Category Archives: News

Starting on Monday, July 7, the Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) Department will begin a trail project that will extend the Anemone Trail west of Boulder and also restore native vegetation in the trail area.

The completed trail project will provide about 3.2 miles of designated trail access for pedestrians and equestrians* along the city’s mountain backdrop. It will also revegetate more than nine miles of unsustainable and undesignated trails that crisscross the area surrounding the Anemone Trail.

To protect visitors and help restore native grasses, flowers and other vegetation in the area, the entire Anemone Hill area will be closed beginning Monday. This planned closure was included in the West TSA management plan, which the Boulder City Council approved in 2011. When OSMP completes the Anemone Trail project, which is expected to occur in April 2015, visitors will be required to remain on the newly designated trail.

The Open Space Board of Trustees and community members identified the Anemone Trail project, along with the closure and revegetation of user-created trails, as being a beneficial project during the development of the West Trail Study Area (TSA) management plan. That plan guides recreational uses and related wildlife and ecosystems protections for the City of Boulder’s trail system along the peaks west of Boulder.

* For equestrians, of course, there’s no place to park your trailer within 10 miles of this area, so unless you happen to live right next door to the Anemone area, or unless you want to ride 20 miles each way plus the six miles of new trail, you will be SOL — but then, that’s exactly Council’s wish for you.

The Planning Commission meeting on the Rights of Nature Wednesday June 18 will, we hope, be a non-event.  Public testimony will not be taken, but I plan to be at the meeting anyway (est. time mid-afternoon) just to see how it plays out.

Staff has wordsmithed this issue to death, resulting in the following proposed language to be inserted into the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan Environmental Resources Element:

“Acknowledging our responsibility to ensure that naturally-occurring ecosystems and their native species populations continue to exist and flourish in Boulder County, Boulder County will develop conservation and recovery plans for priority Species of Special Concern.”

As far as we’re concerned, Boulder County is already doing that, so this merely makes it official.  The media will continue to get it all wrong as they have done since the beginning.  The RON people may crow about their success, but I support the final wording because it eliminates the “rights of nature” language and gets rid of an “all” in the original document that would have been impossible to implement.

I’d say we did very well in the end, but it represented a lot of kerfuffle and wasted time.

Now, I hope we can put it behind us and move on.

S

The Hall Ranch Trails need some TLC! Volunteers will use hand tools to re-route worn-out sections of the trail while closing down the old trail. The goal is to create a trail that will stand up to heavy use and all kinds of weather. A light breakfast will be provided before we get to work. This project will run from 8:30 am – 1:00 pm. Minimum age is 14 with adult supervision. To register please visit www.BoulderCountyOpen Space/wildwork or contact Fletcher Jacobs at 303-678-6344 or fjacobs@bouldercounty.org

And just think, you’ll be joining over a million other volunteers all over the country who will be giving back to our public lands and trails.

Be sure to tell ’em you’re with BATCO!

All trail advocates are urged to attend tonight’s Planning Commission meeting on the Rights of Nature:

Wednesday, May 21  7pm

Boulder County Courthouse, 3rd Floor

A small group of so-called “rights of nature” extremists are trying to take over Boulder County by inserting a phrase or two in the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan (BCCP) ascribing “rights” to ecosystems and everything in them.  BATCO has studied this matter in depth and the Board has come out firmly AGAINST this concept as we believe it would cripple all present and future use of trails and Open Space, among other problems.

Please come to the meeting and join us in the fight against this concept.  The meeting will start at 7pm and will run until everyone has had their say (3 minutes each;  if anyone would be willing to pool their time with us that would be terrific, but you have to stay even if you have given up your time).  If you absolutely can’t come to the meeting, please write the Planning Commission c/o Pete Fogg at pfogg@bouldercounty.org and ask that your message be delivered to the Planning Commission before the meeting.

You can refer to our letter, below, and/or the Guest Commentary that ran in today’s Camera, for more information. http://www.dailycamera.com/opinion

Thanks.  Hope to see you there.

Boulder County and other agencies are proposing to spend $7.1 million for a Conservation Easement across the largest remaining piece of land between Rollinsville and East Portal — an area the size of Hall Ranch, Heil Valley Ranch, and Caribou Ranch.  As it looks now, the CE will not allow any public access, even on a network of existing ranch and mining roads.  In private hands for the past hundred years, this property has blocked important trail connections from West Magnolia to the Indian Peaks Wilderness, from Eldora to Jenny Lind Gulch and more.  As a CE with no public access, it will continue to block these trail connections.

Trail advocates who support trails across this 4,000 acre property , please come to this meeting and speak!

The agenda packet can be found here.

You can view BATCO’s letter below.  The meeting is at the Boulder County Courthouse (13th & Pearl, 3rd floor).  If you can’t make it, please send an email to the Commissioners:  commissioners@bouldercounty.org.

Join us for a wide-ranging discussion on trails in Boulder County.

We generally meet the fourth Monday of each month, but that falls on Memorial Day in 2014 so we will be skipping that date.  The next BATCO meeting will be on June 23 at Spark Boulder, 1310 College Avenue on the Hill in Boulder.  7-9pm.  Please contact us if you are interested in attending.