The Forest Service district ranger for the Aspen-Sopris District said last week she is likely to recommend that existing motorized uses stay in place on Richmond Ridge, and that the Forest Service not open the area to unlimited snowmobile use.

Irene Davidson is the Forest Service official charged with making the recommendation for uses on Richmond Ridge in the upcoming draft Travel Management Plan, which is due out for public review and comment in late June.

Partly in response to a campaign by the local organization Powder to the People, Davidson was considering opening the area on the back of Aspen Mountain to unlimited motorized use.

But after meeting with the Pitkin County commissioners last Tuesday, she said she is now prepared to recommend that Aspen Mountain Powder Tours continue to have exclusive motorized use of Forest Service land on the east side of Richmond Ridge.

She’s also prepared to step away from an existing “gentleman’s agreement” that allows snowmobile skiers to use an over-the-snow road maintained by Powder Tours on the edge of McFarlane Gulch, which would mean that Powder to the People members and other snowmobile skiers could ultimately have less access than they enjoy today.

The east side of Richmond Ridge is open for non-motorized skiing, but only Powder Tours, run by Aspen Skiing Co., is allowed to maintain and use a series of winter-only roads that provide access to a series of upper-intermediate powder runs.

The west side of Richmond Ridge includes the Little Annie Basin. There, snowmobile skiers can use Pitkin County public roads to gain access to most of the skiing, but unlike the east side, most of the powder runs are on private land that only Powder Tours has leased access to.

Foresters have designated the east side of the Richmond Ridge area as an area for non-motorized use with the exception of Powder Tours, which has a special operating permit.

Backcountry skiers are welcome to enter the area on skis or snowshoes, but after skiing down are not legally allowed to use snowmobiles to get back up the mountain on the roads put in and maintained by Powder Tours.

An informal agreement between SkiCo and a group of local snowmobilers allows them to ski down the McFarlane Gulch terrain and then use a Powder Tours road to get back up the hill. But some snowmobilers also ski other terrain that is set aside for Powder Tours, and then use the roads set and maintained by Powder Tours to get back up the hill.

As a result, the operators of Powder Tours complain that many snowmobile skiers ski up the powder with little regard for the way Powder Tours skis the area to make the fresh snow last for several days. And Powder to the People complains that Powder Tours is hording the most pleasant powder run on the east side of Richmond Ridge, which is called Winetree.

‘It won’t be open to everyone’

The Forest Service has been indicating for months that as part of a new Travel Management Plan being prepared by the Forest Service, it is planning to open the area up to all motorized users, and let users sort things out amongst themselves.

However, Powder Tours operators have repeatedly told Davidson that unlimited snowmobile access would compromise the quality of their ski operation to the point that they would shut down the business.

When asked after last week’s work session with the county commissioners whether she still plans to designate Richmond Ridge as open to all motorized users, Davidson replied, “Probably not. It won’t be open to everyone. That’s what I heard the county commissioners say. They don’t want it open to all snowmobiles.”

During the meeting with commissioners, Chairman Jack Hatfield told her, “I do not support the concept of opening it up in the draft management plan,” and “I don’t see just opening it up to ‘anything goes.’”

Hatfield seemed to have the support of his fellow commissioners.

Davidson said that in her nine months on the job as district ranger, she has learned more about the Richmond Ridge area. “I’m fearful, because when I went up there, the snowmobiles are going everywhere, and they don’t care what’s private and public,” she said. “They are hucking off houses up there, and I’m thinking that without somebody up there patrolling and controlling the situation, this is like a giant playground and nobody is watching what’s going on.”

Davidson also said that Powder to the People does not believe that Powder Tours will shut down if the terrain in their permit area is open to all snowmobile skiers.

“They absolutely have not taken that to heart,” Davidson said. “I have been in meeting after meeting where the Aspen Skiing Co. looks at Powder to the People and says, ‘If you damage our ski area, we pull out and we do not run, you have no roads.’”

In an e-mail interview this week, Powder to the People leader Mike Sladdin agreed that opening the Powder Tours permit area to snowmobile skiers would cause Powder Tours to shut down.

“Powder to the People does not favor unlimited snowmobile access, which threatens human-powered turns, but, rather, the more middle ground,” Sladdin wrote. “Let us move to the traditional use of over-snow roads that access a variety of terrain to preserve the area (as) a ski area, and not just the steeper, more extreme stuff.”

He noted that he has only met with Davidson once. Sladdin also said he has proposed to SkiCo and Powder Tours that his organization share the cost of grooming roads in the area if snowmobile skiers can have access to the entire east side of the ridge, and that funds might be available to Powder to the People through a state trails grant.

Powder Tours or bust

But Davidson has ruled out allowing a new operation to groom roads in the area if Powder Tours shuts down.

“I’m not going to permit Powder to the People to go and put cat roads up there,” she said. “This is part of the ski area. Powder to the People is not going to get that permit.”

And she says she is comfortable with the Forest Service’s allowing a snowcat operation adjacent to Aspen Mountain to operate.

“We’re providing a specific opportunity for the public, albeit not everyone can afford it. But in this area there is no other opportunity for cat skiing,” she said. “This is the place where we found that we have an opportunity, we put it out for prospectus, these people bid on it and they got it. They played by the rules.”

Davidson added that she also thinks that Pitkin County has a larger role to play in helping to manage the Richmond Ridge area, because the county has the ability to close specific stretches of its roads to snowmobiles.

She suggested that the county could institute a program that permits residents to use snowmobiles, but restricts other users, including the many local snowmobile skiers who now use county roads — maintained by Powder Tours — to gain access to the ski terrain on Richmond Ridge.

bgs@aspendailynews.com