James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

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Nathan Hale
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by Nathan Hale »

It sounds like this situation may be resolved by pending legislation in congress.

If the land swap for the ski area goes through, then one of the terms will be parking and access to the James Peak Wilderness.
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Randonnee
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by Randonnee »

This guy posted his intent over on Summit Post a while back. He is the owner of the land, and bought it for the purpose of putting in a pay to park lot.

In his post he gave his plans for developing the lot, to include restrooms, plowing for year around access, and paving. I believe he said fees would be $5 per day and $10 for overnight.

A couple of the comments I saw appeared to be supportive of his plan. I have not been up there yet so no opinion to offer.
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by coloradokevin »

with the number of folks who go up there per year (in my experience), I could see this being a very good profit driven venture.

I don't have any useage numbers, but I'd imagine it is well in excess of 50 cars/day in the summer on weekend days... Translate this out a bit: 50 x $5/day x 2 days/week x 15 weeks of the year (give or take) = $7500 ... Initial investment was $14,500 ... divide that by revenue $14,500/7,500 = 1.9 years to pay-off investment (assuming NO other parking throughout the week or year).

Also, I'm not saying that he isn't within his rights to do this, and I am not saying that the FS isn't incompetent for not resolving this situation 15 years ago.

But, I won't be spending my money there. Not to sound like an idealist, but I feel that the mountains are here for all of us to enjoy. Anymore it seems like you either pay to hike, pay to park, pay a habitat fee, pay a use fee, pay a road fee, or somehow otherwise empty your pockets to go to the mountains. Fine, he bought the place so that he can seperate more Denverites/tourists from their money and make a buck... I will respect his rights to his land, but I will go somewhere else in the future. I'm tired of financial barriers standing in the way of using public lands (in one way or another).

Just glad I had the opportunity to visit that side of the mountain before it became another commercial venture!
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by cheeseburglar »

Nathan Hale wrote:It sounds like this situation may be resolved by pending legislation in congress.

If the land swap for the ski area goes through, then one of the terms will be parking and access to the James Peak Wilderness.
Sounds like a reasonable plan to put a ski area there. Would that be the closest ski area to Denver? But he is going to have to drink a lot of beer to tolerate the beuracracy that he'll have to fight to get it approved!
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by Carl »

Would that be the closest ski area to Denver?


It would be a little further in distance (and probably time) than Echo. Interesting that he now plans to not focus on the terrain park crowd, I'm not sure he is going to be able to get enough land to operate a large enough ski area to attract anyone else.

side note: I've always gotten a kick out of the St. Mary's folks website... when you click on visitors, it says nothing of what you can do there, only what you can't.
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by grizz »

It is private land. Any one of us could have bought it, maintained it and charged a fee or not.

I live in a area that has public camp sites; in fact one site is about a 3 min drive from my front door. It is very disheartening and frustrating for me and the other residence in the area to see trash left behind, perfectly healthy 150 year old Ponderosa Pines cut to the ground, fires with no fire rings, I could go on and on. The sites are even equipped with toilets and large trash dumpsters. The weekends I’m home I take the ATV and trailer down to pick up trash and put the place back together. It does not get trashed every weekend but enough to need a little extra care. The FS just doesn’t have the recourses to maintain all the land all the time. If I had the $$ to purchase a “mountain” I would to it in heart beat. Not because I want to make $$, but to preserve it for future generations. I think it is good that some individuals are using their $$ to help preserve, protect and maintain some our beautiful mountains that would otherwise be neglected and possibly destroyed.

I don’t see a lot of people helping to protect our forest other than the usual, stay on the trail, don’t litter, and don’t bother the wildlife - the basics. It goes deeper than the basics.
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Critter
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by Critter »

It was glad to read the info directly from the source. Thanks Paul.

That parking area desperately needs erosion control and probably some expansion. I know people who have gotten parking tix on the side of the road. I suggest waiting a year and seeing what improvements have been made. Any improvements will relieve some of my concern about whether he is just doing it for profit.

I also hear someone is going to start charging for Greys/Torreys Stevens Gulch road access. Can anyone confirm this?
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by cftbq »

coloradokevin wrote:Also, I'm not saying that he isn't within his rights to do this, and I am not saying that the FS isn't incompetent for not resolving this situation 15 years ago.

But, I won't be spending my money there. Not to sound like an idealist, but I feel that the mountains are here for all of us to enjoy. Anymore it seems like you either pay to hike, pay to park, pay a habitat fee, pay a use fee, pay a road fee, or somehow otherwise empty your pockets to go to the mountains. Fine, he bought the place so that he can seperate more Denverites/tourists from their money and make a buck... I will respect his rights to his land, but I will go somewhere else in the future. I'm tired of financial barriers standing in the way of using public lands (in one way or another).
Amen to that, coloradokevin! You and I are coming at this from exactly the same place.
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by cftbq »

grizz wrote:The FS just doesn’t have the recourses to maintain all the land all the time.
The FS "doesn't have the resources" because they don't want to have the resources, because their priorities are elsewhere. They spend all their lobbying clout (like all government agencies) pushing to expand their own bureaucratic empire, and creating more opportunities for themselves to charge fees to the general public. Not only have they done nothing to improve the public's access to places like (just for instance) James Peak for many years, they are, in fact, actively engaged in trying to diminish such access in literally hundreds of places throughout the mountains. Don't let them off the hook with that tired old "we don't have enough money" excuse!
I have been to the mountaintop, and I have seen the force
and the power that animates the universe. That may not
match up with your anthropomorphic or teleological idea of
what "god" is, but it's good enough for me.
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by tress »

cftbq wrote:
grizz wrote:The FS just doesn’t have the recourses to maintain all the land all the time.
The FS "doesn't have the resources" because they don't want to have the resources, because their priorities are elsewhere. They spend all their lobbying clout (like all government agencies) pushing to expand their own bureaucratic empire, and creating more opportunities for themselves to charge fees to the general public. Not only have they done nothing to improve the public's access to places like (just for instance) James Peak for many years, they are, in fact, actively engaged in trying to diminish such access in literally hundreds of places throughout the mountains. Don't let them off the hook with that tired old "we don't have enough money" excuse!

word.
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by Ish »

cftbq wrote: The FS "doesn't have the resources" because they don't want to have the resources, because their priorities are elsewhere. They spend all their lobbying clout (like all government agencies) pushing to expand their own bureaucratic empire, and creating more opportunities for themselves to charge fees to the general public. Not only have they done nothing to improve the public's access to places like (just for instance) James Peak for many years, they are, in fact, actively engaged in trying to diminish such access in literally hundreds of places throughout the mountains. Don't let them off the hook with that tired old "we don't have enough money" excuse!
Almost every statement in this post is either incorrect within the context or incorrect all together. I am not saying that corruption is not present within this agency, because, at some level, I am sure it is, however, I know or have known countless individuals who work for the Forest Service who work very demanding jobs, long hours for a relatively little money. Managing the land properly and effectively at the scale that the Forest Service does requires a high amount of specialized training and monetary support. I would think that if you enjoy and respect these natural areas as important and unique natural resources, paying a relatively small park fee wouldn't really be an issue. To say that this agency is "creating more opportunities for themselves to charge fees to the general public" is ridiculous. The reason that more fees are being charged is because more people then ever are utilizing these resources, furthermore, we are at a time when new management plans need to be developed for many of these areas. Conducting this field work, completing the research and compiling the reports take both time and money.

Historically, forests in Colorado experience at least one large scale disturbance every century, and in certain forest types, these disturbances should occur around every ten or so years in order to maintain the health of the stand and insure proper stocking. However, due to the large human presence that now inhabits the Front Range (areas that should experience disturbance much more frequently than they currently do), management plans must altered to reflect this new anthropogenic factor. Furthermore, the reason that access is being limited to some areas is to restore ecologically sensitive areas to a proper state, as to reduce future site costs. Please respect these signs and try to remember that managing forests is a science with a very long temporal scale. You many not see the results in your lifetime, but please try and see the big picture.
Last edited by Ish on Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: James Peak Parking now is PAY PARKING

Post by grizz »

I agree. IMO they don’t have good handle on their business, but the increase popularity of outdoor recreation in this state has gone crazy. I don’t recall posting that charging extra fees is the answer. It is very apparent that something needs to be done. What have you offered to do other than the basics to help resolve the situation? Something needs to be done, and sitting in your car complaining about the traffic keeping you from your summit or the $5.00 parking fee that pays the guy doing ALL the work so you can check the summit off your list, is definitely not the answer. Forget the check list and lend a helping hand! Colorado has not always been like this.
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