Trouble near Boulder, Jeepers trying to claim private road Options

[59er]

Heads up: the Denver metro area Jeep clubs are attempting to claim that another private mining road is public for their joy rides and other entertainment. The miner that owns it has been experiencing vandalism and closed it to the vandals. Recent article in the Times-Call:

http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=7779

Here is a forum where the off-road clubs are debating whether or not to respect the owner's right to close his property:

http://colorado4x4.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=65365

This is happening alot in the front range where new uses are clashing with traditional uses.

[59er]

Hey CP, thanks for keeping an open mind.

I think this is a growing problem all over the West, but especially places that have experienced a population explosion and fast growth in extreme sports like rock-crawling. It's a classic "user conflict". When I was growing up in CO, the use of these old roads was very light, and those of us that owned jeeps were usually just using them to try to get places other people couldn't go, on the roads that were already there. Nowadays the fashion is to put huge tires and suspensions on these things and complete by crawling up hills and over boulders. Do a web search on "rock-crawlers" and you will see what I'm talking about. I was really shocked to see what jeeping has turned into over the years.

The modern four wheelers have a different approach than we did back in the '60s and '70s. Have you heard of "rock-stacking"? When we went out in the old Willys with stock parts, we couldn't get over the wash-outs and deep ruts, so we would do little local repairs that would allow us to get through. Apparently, nowadays, this is a real no no. The four wheelers say that if your rig can't get up a road you shouldn't be there, and they've take to putting up "gate keeper obstacles" to keep guys like me out. The way it's ended up in a lot of places around Gold Hill, Ward, Jamestown, etc. is that the hard-core four wheelers basically "own the road" and the rest of us are not welcome any more.

Then there's the looting. One old boy I know has owned claims up there all his life, and had some old antique ore cars on his property. He started losing his gear, and one day caught some people loading a car into the back of their pickup becuse they wanted to put it in their yard in the burbs and plant flowers in it. They didn't even know they were doing anything wrong, it was just sort of a "finders-keepers" attitude because the road they were on was not gated.

You questions about the specifics of Gillespie Gulch I can't answer. but you are right. Every situation is going ot be different because of the different history. My main point is that just because a road has been used for a long time by the public doesn't make it a public road, and there are good and legitimate reasons to close roads where there are problems like the ones I describe. Legally, if the land was patented before the road was built, the road belongs to the owner of the land unless the title of the property says otherwise. Even the FS must get permission to use it, whether or not there's a FS number on it. In th old days most people where neighborly about sharing the roads, but that was before rock-crawling.

I'll see if I can find out more specifics about Gillespie Gulch for you.