Western Land Group, Inc. 

Public Lands Specialists

Rocky Mountain News

Dentry: Land swap would open prime stretch of Blue River

July 1, 2005

KREMMLING - Superb trout fishing awaits anglers in Green Mountain Canyon on the lower Blue River. Problem is, you can't get there from here.

You might scramble down beneath Green Mountain Dam and wade a wee reach of the upper canyon before cliffs and deep water frown on progress. Good luck.

"You have to cross the river," said Chuck Obermeyer, a foot-bound angler and perhaps the canyon's chief admirer. "When the river is higher than 150 cubic feet per second, you will drown. And you have to do that three times before you get to Deep Creek (halfway in the canyon)."

If you know where the Bureau of Land Management road trundles west into the sagebrush north of Green Mountain, you might also wet a line in a quarter-mile sliver of Blue River the BLM owns downstream. Everyone else does.

The canyon itself, more than 3 enchanting miles, is Forest Service and BLM owned. But it is virtually unknown, except to a few boaters and outfitters floating their clients through after launching below the dam.

The general public remains locked out by a slice of private land that blocks access to the canyon's lower reaches. The key that would unlock the canyon's mysteries is being forged, however, as part of a land swap proposed by the BLM and 25,000-acre Blue Valley Ranch.

"The bottom line is that this exchange has to benefit the public," said Dennis Gale, assistant field manager for the BLM in Kremmling. The agency has been considering the swap since 1999.

Gale believes the public would be big winners. Last week, BLM officials in Washington, D.C., and Denver agreed, signing a feasibility analysis.

Big-game hunters also would win. Gale said the proposed swap of scattered parcels would join several BLM and Forest Service holdings, allowing access to public lands that now are landlocked by private property. The most obvious gain would be atop Green Mountain itself. Another parcel, north of the Trough Road, would create an access corridor to slopes connected with Gore Canyon.

The public would gain access to prime sage grouse, blue grouse and waterfowl habitat. But the major attraction is that river access. One of the biggest coups for BLM lies within one of the tiniest parcels.

"It's a little triangle attached to a huge chunk on top of Green Mountain," Gale said. "It would provide pedestrian access to 3.2 miles of the canyon where there is no access now. So the public stands to benefit quite a bit."

In exchange for parcels important to recreation, the Blue Valley Ranch hopes to receive several BLM parcels that lie completely or partially within its boundaries, enabling it to consolidate its holdings.

Gale said the move would eliminate the need for the ranch to fill out paperwork and wait for environmental studies whenever it wants to build a fence or change the way some land is managed. The public would lose a .3-mile piece of BLM land on the Blue River south of the Trough Road, but that parcel can accommodate only two anglers at a time.

Obermeyer, of Highlands Ranch, is a strong proponent of the land swap. He analyzed the plans in detail and said anglers should be overjoyed to give up a well-worn, .3-mile fishing hole for more than 3 miles of access in the canyon.

He fishes in Green Mountain Canyon, always getting permission to pass through the little posted section owned by Blue Valley Ranch. Which explains how we managed to hike up into the canyon and reconnoiter one splendid day last week.

"This is the best wild-trout fishery in Colorado that's available to the public," he announced at a favorite pool flanked by spruce and fir. "I caught 20 fish here last week, and not one brown trout was under 17 inches."

So how, I wanted to know, could he give up what has become this exclusive, gorgeous fishing niche in favor of sharing with the public?

"Sometimes I wonder myself," he said. "But I think it's the right thing to do. I just hope they manage it for catch and release."

Obermeyer said the previous time he was a trout-fishing activist was in the late 1980s, when he helped defeat Two Forks Dam. He and Gale both describe Blue Valley Ranch's owner, Paul Tudor Jones, and ranch manager, Perry Handyside, as conservationists interested in preserving traditional wildlife values.

The ranch has stocked trout, enhanced river habitat and even improved a public kayak takeout on its own property. (It is not a commercial, guided fishing operation.)

"There is no net gain to Blue Valley Ranch," Obermeyer said of the proposed land swap. In fact, the ranch loses some acreage.

"The only new acreage that Blue Valley Ranch gets is 552 acres. They also get 800 acres of landlocked BLM land, but they already control that," he said. "The public gains access to 3,200 acres, either through exchange or by access to property that is landlocked now. We get 3 miles of river access for giving up .3 mile."

The public also would get a chunk of the Blue River near its confluence with the Colorado River, where big brown trout spawn in fall.

The deal is far from done. Gale said it could take 3-5 years before all the T's and I's are crossed and dotted. BLM will publish its exchange proposal Tuesday. A 45-day public comment will follow, during which BLM will conduct an open house and give field tours.

The public will have another 30 days to comment late this year or early in 2006.