Col­orado

 

With tourism, hunt­ing and angling being impor­tant eco­nomic dri­vers, keep­ing healthy habi­tat through intact back­coun­try areas is paramount.

• About 14.5 of Col­orados 66.6 mil­lion acres are pub­lic U.S. For­est Ser­vice land.

• Of those 14.5 mil­lion acres, about 4.4 mil­lion, or 30 per­cent are inven­to­ried road­less areas.

• Cur­rently about 11,000 acres are rec­om­mended for wilder­ness in Colorado.

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Spot­light on Trou­ble­some Complex

Located along both sides of the Rab­bit Ears Range that divides North Park and Mid­dle Park of Col­orado is the Trou­ble­some Com­plex. Users in the sum­mer can fish for brook, rain­bow and Ger­man brown trout in the many streams within the area.  Hik­ers and back­pack­ers can enjoy many of the Troublesome’s great vis­tas.  Parts of Trou­ble­some North are open to snow­mo­bil­ing in the winter.

Up Close

The area includes two For­est Ser­vice road­less areas (Trou­ble­some North – 31,700 acres and Trou­ble­some South – 47,000 acres) and a BLM Wilder­ness Study Area (Trou­ble­some WSA – 8,158 acres). Wildlife uses include a migra­tion cor­ri­dor for mule deer and elk, win­ter range and sum­mer range. Shi­ras moose are com­mon here and  most, if not all, of the creeks and streams have fish­eries includ­ing pop­u­la­tions of brook, rain­bow, and Ger­man brown trout.

Recre­ation

The num­ber one users of the Trou­ble­some area are deer, elk and moose hunters. Mid­dle Park (GMUs 18, 181) has some of the finest deer hunt­ing in Col­orado.  Lim­ited buck deer licenses for the 4th rifle sea­son are becom­ing some of the most sought after licenses in Col­orado with the oppor­tu­nity to har­vest a Boone & Crock­ett tro­phy.  For the past sev­eral years “addi­tional licenses” (hunters can obtain two licenses) for doe deer have been avail­able in both units.

Mul­ti­ple use

Graz­ing of cat­tle is allowed as there are sev­eral term graz­ing per­mits. Ranch­ers with graz­ing per­mits may request autho­riza­tion to use motor vehi­cles for man­age­ment activ­i­ties. Addi­tion­ally, the com­plex has a num­ber of per­mit­ted spe­cial use com­mu­ni­ca­tion sites; along Rab­bit Ears Divide, adja­cent to NFSR 104, Ara­paho Ridge Sno­tel, (an auto­mated sys­tem that col­lects snow pack and related cli­matic data) and near the sum­mit of Parkview Moun­tain Access to all sites for mon­i­tor­ing, main­te­nance, and repair is by motor­ized vehi­cles. Landown­ers can access pri­vate in hold­ings by motor vehicle.

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