Crystal Mountain trail may soon be off limits

For the Horsetooth Four-Wheelers, the Crystal Mountain ride is part of a big annual campout and trail cleanup, said the group's vice president, Bob Paul.

But the cleanup and campout might not go as planned this year because the state may prevent off-highway vehicle riders from accessing the trail leading to Crystal Mountain from the south.

"We feel pretty rough about that," said Paul, adding that the road has been open for decades. "It's kind of like a land grab. It's kind of like we were just shut off."

The road leading to Crystal Mountain, Larimer County Road 344, crosses a 1-square-mile parcel of state institutional trust land managed by the Colorado State Land Board as a revenue stream for public schools.

The parcel is one of many 640 acre tracts of state land scattered throughout Colorado, but the Crystal Mountain parcel is unique in the area because it’s surrounded on all sides by public national forest land.

The public isn’t allowed onto state trust land, and trespassers can be reported to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, said State Land Board spokeswoman Melissa Yoder.

“Public use will be a disturbance or harm our ability to make a revenue stream,” she said. “We can’t allow public use.”

Only those who lease the land have a right to be there, she said, unless they have a special state permit for a right of way, which costs up to $5,000.

So, when business partners Dennis Houska, of Houska Automotive in Fort Collins, and Paul Duffy signed a five-year recreational lease last year for the part of the Crystal Mountain parcel from the state that includes the road access to the peak, the lease stipulated that they are required to install a gate on the road to keep trespassers out.

Yoder said the State Land Board requires its lease holders to keep visitors away because off-road vehicle damage to the land is widespread, with new two-track roads appearing all over the property causing unnecessary and unwelcome erosion.

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Source: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20110430/NEWS01/104300358

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