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August 10, 2025

Editor’s note: This story is the third of a three-part series examining the notion of public lands, both in the United States and in our region. Part one looked at the earliest expressions of the commons in territories that would become the United States. Parts two and three look at the history and legacy of what is now the White River National Forest. 

The hunger for land was an insatiable draw to legions of the dispossessed who were on the march across America eager for land ownership. The Utes were simply in the way of an advance that could not or would not be stopped. The tragic story of these first inhabitants of the White River National Forest (WRNF) played out to a violent end amid a rush for land and resources in the Colorado Rockies that had 5,000 people per day pouring into the state by the 1870s. 

Native inhabitants had been hunting and gathering here for more than 10,000 years. The Utes — the “People of the Shining Mountains,” according to the title of a book by Charles Marsh — ruled a vast and rugged empire of about 225,000 square miles that stretched from the Central Rockies west into Utah and Nevada, south into New Mexico and east onto the Great Plains where they hunted buffalo on horseback. The Utes were among the first Native Americans to acquire the horse from Spanish stock that, it was assumed, had been lost. Horses were key to Ute identity, and equestrian skills were a mark of manhood that provided rapid mobility and warrior status.

Broken treaties and war

The advance of Europeans into Ute lands set up a tension that grew with every treaty violation and every trespass. As their domain was carved away, the U.S. government naively assumed the Utes could be transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherers and cordoned off as sedentary farmers. Indian agents were hired to effect this transition, which, in the long run, proved futile and disastrous. There was no reasonable answer to “the Ute problem,” which was the terminology used by Frederick Pitkin, Colorado’s second governor from 1879-82, to refer to the cultural impasse.

The ensuing drama escalated at the White River Agency near today’s Meeker in 1879 when Indian agent Nathan Meeker, a naive and misguided minister, attempted to force the Utes’ compliance to “white man’s ways” by denying them their horses, rationing allotments and plowing over their racetrack to plant crops. Meeker and others believed that the Utes were in need of redemption for their spiritual welfare. The Utes, who found spiritual depth in the natural world around them, believed otherwise and clung to their sacred traditions.

The conflict boiled over in the late summer of 1879 when Meeker had a violent altercation with a Ute sub chief. The frightened Meeker sent for the U.S. Army, which advanced from Wyoming and was met by a strong Ute force. When the detachment of 190 troops crossed into Ute territory on Sept. 29, shots rang out, kicking off a grueling six-day battle of attrition that saw 17 U.S. soldiers killed and wounded 44, while the Utes saw 24 killed, in what became known as the Battle of Milk Creek. As the battle raged 17 miles away, Utes also attacked the White River Agency, killing Meeker, 10 men under his employ, and kidnapped women and children, including Meeker’s wife and daughter.

All captives were later released from a Ute camp on Grand Mesa. But the violent outbreak provided ample pretext for the whites to pursue a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In 1881, Pitkin issued an edict stating that the Utes would either be removed to reservations in Utah and southern Colorado or exterminated. Many were marched out of their homelands near the Uncompahgre River at gunpoint, while remaining bands roamed northwest Colorado until an 1887 military campaign known as the Colorow War.

With that Pitkin proclamation, 12 million acres of western Colorado opened for settlement. The White River Timberland Reserve was later created on these former Ute lands, placing them under federal administration. The Utes were compensated about $22 per capita in a settlement for all that they were forced to surrender. However, draws from those payments were taken from Ute hands to fund pensions paid to families of soldiers and agency staff killed during the violence surrounding the Meeker incidents. So ended the empire of the Utes.

Exploitation, waste and destruction

“One of the most pressing problems facing Colorado in the 1880s and 1890s,” wrote Justine Irwin, author of the 1990 manuscript “White River National Forest: A Centennial History,” “was the prevalent exploitation of its natural resources by westward moving pioneers … [who] accepted the waste and destruction that followed as a small price to pay for their dream of prosperity.”

The prevailing attitude of the day regarded “wilderness” as a wasteland ripe for the biblical mandate in the Book of Genesis: “Increase, multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it.” These newcomers to western Colorado, wrote Irwin, viewed the land with “utilitarian spectacles,” through which “trees became lumber, prairies became farms, and canyons became the sites of hydroelectric dams.”

A dramatic example of the settlers’ creed was the extermination of the native elk herd as meat hunters ignored sustainable yields and fecklessly shot and killed all the native elk in the region, selling their harvest to railroad builders and mine workers. So-called “market hunting” flourished only as long as the herds lasted, and the 6,000 to 8,000 elk estimated to have been in the WRNF region in 1879 were soon extirpated. Hunters took only the hindquarters of the animals, leaving the rest as waste. The selling price for meat was 7 cents a pound for deer, 9 cents for elk, 10 cents for bighorn sheep and bear, and 50 cents for grouse.

Meanwhile, the General Land Office, a real estate branch of the Department of Interior, was busy selling off the commons at $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act gave land away to qualifying settlers in 160-acre allotments for each adult member of a family. Large families could acquire considerable acreage of public lands. The Timber Culture Act of 1873, the General Mining Act of 1872 and the Railroad Act of 1862 gave away huge swaths of the public domain, all to encourage monetizing the commons and capitalizing on the riches of the continental empire of the United States.

“Ranchers, loggers and others invaded railroad lands taking what they wished and giving no thought to the long-range future of the region,” wrote Irwin, who describes a ruthless lawlessness that discouraged any interference in this land-based free-for-all. But there was change in the air as lawmakers recognized that there were limits to the nation’s natural resources. The giveaways continued, but national parks and designated forests were proposed and gradually established to preserve legacy Western landscapes for future generations in a first glimmer of conservation.  The philosophy behind this growing movement was shared by Henry David Thoreau, George Catlin, John James Audubon, John Muir and an influential cadre of preservationists who began to win over advocates in Washington, D.C. The conservation ethic is summed up by author Rod Nash in his “Wilderness and the American Mind” (1967), in which he wrote, “Doesn’t the present owe the future a chance to know the past?”

Environmental concerns for preserving intact ecosystems to protect valuable and irreplaceable watersheds played a utilitarian role in conservation efforts on Western lands. Forestry management entered the lexicon of policymakers when, in 1875, Section 6 of the Colorado Constitution called for “Preservation of Forests: The General Assembly shall enact laws in order to prevent the destruction of, and to keep in good preservation, the forests upon the lands of the state.”

Citizen involvement through civic forestry associations amplified the call to protect national assets and save something for the future. In 1889, a timber reserve was called for on the Western Slope of Colorado to safeguard against wildfires, overgrazing and irresponsible timber harvests — all of which were decimating irreplaceable landscapes. A similar approach to nature aesthetics was winning hearts and minds for preserving the inspiring vistas that were beginning to sensitize America to the natural treasures of which it had taken possession.

In 1891, a groundswell of support led President Benjamin Harrison to enact the General Revision Act, a sweeping mandate to protect Western lands that led Harrison to issue a proclamation establishing the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, the first binding federal protection for a large expanse of central and northwest Colorado and the second of its scale and scope in the United States, after a forest reserve designated near Yellowstone National Park. Supporters called it a great victory, but detractors — of which there were many — impugned the initiative as a “taking” of what they considered the entitlement of free land.

The account of a boasting pioneer quoted in “White River National Forest: A Centennial History” and who had unconscionably plundered the public domain is a grim tale of misuse without supervision and reasonable limits of what was perceived as an infinite cornucopia: “In the summer of ’89, I killed about 700 deer and pulled the hides off, just for the hides. That fall, I got 43 bear near Lost Park. I shipped the hides to Chicago and they netted me clear $1.50 apiece. Everybody killed game for the hides and made money that way. I’ll tell you a fact: In ’89 I could ride up anywhere and there would be 40 to 50 bucks lying in one bunch. You could ride up to within a few feet of them. I killed 23 bucks in one day and jerked the hides off.”

Such carnage became repugnant to many and shameful to a growing number of nature lovers who advocated protective legislation such as the Forest Management Act of 1897 that granted the secretary of the interior power to regulate “occupancy and use” of federal lands. Implementation was another thing as new and often-inexperienced forest rangers came up against hardened libertarians who were armed and militant — namely, loggers and ranchers. Threats against rangers, who lacked policing power, were said to “make your eyes swell shut and your nose bleed,” according to “A Centennial History.”

Forest rangers bring law to the wilderness

According to Irwin’s manuscript, “the forest ranger had to become not only a conservationist, a lands manager, a grazing expert, a timber expert, a watershed manager, a wildlife protector and jack-of-all-trades, he also had to become an expert in public relations with a keen understanding of community and national politics.” Few could match up to these requirements without rigorous training and a deep commitment to the role.

In 1898, Charles W. Ramer of Fort Collins was appointed the first supervisor of the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, headquartered in Meeker. Jack Dunn, Harry Gibler and Solon Ackley were the first rangers hired to patrol the reserve, which was divided into nine districts. The rangers were assigned to observe that loggers and ranchers kept to their assigned boundaries, to ensure that game regulations were followed and to put out brush fires.

These early rangers faced tremendous personal risks from unruly forest users, as described in an account by ranger William Kreutzer, who faced repeated threats from his efforts to enforce regulations. One night in the early 1900s, wrote Irwin, “as he was returning to his camp from a day patrolling, three men sprang suddenly from the aspen thickets and attacked him. Almost instantly he was struck on the head with something that rendered him unconscious. When he recovered, many hours later, he was lying beside the road, his head ached, his nose was bruised.”

Another incident from Irwin’s manuscript revealed that Kreutzer boldly confiscated tools from a group of timber cutters felling trees inside the protected reserve. “One day he was riding a trail and a bullet whizzed by close to his head. He rolled from his saddle and sought shelter behind a large tree. Four more bullets struck near him. The boom that followed each shot told him they had come from a large rifle fired from a spot some distance away. He had only his six-shooter, but ascertaining as best he could the spot whence the shots came, he elevated the barrel of his gun and fired every cartridge. The shots of his assailant ceased. He decided that someone had just tried to scare him a bit.”

Trophy hunters flocked to hunt in the White River Reserve, the most prestigious of whom was President Theodore Roosevelt whose special train passed through Glenwood Springs in 1901. The Roosevelt party hunted the Danforth Hills near Meeker, killing 14 mountain lions. Although Roosevelt championed conservation of wild lands, he withdrew substantial acreage from the reserve on the advice of his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, in order to appease complaints from forest users of “locking up the land.”

Meanwhile, posted notices advertised the following: “Men Wanted!! A ranger must be able to take care of himself and his horses under very trying conditions; build trails and cabins; ride all day and all night; pack, shoot and fight without losing his head. All this requires a very rigorous constitution. It means the hardest kind of physical work from beginning to end. It is not a job for those seeking health or light outdoor work. Invalids need not apply.”

Requirements were incredibly demanding, but men equal to the challenge answered the call and were hired only after completing a grueling exam that included saddling a horse, riding a required distance, packing a horse or mule with tools and camping gear, pacing the pack animal over a designated trail, taking bearings with survey tools and more. The annual salary for the few who were able to pass the test was $900 to $1,500, but starting at a lower figure.

The staunchest objectors to enforcement were cattlemen whose livelihood required substantial range. Among them was Roaring Fork Valley rancher Fred Light, who protested the charging of range fees for grazing his stock. Light’s story traces a reluctant yet gradual progression from vehement protests to acceptance of the principles of forest management.

Light of the Roaring Fork

Fred Light (1856-1931) came to the Roaring Fork Valley in 1880. He prospected before locating a homestead on East Sopris Creek where he cut and sold hay in Aspen to feed the many teams required for mining and camp life. Eventually, Light proved up on his land, expanded his operation, and raised cattle and horses. In 1885, he was elected to the Colorado legislature and served two terms. He was a prominent, well-respected rancher who had political savvy — and clout.

“We want no forest reserves,” Light announced to cheers and applause at a meeting of the Stockmen’s Association in 1907. “If we must have reserves, we want no grazing tax; if we must have reserves and the tax, the cattlemen claim the privilege of saying who will be placed in charge of the reserves.”

Light gained notoriety when, that same year, he allowed his cattle to drift into the newly formed White River Forest Reserve where grazing was prohibited. Light, like many early ranchers, was resistant to government control over a resource that he and many ranchers took possession of as an entitlement by simply being there first and assuming a right of ownership.

Light was cited, which started a grazing-trespass case with the U.S. Department of Forestry and which eventually reached the Supreme Court. Light lost his case, but he had made a bold statement of rugged individualism that animated the spirit and the myth upon which much of the American West was settled. The decision against him, however, verified the government’s legitimacy in charging grazing fees and regulating uses on reserve land. Light accepted the decision and thereafter paid the appropriate fees. He also agreed to the rules and regulations, and he even came to endorse them as he witnessed how competing forest users were beginning to negatively impact the land.

Light’s story is compelling, but there was a far more sensational and dire event in his colorful life in the Roaring Fork Valley that describes a sad, personal anecdote. The Aspen-Democrat Times reported a dramatic event: An electrical storm, proclaimed “the worst in the history of this locality,” killed one person and wounded others in the Capitol Creek area.

According to the July 14, 1909, news story, “Early last evening an electrical storm set in which surpassed in severity any before experienced in this locality and brought disaster to the household of Hon. Fred Light of Capitol Creek, one of the most prominent and highly respected families of Pitkin County.” That evening, a bolt of lightning struck a potato cultivator outside the home, jumped to the gable on the home’s roof and ran down to the basement, where Light’s five children were packing meat. Light’s son Ray, 18, was killed with four others rendered unconscious.  

Light’s conversion to the ways of the forest was a sign of progress, but, unfortunately, it did nothing to ameliorate an even more vitriolic conflict. A range war erupted in the early 1900s that pitted cattlemen and sheepherders against one another in a blood feud that resulted in thousands of sheep being slaughtered and a number of men being beaten and killed. The Western tradition of “first in time, first in right” gave cattlemen the wherewithal to declare the range existed for cattle only. Sheepherders were not forbidden by law or permit, but they took their lives in their hands if they violated the cattlemen’s self-imposed privilege.

Range wars

While the Glenwood Post became amenable to regulations in the White River Reserve by acknowledging the advantages of range protection, increased pasturage and peaceable possession for cattlemen, the advent of sheepherders lit the fuse of a conflict that blew up repeatedly. Irwin describes the George Woolley Sheep Massacre in Routt County when, in 1911, several hundred sheep were “rimrocked” in a stampede that drove them off a cliff. In 1913, many sheep were killed by strychnine poisoning. Finally, a full-on range battle ensued in 1913 in the Battle of Yellowjacket Pass, between Craig and Meeker, when warring sheepherders and cattlemen fired upon one another, necessitating the calling out of the Colorado State Militia.

Changes in the cattle industry — such as growing domestic hay for winter feed and breeding more efficient strands of range cattle — increased weight gain and reduced the desperate need for vast grazing acreage. Forest rangers also played a part as peacemakers and mediators who headed off range feuds. They also took on rapidly expanding responsibilities to regulate timber cutting and supervise road-building, water diversions, irrigation, reforestation, erosion control, trail-building, sign-postage, wild game and fish management, and many other tasks. When elk were reintroduced to the forest in 1912 — Fryingpan Valley rancher Nelson Downey reportedly killed the last bull elk of the original herd in 1895 — rangers monitored the habitat and protected the imported elk from over-hunting.

As a more peaceful era settled on the reserve (renamed the White River Forest Reserve in 1902 by Roosevelt), a new use with rapidly growing popularity became evident as people came to the reserve, not to graze animals or cut timber, but to simply enjoy the sublime natural beauty that is in such profusion here. Enter recreation and a new identity for the public commons.

For the love of nature

Pinchot, the chief forester, considered recreation to be only an “incidental use” until 1905, when hotels and sanitariums were introduced to the reserve for popular enjoyment and therapeutic healing. Gradually, roads and trails became part of the White River National Forest (Congress renamed it so in 1907) with the mandate to include all users. This brought commercial use into local cultural and economic equations and began a shift of management priorities.

An annual report on the forest in 1913 stated that natural resources would now be managed to reduce impacts from grazing and logging in order to “preserve the natural beauty of the location unmarred for the enjoyment of the public.” A potentially lucrative recreation economy spurred a tangential threat of privatizing public lands for commercial gain as stated in a letter to the U.S. Forest Service from the Denver Chamber of Commerce in 1913: “We deny that it is right or advisable for the federal government to retain title to and lease the public lands for any purpose whatsoever.”

The Forest Service was not alone in wariness of privatizing the commons for private development. In a major turnabout from only a decade before, Colorado stock growers shared the alarm: “We earnestly object to any action by Congress abolishing the national forests or transferring their control or administration from the national government, and we must respectfully urge our congressmen to oppose any measures materially changing the present method regulating grazing on the national forests.”

Even Light came to the forest’s defense as reflected in a report in the Glenwood Post in 1916: “Fred Light was even ready to kiss and forgive the forestry officials. … Mr. Light says he has learned to adapt himself to the forestry regulations and that the officials mean only good to the stockmen.”

Grazing and logging continued as fundamental to the forest economy, especially during World War I when resources were in great demand, and yet the clamor for private resorts and vacation cabins began exerting influence. Trappers Lake was a sought-after locale for a proposed lodge and several hundred cabins that threatened to commercialize a scenic focal point on this White River National Forest wilderness enclave. In 1919, Arthur Carhart, landscape architect for the U.S. Forest Service, made a survey of the area and later advocated for a new concept in public-lands management — wilderness — especially after a meeting with assistant forester Aldo Leopold, America’s first conservation biologist.

“How far shall the Forest Service carry or allow to be carried manmade improvement in scenic territories?” wrote Carhart. “The Forest Service is obliged to make the greatest return from the forests to the people of the nation that is possible.” Carhart acknowledged forest yields in economic terms, but then urged for a higher concept of land use. “There is a great wealth of recreational facilities and scenic values within the forests,” he opined. “There are portions of natural scenic beauty which are God-made and which of a right should be the property of all the people. There are a number of places with scenic values of such great worth that they are rightfully property of all people. They should be preserved for all time for the people of the nation and the world.”

With that statement, Carhart leaped beyond the utility of conversation via Pinchot into the notion of preservation along the aesthetic and spiritual lines of Muir and Leopold. Carhart concluded: “If Trappers Lake is in or anywhere near in the class of superlatives, it should not have any cabins or hotels intruding in the lake basin.” Trappers Lake was preserved, and Carhart’s memo became a strong endorsement of the Wilderness Act of 1964.

The scenic WRNF and the CCC

There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.

William Henry Jackson wrote that verse after photographing Mount of the Holy Cross (at 14,009 feet) during his wilderness sojourn in 1874 with the Ferdinand Hayden geologic survey team. Located in Eagle County, this dramatic peak became a religious icon in the 1920s when pilgrimages were made to nearby Notch Mountain for the spectacular view. Visitors came from around the world to see the sight, having either to hike there or to travel by horseback. President Herbert Hoover declared the peak a national monument in 1929. In 1950, that status was rescinded after the pilgrim era had tapered down to almost nothing.

Still, the religious influence of this remarkable mountain left an imprint in the American psyche that, for growing numbers, infused scenic lands with sacred status. A tide had turned when Western lands attained a divine countenance that glowed with ethereal majesty and touched the hearts, minds and imaginations of those who saw them. This love of the land became a national balm when, in 1929, the stock market crashed and America entered the Great Depression.

As many Americans suffered economic privation, the forests of the West became sanctuaries, places to escape the grit and grime of depressed cities and breathe fresh air. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, his socially progressive legislative agenda included the formation of a national service component called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

Federal dollars put the impoverished and the unemployed to work on federal lands to build roads, trails and facilities. CCC workers, each paid $30 per month, were mostly young men, from all walks and all corners of the nation, who spent weeks, months and sometimes years working in national forests, living in communal camps and recognizing the virtues of public lands.

During the 1930s, there were CCC camps in Woody Creek and at Norrie in the Upper Fryingpan. Gradually, forest access was opened to more users as land improvements mitigated erosion with the planting trees and shrubs, removing invasive or poisonous species, and making the forests prime recreation areas under the multiple-use mandate, which the Forest Service described as “inseparably interwoven into the social and economic future of forest communities.”

Maintaining the health of the range within the White River National Forest was a constant challenge made more practical by the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, named for U.S. Rep. Edward Taylor, D-Colo., of Glenwood Springs. The act was designed specifically to prevent overgrazing and soil deterioration, and to provide for the orderly use and improvement of public lands, while also stabilizing the livestock industry dependent on the public range. Fundamentally, the act protected the health of the rangelands and the resources they provided.

World War II and the 10th Mountain Division

America’s entering World War II with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 raised demands for resources from the White River National Forest and reduced its workforce as all attention was focused on national defense. A different kind of attack, this one by the Engelmann spruce beetle, saw huge mortality rates throughout the forest, prompting foresters to implement the sustainable yield concept for renewable timber harvests, especially given the decimation from beetle-killed trees. This resulted in the passage, in 1944, of the Sustained Yield Forest Management Act, which found favor with the War Production Board and opened the forest to widespread logging. A deep cold snap in 1951 greatly reduced spruce beetle populations, restored forest health and obviated the need for insecticide applications that had been tested on Basalt Mountain.

The war brought a new user group to the forest when the 10th Mountain Division trained at Camp Hale, near Leadville. After the war, legions of young skiers and mountaineers were attracted to the state’s Rocky Mountains, where many established the Colorado ski industry that was soon to develop resorts on national forest land. Aspen became a focal point for Colorado’s identity with skiing, which brought Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke from Chicago to Aspen in 1945. Elizabeth Paepcke, who founded the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), is described by Irwin as “an ardent conservationist trained by family friend, Gifford Pinchot,” and later by early wilderness advocate Enos Mills.

NEPA boosts environmental oversight

As recreation created mounting pressures for land development, the Forest Service recognized the need for greater environmental oversight, leading Congress in 1969 to pass the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This groundbreaking legislation focused initially on the impacts of ski-area design and later became an overarching management tool for all public land uses.

Meanwhile, the White River National Forest became “the ski-area forest” as thousands of acres of public lands were permitted for ski runs and resort infrastructure. The town of Vail was incorporated in 1966, where by the end of the 1967-68 ski season, 1 million lift tickets were sold and revenues reached nearly $3 million. General forest visitation had also grown to 171,000 in 1947 from 96,000 in 1946. “For every two who pitched camp in our forests in 1948,” wrote a forester in 1950, “three or more did in 1949.” The recreation boom had begun.

By the mid-1950s, public demand for designated campgrounds created an ever-growing budget for facilities that could accommodate nature-seeking Americans. The role of the forests became focused on serving visitors in unprecedented numbers. The 1960 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act ushered in a new thrust for outdoor recreation as “multiple use” became the law of the land. Along with the explosion in tourism came ambitious water diversions as natural watersheds were impounded to fill dams and regulate flows for human benefit under the Bureau of Reclamation. Transmountain diversions and dams proliferated in the WRNF throughout the upper Fryingpan, Roaring Fork and Lincoln Gulch basins.

The wilderness idea

As human impacts threatened over-development of forest lands, a chorus of wilderness advocates called for a balance by establishing primitive and wilderness areas based on Carhart’s memo urging the preservation of Trappers Lake. The Wilderness Act of 1964 made possible the formation of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area and many other mountain redoubts with roadless designations and pristine environments. Today, containing eight wilderness areas, the WRNF has 751,900 acres of statutory wilderness, the highest protected landscapes in the country, and 640,000 roadless acres.

The wilderness philosophy calls for preserving the nation’s legacy landscapes, where man is only a visitor. Although a mere 2% of the 48 contiguous states is protected with wilderness designation, these irreplaceable landscapes are sought after more and more frequently. They are fast becoming overcrowded, with many wilderness areas requiring permits merely to set foot in them. A deeper concept of nature has redefined recreation with access to quiet, peaceful settings where visitors may experience a spiritual balm and even a moral grounding for humanity. Lakota Sioux Luther Standing Bear said as much when he wrote at the turn of the 20th century: “The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon lead to a lack of respect for humans too.”

By the turn of the 21st century, the WRNF strained to manage for multiple uses of limited resources as competing users seek a balance among development, land conservation, wilderness preservation and environmental oversight. Management pressures are only growing, but under the current Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), many forest rangers and administrators have been dismissed, staffing is nearing a critical shortage, and the long-range management goals that have underpinned the health and resilience of the White River National Forest are under grave risks that are likely to impact the quality of our public lands.

A national forest mission statement describes what’s at stake: “The White River National Forest provides quality recreation experiences for visitors from around the world. Through strong environmental leadership we maintain a variety of ecosystems, producing benefits of local and national importance. Our success is due to active partnership with individuals, organizations and communities. Our strength is a diverse and highly skilled workforce.”

The WRNF by the Numbers:

• Total Acres of Land: 2.3 million
• Wilderness Acres: 751,900
• Roadless Acres: 640,000
• Miles of System Trails: 2,500
• Miles of System Road: 1,900
• Miles of Streams: 4,000 
• Ski Resorts/Acres: 12 Resorts, 45,500 acres
• Number of Campgrounds/ Picnic Areas: 85
• Visitors per year: 9.2 million

This story, and Aspen Journalism’s ongoing coverage of challenges facing local public lands, is supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.