Pitkin County has reached a deal on what will be its most expensive Open Space and Trails purchase to date.
The county will pay $34 million for 650 acres of land in the upper Snowmass Creek valley, surrounded on three sides by the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.
Snowmass Falls Ranch was once a part of the Ute people’s territory, which covered much of the Western U.S. and Rocky Mountains until European settlement. In the early 20th century, Danish immigrant Kate Lindvig established her ranch in the area, purchasing various parcels of land and acquiring others through the Homestead Act. In 1943, she sold the land to the Perry family, which has owned it for the last 80 years.
Gary Tennenbaum is the director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails (OST). He said the deal fell into place at the right time, with the Perry family being ready to sell, and the county having the financial resources to make an offer.
“We were preparing for something big,” he said of the OST board’s issuance of $20 million in bonds in 2020. Thanks to low interest rates in 2020 and the county’s good credit, the bonds netted $24 million dollars. “The final pieces of major public land in Pitkin County that we haven’t been able to conserve are out there, and this was one of them, and it was a big one.”
“I would never have guessed that we’d be able to accomplish something like this,” he said. “But through that bonding, and potentially with GOCO (Great Outdoors Colorado) funding, and the ability to potentially sell some of this back to the Forest Service as wilderness, makes this property completely financially viable.”
OST has applied for a $3 million, ten-year loan from Great Outdoors Colorado to help with the purchase. GOCO gets its money from the state lottery to fund conservation and recreation efforts around Colorado.
Two U.S. Forest Service trails currently cross through easements on the property.
Tennenbaum said many hikers don’t even realize they’re on private property when they start their trek.
“It’s about two miles of Snowmass Creek (frontage), and you got tons of wetlands, and incredible scenery,” he said. “You have two waterfalls on the property… It is spectacular.”
Tennenbaum said county commissioners will give their final approval to the deal in early February.
He said once it’s official, the interim plan will maintain the status quo — with the public able to access the Forest Service trails — while OST works on a more long-term management plan.
“We need some time to assess, first of all, how much we can potentially, you know, resell to the Forest Service for wilderness, and you know, what to do with other pieces of the property,” he said.
The county’s second biggest OST purchase was in 2010, when it acquired 845 acres in the heart of Sky Mountain Park for $17 million.
