The Gulches...what a mess

[Brian]

Here's some current news on the status of the gulches. It's an eye opening reveal at what's going on and the questionable methods being used to keep that area in limbo.

https://www.facebook.com/keeptrailso...0961300872079/

[Jim]

Visit!

www.KeepTrailsOpen.com

.

[newracer]

I just recently became aware of the timeline of events down there. Prior to that I thought it was just the county causing problems.

[Bob]

This stinks to high heaven.

I could see one or two jerks in the FS and county employee just wanting to close an area for their own biases, such things can happen. But this clearly involves the Park county commissioners and higher ups in the FS. There must be some monetary or electoral carrot that is an incentive for this to be happening, and possibly higher up political pressure.

Has the Park county voting population turned radically environmental over the last 10 years? Seems doubtful. Is there one or more wealthy land owners or developers who stand to benefit from closing the trails bankrolling the third party group and election campaigns for the commissioners? Is Misi's group just misguided "do gooders" or does she and others stand to gain somehow? How did they finance their lawsuit? There must be more paper trails, and/or violations of state open meeting laws, and perhaps much worse.

There's more to this story.

[FINOCJ]

I am a supporting an active member of both motorized recreational use groups and environmental conservation groups - and at times, those groups can come into conflict with one another. There are no easy solutions in the balance and management of public lands. Its the lack of transparency, honesty and public accountability in the process and decision making that is most concerning....

[4x4JeePmaNthINg]

What is the motive for trying so hard to close these areas, Im not understanding why these guys have received so much push back?

[goSlo]

Update on the Gulches. Not a good one.

[Jim]

They're at legal options which means they need cash for lawyers.

They have a donate option here:

Go to www.KeepTrailsOpen.com​
Donate to The Gulches Legal Fund


This looks to be the direct GoFundMe link:
www.GoFundMe.com/f/save-the-gulches

[TDash]

thanks for sharing, donated

[TyTheJeepGuy]

The "Wild Connections" group sounds to me like the kind of people who comment on AllTrails trail pages about how it was so annoying that there was lots of 4x4 traffic while they were hiking. As if it didn't have "OHV" in the trail name and "popular for offroading" in the description, not to mention that there are hundreds or possibly thousands of miles of trails in the same forests that are closed to vehicular traffic that they could have taken if sharing the trail with 4x4 vehicles was such a day ruiner for them.

I'm sure everyone here is in agreement that there are 4x4 drivers and dirt bike / UTV operators that are irresponsible and can cause trail damage and ruin recreation in that area for others, but there's also people who street race on our highways, are we going to close the highways down or police the destructive behavior?

[speedkills]

That really bites, but thanks for making it so easy to find the donate link.

[Swank1975]

Thanks for sharing. Just joined CORE as a member.

[Schmitty]

That was hard to listen to... gotta love government.

I did a bit of digging on their website and social media presence. They're the type to say "we know what's best for you".

TyTheJeepGuy previously posted: