4th Grade Social Studies

In January, the Forest Service and the city of Steamboat Springs, which is contributing accommodations tax revenue to the project, hired the Keystone Policy Center to work through different stakeholder groups' values to develop a recommendation that creates a compromise. What emerged was the Routt Recreation Roundtable, made up of people representing a broad range of forest uses, including agricultural producers, cyclists, equestrians, trail runners, off-highway vehicle enthusiasts, backcountry skiers and wilderness and wildlife advocates.

"I really like mountain biking, and I support that we build a lot more trails."<br><em>— Ezra Halladay, age 10</em>

"Trails can certainly have very negative impacts&nbsp;to&nbsp;wildlife, but trails can also have very positive&nbsp;impacts&nbsp;to&nbsp;wildlife. That can’t really happen if a trail isn’t planned properly to avoid sensitive habitat …&nbsp; Trails can be very beneficial for wildlife in numerous ways, but they do have to be planned right. You do have to go through a NEPA&nbsp;process&nbsp;to discover the damaged areas."<br><em>— Aryeh Copa, Routt County Riders</em>

"Trails don’t cause impact to wildlife, trail users do," said Keep Routt Wild President Larry Desjardin. "It’s not the trail. You can go and bulldoze with a D8 on a ranch, and the elk will use that for sunbathing. It’s not the trail. It’s not the dirt path. But it’s people, particularly if there are high volumes of people, that push elk away, and the reason we’re so focused on elk is they’re an umbrella species. If elk can survive well, other species can too."

A lot of people come from out of state to hunt the Routt National Forest and the Zirkel Wilderness. The more pressure you put on the elk, the more people hear about it, and the less people you see coming out here to hunt, and that’s a huge revenue generator for this city, Craig (and) down south. There are a lot of people that come here to spend money to go elk hunting.”<br><em>— Ron Buchart, general manager of Colorado Outfitters</em>

"It is saying that if you vote, if you participate and engage in a public process and if your trail organization diligently follows federal regulations for public land proposals, that none of that matters," she said. "It shows other communities that it is not worth it to be collaborative, transparent and inclusive, and instead, anyone can undermine the needs of the community if they complain loudly enough. Steamboat should be an example of responsible and collaborative trail building and not one of land managers catering to special interest groups."

"If you go out to Strawberry Park, and you go out to the middle school, and you watch that herd of elk — five years ago, it was five or six head of elk. Maybe a raghorn bull. That herd this year was 150 head because they were pushed out of where (Flash) of Gold is right now."<br><em>— Todd Lodwick, Keep Routt Wild</em>

"Instead of an all-or-nothing type attitude before, I heard both sides talk a little bit more about what's important to them and their values," he said of Monday’s meeting. "That's what we're hoping to get to — is to understand everyone's values and concerns and opportunities and move forward with something that everyone is going to be happy with at the end of the day."