Last fall, the Boulder Ranger District of the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests brought together a bunch of folks—off-roaders, mountain bikers (that’s us!), conservation groups, and others—to figure out the future of recreation in Lefthand Canyon after the area was closed following the 2013 floods. The focus was especially on how to handle off-highway vehicle (OHV) use.
Those meetings were funded by a Colorado Parks and Wildlife grant and facilitated by the Keystone Policy Center. The conversations were productive, and Keystone compiled a report that hasn’t been released yet—but the gist of it? “This area is complicated, and y’all should definitely keep talking.”
NoCo Places is stepping in.
NoCo Places will now help keep the process moving by providing facilitation support. If you haven’t heard of them, NoCo Places is a regional partnership that brings together folks from all sides of the outdoor world—recreation and conservation alike—to collaborate on public land planning in northern Colorado.
They’re part of something bigger called the Regional Partnership Initiative, which was created to help Coloradans work together on how we access and care for the outdoors at a regional scale. Basically, it’s about finding smart, balanced solutions so everyone gets to enjoy public lands without loving them to death.
BMA’s Executive Director, Wendy Sweet, is a stakeholder in NoCo Places, representing the Colorado Mountain Bike Coalition—a statewide group making sure mountain bikers have a voice in these big-picture public land conversations.
So what’s the plan now?
There’s no new meeting schedule just yet, and no on-the-ground changes have been approved—but conversations will pick back up soon. BMA will absolutely be there to represent mountain bikers, especially those seeking advanced riding experiences, as we keep pushing for a future at Lefthand that includes purpose-built trails and the kind of riding this area is known for.
We’ve got the history of Lefthand up on our webpage and we’ll let you know as soon as there are updates. Stay tuned!