail are. This explains all the confusion .

 

[COS80]

This is so stupid, it inspired me to join the Blue Ribbon Coalition at Join - https://www.sharetrails.org/join/.

We are individuals, organizations, and business owners; together the BlueRibbon Coalition represents recreationists nationwide. We combine the efforts of our members into one voice so that, together, we can promote reasonable and responsible access to our public lands. We also challenge those decisions that discriminate against recreationists, and when necessary, take matters to court utilizing our Legal Action Fund.

 

[Goslow]

Thanks, everyone, for excellent commentary and documentation. To further muddy the waters (no pun intended), here’s an additional question.
Who has ownership and managerial responsibility for these gulch roads? They are signed with USFS road numbers, but what happens at the county line? Who owns and has dominion over the roads at the county line?

 

[raisinhell2]

Thanks, everyone, for excellent commentary and documentation. To further muddy the waters (no pun intended), here’s an additional question.
Who has ownership and managerial responsibility for these gulch roads? They are signed with USFS road numbers, but what happens at the county line? Who owns and has dominion over the roads at the county line?

Teller on the teller side Park on the park side. from what I was told the park trails are closed because the county didn't want the expense of maintenance . On a side note looking at the map we crossed into Park county doing hackett as well. Remember that ledge where we were talking about the downed cable fence? Bet that was put up as the county line and torn down.. Guess we need to start running cotrex or a tracking program on even the trails we think we know.. It's all @COS80 fault he was the trail leader. Yes officer that guy over there is in charge HAHAHA

 

[Skleet]

When the area was opened back up to use after the Haymen fire the west side of the trail system (the west side of the river) was never reopened for use...

IMO the management, default to closing an area because it's less work for them but I also understand because of things I've seen myself, but that doesn't give them the right to close public lands. Most of the barriers that have been put up are not up anymore.

On a rant: The OHVs are people are the ones tearing up the area and creating new trails to get around spots individuals don't have the skill or understanding to navigate, I ran Hackett recently and watched several driving up and down the river stop at the bottom and driving highspeed donuts in the river. A new trail has been added to navigate the lower steep section (the southeast most trail is new). I picked up a medium-sized trash bag worth of beer cans and bottles, 8 of which were full. On my way out I had to show/help the same individuals driving up and down the river how to get down the main Hacket obstacles as they froze at it and had a party of vehicles blocking my exist. These individuals were new to the County and were just trying to have a nice outing with the family and not doing said out of malice, the OHVs make it too easy to rent an off-road vehicle with no understanding of etiquette.

 

[Goslow]

OK, now I understand why the west side of the river was closed. It makes sense that it was because of the Hayman fire.
Looking at COTREX and my topo map set, it looks to me that the Gulch trails are fully contained in pike national Forest. So how is it that the county manages sections of it? How does it happen that Park County manages from the county line down to the river, when it is in the national Forest? I don’t get it.

 

[COS80]

I just joined CORE, too. Join CORE — CORE - https://www.keeptrailsopen.com/take-action

CORE is not your typical Jeep Club, we are a motorized action group based out of Buena Vista. We are avid trail users and we love going on trails, but we also work to keep our trails open. We have 14 adopted trails, we do work projects, provide trail reports and we work with land managers to ensure motorized users are represented when they make decisions. We believe that our road system is the common thread that holds all user groups together. If our access is limited, all recreators are effected negatively. ​

​

There's also a legal fund to donate to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-the-gulches

 

[Manitou Decline]

I had fun at my water crossing Randers.

 

[raisinhell2]

OK, now I understand why the west side of the river was closed. It makes sense that it was because of the Hayman fire.
Looking at COTREX and my topo map set, it looks to me that the Gulch trails are fully contained in pike national Forest. So how is it that the county manages sections of it? How does it happen that Park County manages from the county line down to the river, when it is in the national Forest? I don’t get it.

I am guessing from the conversations I have had today. At one time they were roads used by the county for some type of service which was agreed the county maintained . The county was able to designate the road non essential and not used enough by recreational use to warrant closure. The video CORE set me today really explains the whole thing . I'm with Dave I have been a member of core for years But today I donated even more. Watching this it explains the whole thing and the appeal CORE submitted trying to get the road use designation change to high recreational forcing it to reopen .

 

[krispykritter]

FYI There's been an update - not sure it's moved the needle any, but here it is if you're interested.

 

[COS80]

Good Lord... over an hour? Summarize, Chief!

 

[krispykritter]

You think I watched the whole thing???

Summary: the decision process was "it's in our spreadsheet."

The appeal process was "it's still in our spreadsheet"

Now it's still going through the courts.

 

[COS80]

I didn't mean for you to summarize... I meant Captain Longwind.

 

[black95]

CORE has hired an attorney to fight the Wildcat Canyon Trail closures. After the open records were subpoenaed from Park County, it has been uncovered that Park County has been making shady deals and decisions against the Gulches being opened for years, all the while lying to our faces about this fact. They have been working with and giving large amount of money to anti-motorized groups to remove signage and fencing, and blocking attempts to improve the trail for a better chance of passing the environmental assessments for opening. I think the group is Wild America? Something like that. In short, Park County is not on our side, at all.
I read a bit on the old portion of this thread on if this trail was open or closed. To clear some of that up: the trail is “legally” open to the Teller County lines. Teller County has adopted this portion of both trails. There are gates in place, but they are hard to find and bypassed. I know they’re there, because I helped put them there years ago.
The trail is closed at on the Park County side, but they have not had the resources to police it. There were groups, including CORE, who pestered them for information, and the general consensus was that they were not ticketing people for traveling past the County lines to the river, and were only ticketing those found to be on the West side of the river. There are only three ways to be on that side: either you crossed one of the two river crossings, Or you bypassed the gate on the Mutakat Canyon side- all three of which are illegal, and are a smoking gun. As far as I know, that is still the way things are while these trails are wrapped up in litigation- although the newest PSI travel management plan confirmed the trails are still closed at Park County line.
It’s a mess.
I haven’t heard anything about this from Marcus in a while. I’ll have to ask him what the latest is, although I know he’s keeping the cards on all of this very close to his chest.
The sad part is that, as pointed out, the UTV crowd is NOT recognizing any of this. On any given weekend, you can go down there and watch them play in the river all day. There is one very large Hispanic UTV group that is especially troublesome and aggressive, that told Stay the Trail to piss off when asked if they could come to a meeting and explain Stay the Trail and Tread Lightly principals.
The OHV crowd honestly hasn’t been much better.
Anyway, that’s what I know for now.

 

[krispykritter]

Re: the UTV crowd. Yeah unfortunately I've seen a ton of that at Hacket gulch in particular, but also Longwater. I'm not sure I've seen a UTV on Metberry tbh but I'm sure it happens plenty.

I would love to see some sort of enforcement of the rules on these people. I'm obviously biased as I 4wd, but I see far less s***ty behavior from the trucks than from the UTVs.

I watched a large group - may have been the Hispanic guys you referenced - cross the river at hacket and most of them had piles of garbage floating out of their vehicles down river. And, doing donuts and racing around with kids and dogs all trying to avoid being peppered by rocks or run over. I would love to see the forestry service do something about THOSE people, rather than punish all of us for the bad behavior of a few. Yeah I know...dream on.

I have broken the rules and crossed over at Longwater before I was informed that it was illegal. When I asked why there wasn't signage, I was told that certain group rip them down as fast as they can be put up. Sadly, if that's the response that's happening, I get why the county would say "eff it" and just close the whole area down.

I appreciate the efforts of the responsible groups trying to educate people and decrease abuse.

 

[COS80]

I've seen throngs of UTVs on Metberry, all behaving like dicks.

 

[krispykritter]

Figures. Glad I've missed those days!