Meeting to Open Rollins Pass 5-18 6:30 PM in Boulder

All DSers and 4wders who can should go to this meeting and show their support. If re-opened this Rollins Pass is worth its weight in gold. It would open up huge areas of Colorado via dirt avoiding paved Berthoud Pass. It also allies us with railroad history buffs which is a good thing. I plan to be there and hope to see some of you there too.

Steve

Thanks for your work, Steve.

I will pass this along to others who are interested. I can't be there since we are on our way north on vacation.

Hmm, short notice.... could you put up specific directions to the meeting location for those of us unfamiliar with boulder?

The library is behind a Safeway at the Southwest corner of Foothills and Baseline.

Coming from Denver, take the Foothills exit, stay left, left on Baseline, left on Mohawk, left into back of shopping complex.

I should be able to make it. See you there.

I'm in Nor Cal for the week else I'd be there with as many bodies as I could drag.

Is there an email address to send a letter of support to?

I have to work tomorrow night, or I would be there.

Mountain,

Actually the notice for this meeting has been posted in the Rockies Mountain Access Issues thread for over one month now, but who reads that stale old thread.

Here is the time and location info:

Rollins Pass Restoration Association Meeting

Meadows Library in Boulder
4800 Baseline Rd # C112
Boulder, CO 80303
(303) 441-4390


Monday 5-18-09
6:30 PM

Steve I remember seeing that post in Rocky mountain issues, but can't afford to take off a day of work to go. I work 12 hour days. I am going to the Boulder ranger district meeting on May 21. Could you please e-mail me about what happens at the meeting so I can bring it up at the Boulder ranger district meeting? Thanks for going.

By the way I got this e-mail from the boulder ranger district meeting


All,
Next meeting, Thursday May 21st at 5:00pm.
Boulder Ranger District Office, 2140 Yarmouth Ave, Boulder
303-541-2500.

*Calendar of Events for projects*
http://www.hightrails.org/cgi-bin/calendar.pl?calendar=BoulderRD

Agenda:
1) Schedule Next Meeting - All

2) Grants
Lefthand Restoration Grant II, update (Colleen)

Lefthand staging area grant, update (Cat)

Lefthand Map and Guide update (Adam)

3) Adopt-A-Road Projects / Volunteer Projects
Caribou FR505 (Steve)

Jenny Creek road signing (Isaac)

Ironclads FR216 post and cable (Karen) May 27-29 project.

Bunce School FR115 seasonal closure NEPA (Cat)

Bunce School FR203 T-33 crash site interpretive sign (Dave K)

Lefthand Canyon Cleanup (Adam)

Lefthand FR288A,B,D and FR287B signing (Adam)

Miller Rock FR252 erosion control (Adam)

Ice Spider 4WD Road (Cat/Brian) Winch anchors.

Middle St. Vrain FR114 (Adam) Seasonal opening, June 13, 9:00am. Coney
Creek sink hole project, signing.

Nugget Hill FR509 (Adam) - Cleanup May 30, 9:00am, Millsite Restaurant.

Castle Gulch FR287 (John) access control signs, gates.

4) Motorized Trail Projects - (Bill H/ Dave K)
Lefthand FT836, FT837 maintenance

Lefthand FT843 maintenance

Lefthand Trail U-bc addition to network (Brian / Bill H)

Lefthand Trail U-ay maintenance (Brian / Bill H)

5) Rollins Pass - (Mark S)
County Agreement status, Visitor Center status

6) Events
CoA4WDCi 101 Class, update (Mike P)

Any new issues or concerns to work on, or Forest Service projects
related to Boulder Ranger District motorized recreation. - All

Forest Service projects list are online at
http://www.fs.fed.us/sopa/state-level.php?co
Scroll down to find the forest your interested in.
---------------------------------------------
On Hold 2009:
1) Sugarloaf Single Track.
2) Gillespie Gulch access.
3) Jumbo Mountain access.
4) Bunce School FR115 stagging area, east end.
5) Bunce School FR115 kiosk.
---------------------------------------------


If anybody wants to go come on down.

Jim
</pre>

Just had a second job scheduled for tomorrow, which may make my attendance impossible.

I'll make it if I can.

I used to live in Grand County and regularly rode up to and around Rollins Pass. Though the road from Winter Park up to the pass itself doesn't usually open up till around the 4th of July (the snow's too deep), if there was access from the eastern side it would open up a lot of great riding for those both east and west of the pass. Don't know how they'll deal with the collapsing tunnel up there though???
-JD

Jim,

I will send you an update on the Rollins Pass Restoration Association meeting. Let us know about the BRD meetings.

Please keep bringing up the Boulder Wagon Road issue which is different than the Rollins Pass Road. Rollins Pass takes mucho $$$ for the tunnel issue/repair while the BWR is ready to go as-is other than a bunch of politicians in the way.

I'll be happy whichever one they open.

Thanks,

Steve

Your right, why should I bother now.

Thanks for the post, Steve. I am going to try to get there. We had to put my wife's 90 year old father in the hospital today with dehydration and pneumonia, so things are up in the air right now.

I'm sorry all, as I am reading this post 15 minutes after the meeting started... and I am an hour from Boulder.

Please post up details and let me know what I can do to help.

The Rollins Pass Restoration Association (RPRA) meeting tonight was a great step towards uniting two diverse and different groups who share a common goal.

The RPRA is mostly comprised or history and railroad buffs. A large percentage of their membership is well up in their years. On the surface you would think they are a completely different cross section of society. This is good. It shows that it is not only OHV operators who want this road opened. It allies us with a very different group than I am not used to seeing off roaders allied with. They are very happy to have had both the Rising Sun 4WD club and us ADV dualsport folks there tonight. They also recognize that our mutual interest in opening this road will add strength to the fight.

Inmates in attendance tonight were 309, BannedAllen, Tramontana, Deepinit, =o&o>, <O&AMP;O>and myself. We watched a movie about the history of the area and basically did networking.

It was stated that the main impediment to the opening the pass is the politics of the Boulder County Commisioners.

It was also stated that Mark Udall put in writing in a letter that he was in favor of opening the Rollins Pass RR grade if any one of the Counties it passes through requested it be opened. It seems he has not acted to fullfil his statements thus far since both Gilpin and Grand counties have both requested that the road be opened. I requested a copy of this letter and will post it once I get it.

The RPRA past president said that it would take very little money to open the road. Just a little clean up of fallen rocks in the Needle's Eye tunnel, a couple of rock bolts and some inspection. Basically they felt it could be opened for under $10K. The RPRA has over $60K in their coffers.

At this point their main suggest is to write the Boulder County Commisioners and request that they open this historic old route. The plan is to put pressure on the Commissioners and eventually get a venue for a meeting with them.

Everybody, take a moment and write the Boulder County Commissioners.

Boulder County Commissioners
Ben Pearlman, Will Toor and Cindy Domenico​

PO Box 471
Boulder, Colorado 80306​

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Tell them to stop the nonsense of keeping this perfectly good historic road closed. People need access to their cities (Winterpark), their history, their mountains and their recreation. There is no good reason to keep this road closed. (For that matter there is no good reason to keep the Boulder Wagon Road closed either.)

Steve

Thanks Esteban and company for your continuing efforts on this...

Thanks for all of the work on this, it would be great to see the road re-opened.

Sorry I could not make it there tonight.

Well I just got back in town, but I was really happy to read this. I would like to see this open and at least I'll write the boulder CC's. Steve, I'm with you on the BWR but one step at a time, right?

I really hate to say it but the BWR could in the end be a little bargaining chip, meaning that the re-opening of needles eye would reduce the poaching of BWR (even though it's a nice road)...politics politics...

I really like older RR folks on our side, that feels good!!

Thanks guys.

I'll bring it up at the Boulder forest service meeting on Thurday.