August 23, 2024-

The Trust recently transferred a small property just outside Colorado’s Raggeds Wilderness to public ownership to be added to the National Forest.Straeder Lode is just over 10 acres of steep, rugged mountainside on the slopes above Baxter Basin. A popular hiking route from Crested Butte, Baxter Basin and Daisy Pass offer incredible views of flowering alpine meadows, waterfalls, and jagged ridgelines.

The Trust first purchased Straeder Lode in December 2021, and since then has been working to transfer it to Gunnison National Forest. Now that it has been transferred, it can be enjoyed by future generations of recreationists.

Properties like Straeder Lode are a great example of the impact of viewsheds on our wilderness experiences. If you were to close your eyes and imagine one of your favorite places in the wilderness, the picture you conjure would likely include a sweeping view. The area that can be seen from any particular point is known as its viewshed. And when we go to the wilderness for solitude and inspiration, our experience is shaped by more than just the ground we step foot on, the trail corridors and campsites. It is shaped by all we see from those places. So if you were to imagine that from your favorite place in the wilderness your view now included a busy road, or a private resort with helicopters coming and going, or mining equipment and heavy machinery moving the mountainside, you would likely find your experience altered. No longer would you have the same sense of quiet, of solitude in the vastness, and of remaining a visitor in the landscape.

So for a property like Straeder Lode, sitting within the viewshed of popular trails like Baxter Basin and Daisy Pass, the threat of privately owned properties within the wilderness landscape isn’t that public access would be cut off on the trails, it’s that the experience of those traversing those trails would be altered and diminished.