News

TELLURIDE, Co–More trails are coming to the Telluride region. The Telluride Mountain Club, a local nonprofit focused on human-powered recreation access, has proposed 11 miles of new trails and the rehabilitation of about five miles of existing ones.

Working with the U.S. Forest Service, the draft comment period for the environmental assessment on the proposal recently concluded. While the project is the result of years of collaboration with local stakeholders, some residents have expressed concerns about the potential environmental impacts.

“We’re proposing them to improve trail connectivity, trail variety, and accessibility in and around the Telluride region,” said Heidi Lauterbach, executive director of the Telluride Mountain Club. “Our current trails—a lot of them are just old mining roads or sort of relics of the past. Kind of things that were adopted over time. Our main goal is to actually just connect not only the communities but the trail system in a more sustainable fashion.”

The proposed trails range from a connector trail from Mountain Village to the Valley Floor, to the Ilium Flume Trail—a nearly five-mile route that follows a historic flume on the east side of Ilium Valley—to an uphill route on the popular T35 or Sunshine Trail.

“To a larger extent they were sort of more of a vision and not necessarily ground-truthed,” Lauterbach said. “Over time, we worked closely with the Forest Service to understand what would be possible and what wouldn’t be possible. What’s interesting about trail planning in our region is there’s actually not a lot of places that you can put a trail. It’s more common to find places that you can’t. The reason behind that is topography. We have really steep, rugged mountains. In addition to that, we have a ton of private land.”

Among the proposed additions is the South Side Perimeter Trail, a two-mile route that would connect Bear Creek to Bridal Veil Falls. Angela Dye, chair of the Telluride Open Space Commission, said the group aims to support both recreation and ecological preservation.

“It’s a combination of the county open space, of which I am a member, the town open space commission—by way of what it will connect to, which is Zone 1 Bear Creek Preserve—and the Forest Service and Idarado has been involved,” Dye said. “And [we’re] trying to get a connection between, say, Town Park, Bear Creek Preserve and the base of Bridal Veil Falls.”

While the trail could help disperse recreational use, some Idarado homeowners have raised environmental and traffic concerns.

“The fact that this is so close to town and is really untouched—you know, do we really need to have another place to walk right there?” said Thruce Morton, an Idarado resident. “There’s several other proposals. We’ve got lots of other great trails. Telluride Mountain Club does a fabulous job for us all, but this just seems an invasion—an unnecessary invasion of a pristine refuge.”

Christina Casas, president of the Idarado Legacy Homeowners Association, said the perimeter trail would increase congestion in the already crowded East End.

“The Forest Service land is just a sheer rock,” Casas said. “It’s going to be extremely disruptive and would be extremely expensive. So our feelings are for this trail—you know, of course we support the Mountain Club. And like I said, we’re donors of the Mountain Club and we want to see them continue their very, very, very good work.”

Trout Lake homeowners also expressed concern over the proposed Sheep Mountain Traverse, a three-mile section above the Galloping Goose road cut. Lisa Allee, president of the Trout Lake Owners Association, said the trail would harm local wildlife.

“The impact on wildlife habitat is of great concern,” Allee said. “By putting this trail into essentially an intact forest, [it] will greatly impact—negatively impact—the habitat of the non-human species that live on Sheep Mountain.”

She added: “We really don’t need another trail. There are an abundance of trails in this area. And the Galloping Goose already exists—already traverses the area that this trail is being proposed.”

Allee also cited concerns about increased traffic on North Trout Lake Road and impacts to lynx habitat. She said homeowners asked to meet with the Mountain Club but were directed to submit public comments instead.

In recent years, the Telluride Mountain Club has led or supported several trail development projects, including the Bridal Veil Trail and bridge, repairs to the Jud Wiebe Bridge, the Mill to Eider connector trail, and a summer trail maintenance program in partnership with the Forest Service.

“This has been a really collaborative process,” Lauterbach said. “We’ve worked closely with the Forest Service. The county and the towns have been partners in many of these concepts. And really it came to life because of the surveys we’ve done with the communities. You know, we didn’t dream a lot of it up alone. We were able to modify things based on trail-building perspectives. A lot of this feedback has been community generated, and that’s one of the reasons we love it—because we know the community is into it.”

The Forest Service and the Telluride Mountain Club received 76 public comments during the draft environmental analysis period. The next step is for the Forest Service to review those comments and publish a final proposal before any trail construction begins.