A popular boat ramp on the Roaring Fork River in Carbondale is expected to re-open this week for boaters and anglers.
The Colorado Division of Wildlife has reached an agreement with Stanley and Valerie Koziel, the owners of the land around the boat ramp, and a new five-year lease is expected to be signed this week.
“I’m waiting on Denver to get the OK,” said Perry Will, area manager for the DOW in Glenwood Springs. “I got an e-mail yesterday saying it looked good.” (By “Denver,” Will meant the attorneys and the real estate managers at the DOW headquarters in Denver.)
The boat ramp, just downstream from the Highway 133 bridge at the intersection with Highway 82, has been closed since May, and boaters have recently found boulders blocking the private road that leads down to the put-in.
Local rafters, kayakers and flyfishing guides have been frustrated about lack of access to the river in Carbondale, especially as the run from there to the West Bank take-out is a bread-and-butter fishing run for commercial outfitters and features friendly Class II water, making it perhaps the busiest reach on the Roaring Fork River.
“People want that boat ramp open,” Will said. “We’ve been inundated with calls, but we’ve been moving as fast as we can.”
A 10-year lease between the DOW and the Koziels expired this spring, and negotiations have been underway since then. The Koziels own both the boat ramp and the campground on the bluff above the river.
The new lease will allow for the same level of access as the old lease for both commercial and public users at the boat ramp and adjacent parking area, according to Will.
Members of the public who are launching or taking out at the area are required to have in their possession an inexpensive DOW “habitat stamp,” which is available from local outfitter shops.
One issue that had come up as part of the new lease was securing an agreement from the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority related to the Rio Grande Trail right-of-way, which runs along the access road to the boat ramp.
FTA CEO Dan Blankenship said Friday that RFTA had agreed to allow both public and private travel on the section of road within the RFTA right-of-way. The access road itself is an offshoot of Satank Road, which intersects with Highway 82 west just downvalley from the Highway 133 intersection.
The Koziels could not be reached for comment on the pending deal, but Aspen attorney Rick Neiley, who represents a coalition of local outfitters, said Friday that he had received a call from the Koziels’ attorney, Walt Brown, of Glenwood Springs, notifying him that the deal was likely to be completed Monday.
But Will said he thinks today is probably optimistic. “End of the week, hopefully,” he said.
Tim Heng, general manager of Taylor Creek Fly Shop in Basalt, said he had been told about the pending deal and that he was looking forward to being able to use the ramp again for commercial flyfishing trips.
“It has been a scramble,” Heng said. “We haven’t fished the Fork as much as we could have.”
Another boat ramp at West Bank, downstream of Carbondale, is leased by the DOW. Boats can also be launched at informal put-ins upstream at the Catherine Store bridge and just above the Hooks Lane bridge in Basalt.
Some outfitters have also been launching boats at the old pink Satank bridge, just downriver from the Highway 133 bridge, where there is a good eddy but a fairly primitive boat-launching point.
Neiley has been following the negotiations between the DOW and the Koziels closely. And he was talking with the Koziels about the possibility of a lease between them and the Roaring Fork Outfitters Association, which today is a loose confederation of local outfitters contemplating forming a nonprofit entity so they can sign a lease with the Koziels.
“We were willing to do it if we had to,” Neiley said, adding that he and local outfitters prefer that the DOW sign a lease.
Neiley said the closing of the ramp underscores how important it is to local users, and “raises the specter of future potential access issues” along the Roaring Fork.
Neiley also said that Carbondale is interested in purchasing the Koziel property.
“I think the town of Carbondale would like to turn the entire property into a park with a boat ramp,” he said.
bgs@aspendailynews.com
