The National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council has partnered with the US Forest Service Boulder Ranger District to create a working group to discuss how to address concerns surrounding the Lefthand Canyon OHV Area. To facilitate the process NOHVCC has engaged the Keystone Policy Center to lead the group.
For this phase of the process, we are asking citizens to engage through their stakeholder/interest group representative. We will pass your name along to the facilitator, Jonathan Geurts with Keystone Policy Center, who is compiling a contact list. Once the group of stakeholders is established, NOHVCC and Keystone will be sharing that information with interested parties. We also recommend that you sign up for the Boulder Ranger District’s recreation email list, if you haven’t already.
For more information, please read the Forest Service Press release below:
Lefthand Canyon Will Be Focus Of Management Study
BOULDER, Colo. (Sept. 12, 2024) — More than a decade after historic flooding took out motorized access to the Boulder Ranger District’s primary off-highway vehicle trails system, efforts are underway to begin future visioning for a sustainable, multi-use trails system in the Lefthand Canyon Off-Highway Vehicle Area.
The Boulder Ranger District has secured a Colorado Parks and Wildlife Off-Highway Vehicle Grant to support stakeholder collaboration and visioning for the Lefthand Canyon Off-Highway Vehicle Area. The District has partnered with the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council, who has hired Keystone Policy Center, an independent third-party facilitator, to engage a diverse representation of interests in working groups.
The area has been closed to motorized use since the historic flood of 2013, which resulted in extreme road, trail and resource damage, including the obliteration of key access points and routes, slope failures, deep erosion channels and debris dams.
When the flood hit, the Ranger District had been in the process of implementing the decision from a 2006 Environmental Assessment that would have proactively managed the area to balance recreational opportunities and the protection of natural resources. The flood resulted in such an extreme changed condition, it necessitated additional environmental review for any management actions.
Recreation in the Lefthand Canyon Off-Highway Vehicle Area has gone largely unmanaged since 2013, when the Forest Service closed the area to all public use in response to flood-related hazards. After mitigating these hazards, the agency reopened the area to non-motorized uses in 2016. Due to access limitations and a lack of connectivity in the roads, however, the area has remained closed to motorized use, eliminating the only area within the Boulder Ranger District that emphasizes motorized recreation within the Forest Plan.
In the years that have followed, the area has experienced a proliferation of unauthorized trail construction and maintenance, primarily for mountain biking, resulting in further resource damage, public health and safety issues, and user conflicts.
“The purpose of this initial effort is to get all the Lefthand area user groups sitting down at the table together, listening to each other’s perspectives, and clearing up misunderstandings and biases,” said Boulder District Ranger Kevin McLaughlin. “In an ideal world, these conversations would lead to the development of a collaborative vision for a multi-use, sustainable roads and trails system in the Lefthand area.”
Collaborative efforts are a critical tool in finding common ground and helping inform potential proposed actions on National Forest lands. If a proposed management action emerges from this effort, the public would be invited to engage in the environmental review process. Public engagement is an important part of environmental analysis and can lead to the consideration of alternative proposed actions.
“One way or another, we need to start working toward strategic, sustainable roads and trails planning and management in the Lefthand area,” McLaughlin said. “Our hope is that this effort will generate some viable, collaborative options for the Forest Service to consider.”