Open Space and Trails asks for $20 million in 2025 following historic land acquisition

Following a historic land acquisition in February 2024 that nearly exhausted the Open Space and Trail’s budget, the department came back to ask for over $20 million in 2025.

“This year was a pretty stellar year. We ended up spending our entire fund on properties,” said Open Space and Trails Director Gary Tennenbaum. “And obviously the big one, even though it seems so long ago, was just in February that we purchased Snowmass Falls.”

Snowmass Falls Ranch is a 650-acre swath of undeveloped land in the upper Snowmass Creek Valley surrounded by the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area. Open Space voted to recommend approval of the purchase to the Pitkin County Board of Commissioners at their Jan. 4, 2024, meeting for $34 million, according to previous reporting from The Aspen Times.

At their following meeting on Jan. 10, the commissioners gave their approval for Open Space to move forward with the land purchase. 

In addition to the 650 acres that Snowmass Falls added to the Open Space portfolio, Emma Schoolhouse open space was also added at .75 acres, for a total of 650.75 acres added in 2024.

Tennenbaum said that Open Space also acquired 121 acres in conservation easements near Marble base camp and Yank Creek in 2024. 

Between the addition of 650.75 acres of fee-owned land and 121 acres of conservation easements, the department added 771.75 acres this year.

In 2025, the Open Space is asking for two new staff members: a full-time ranger and a seasonal technician, which will be shared with Natural Resources and Agriculture departments. Over time, Open Space has seen the need for another full-time ranger due to growth with the amount of people that come to visit the Roaring Fork Valley.

Hunting seasons are also peak times in the valley. Tennenbaum said Open Space sees several violations during these time periods, which require additional resources to make sure open space areas are monitored. A majority of the open space properties, which range from Redstone to North Star, are closed in the winter, so somebody needs to watch these and enforce them.

“The reality for the rangers is being able to staff up and be able to have enough people on at a certain period of time,” he said. “We staff everyday, all day — that’s 24/7 for the entire year — and so only having three means there’s some days where you have one. And that’s one from Aspen all the way to Redstone. With four, you can actually have two on most days, and that means much bigger coverage.”

Main priorities for the 2025 budget include these staff additions; nordic operations; biodiversity partnerships; wildlife and avian monitoring; ecological condition surveys; open space agriculture projects at Glassier, Coke Ovens, and Snowmass Falls Ranch; and trail projects on the Rio Grande, Redstone to McClure, Basaltmass, Crystal, and North River Road.

Management planning is also a large goal for 2025 at over $750,000 budgeted in total. This includes a North Star management plan update, a Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition planning grant, a Glassier House and Filoha administration unit house renovation, a Wildwood land exchange, and a Redstone to McClure Trail engineering permit.

The North Star management plan update requests a combined $135,000 in the 2025 budget.

One part, $35,000, will be used for “internal expenses related to public outreach, advertising, and plan development.

The other part, $100,000, will be used for ongoing work from 2024 to evaluate the visitor experience and impacts visitors and commercial shuttles have on the preserve. 

According to Thursday’s budget presentation to the commissioners, “this study will help develop options/recommendations for visitor use management strategies to inform the 2025 Plan Update.”

Open Space is also requesting $50,000 for the Wildwood land exchange to work with the U.S. Forest Service on the land exchange of the Wildwood parcel.

Another $250,000 is requested for the Brush Creek Park and Ride to AABC trail connection. This will be used toward the “engineering design to continue with the next stage of design/cost estimating. This was budgeted in 2024 and will be spent in 2025.” The city of Aspen will contribute another $250,000 for a total of $500,000.

In 2025, the department will continue to work on the Rio Grande Trail node plan and trailhead improvements. This request includes $40,000.

General outreach and education will also require $65,000 in next year’s budget.

Additional fund requests for projects

The resource management and trails section of the budget has several big ticket items as well, totaling over $15 million.

A project at the Glassier Farmstead requires $1.5 million for exterior repairs and renovations, including a well repair, new septic, asbestos abatement, hazard tree removal, driveway improvements, structure renovation, hardscaping, and landscaping. Eagle County contributed $300,000 to these restoration efforts.

Both Filoha administrative houses will also be remodeled for almost $2.6 million. Other work includes septic improvements, land grading, tree removals, hardscaping, and landscaping.

A Rio Grande Trail capital improvement project from Deer Creek to Gerbaz requests $1.7 million for repaving, replacing a safety fence, and adding redi‐block wall to narrow platform sections to improve platform integrity.

And almost $1.9 million is requested to mill, pave, and rebuild retaining walls at the Rio Grande Trail, the Basaltmass Trail, the Crystal Trail, and the North River Road Trail.

Similar to Healthy Rivers and Streams, Open Space received a ‘thumbs up’ from commissioners.

Both Healthy Rivers and Open Space are included in the flourishing natural and built environment section of Pitkin County’s overall budget. This portion makes up 60% of the county’s $164 million budget.

Bird housing effort

Recently, Pitkin County Open Space and Trails reported in a news release that six of the ten bluebird birdhouses they installed last year are being used at North Star Nature Preserve and Glassier Open Space.

Six nest boxes were installed at North Star and another four at Glassier. All nest boxes were installed in pairs, with the two houses placed 10-20 feet apart.

Open Space hoped for bluebirds since it is a species that has historically nested in tree cavities excavated by woodpeckers, but Tree and Violet-green swallow, Ash-throated flycatcher, and House wren were all reported to have used the birdhouses, as well.

In the news release, Open Space said it was “encouraged by the effort to attract bluebirds and may have to construct a few more birdhouses.” Their efforts also provided other species with a home. Open Space will check back next year on additional progress.

Regan Mertz can be reached at 970-429-9153 or rmertz@aspentimes.com.