Welcome to Louis (Lou) Dawson's backcountry skiing information & opinion website. Lou's passion for the past 50 years has been alpinism, climbing, mountaineering and skiing -- along with all manner of outdoor recreation. He has authored numerous books and articles about
ski touring and is well known as the first person to ski down all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, otherwise known as the
Fourteeners! Books and free ski touring news and information here.
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wow is that map inaccurate. lou, you should put a declaimer on your site.
btw lou, why do you use the word “debacle?”
Roy, how about detailing what’s inaccurate, I’m sure Chapman would be happy to fix. As for the word “debacle,” I use it because it appears no one ever did much of anything to gain public access to what appeared to be the most popular backcountry skiing area near Telluride…
This whole bear creek access thing is purely a legal issue at this point. Chapman is being who he is (I’ll leave it at that), but from the sounds of the Telluride locals, people have been accessing this area for over 20 years and crossing private property the whole time. That being said, someone could argue in court that there is a prescriptive easement over the private parcel simple because it has been used for so long and they would most likely win; the easement would be drawn up and shown on a survey map of said parcel. Someone in Telluride needs to step up and get the process going, then it will be done, on record and Chapman will have to deal with it.
We had some off-topic comments on this post that I had to delete to keep it on topic. Sorry about that folks.
As to the topic, as far as I can tell Gold Hill Development is interested in virtually anything that could use the Bear Creek lands and produce value. Folks in Telluride, you can sit around calling Chapman names, or get on the stick and use this as an opportunity. It’lll be interesting to see which way things go, and what ends up happening up there…
Lou,
I just sent you an updated version of the Telluride Bear Creek Google Earth file, version 7. The file will now open showing a close-in view of the natural backcountry bowls. By the way, if Roy will show what is “inaccurate” in this presentation, I will be happy to correct it (other than the approximation of property lines, which are very close).
Tom
Tom and all, it took me forever to get around to it, but I updated the KMZ just now. Funny how those little things just stack up on the to-do list during ski season (grin). Apologies for the delay.
And echoing what Tom wrote, if folks can point out what’s inaccurate in this KMZ, it can get corrected.
Poor form to just state that it’s inaccurate and not even offer one example. Lame, as a matter of fact, and so unhelpful.