Crazy Horse Creek
6,920 acres (10.8 square miles)
Setting
The proposed Crazy Horse Creek Wilderness Area occupies the northwestern portion of Piney Ridge, an arm of the Gore Range that divides Sheephorn Creek from Piney River. The area towers above the Colorado River, which lies less than a mile away. Several springs, including Cottonwood Mesa Spring, Blas Spring, and High Trail Gulch Spring, feed streams that flow down off Piney Ridge. The elevation in the area ranges from about 7,200 feet near the Colorado River to 10,300 feet on Piney Ridge.
The large vertical relief supports a variety of vegetation types, with spruce/fir forests dominating the highlands on the ridge, with lodgepole pine and aspen in the drainages, and dry shrubby woodlands on the lower slopes.
What's special about it?
The proposed Wilderness Area supports large herds of elk and mule deer, and provides an important corridor between the Eagles Nest Wilderness Area and lower-elevation BLM and state-owned rangelands in the Kremmling area, and to the northern Gore Range. Use by hunters is quite heavy here in the autumn.
Potential threats
During hunting season, some off-road motorized use occurs, damaging forest resources. Currently, a population explosion of pine bark beetles is causing a lot of Lodgepole pine mortality. Many believe that something must be done but the science is clear - pine beetle outbreaks can't be stopped. There are also calls to salvage log the beetle killed tree, a procedure without ecological justification and that would cause more harm than good. Any roads required for any timber treatments would cause soils damage, introducing noxious weeds, silt streams, usher in greatly expanded human uses, and generally destroy roadless area values.
How to get there
The proposed Crazy Horse Creek Wilderness Area is about 13 miles NNE of Wolcott, and 2 miles east of State Bridge on the Colorado River.
- To access from the south, travel north from Wolcott on State Highway 131 for 11.2 miles and turn onto Eagle County Road (CR) 6A (Lower Piney Creek Road). After 2.5 miles, a minor unimproved road (FS 445) branches off left. This road is the eastern boundary of the area.
- To reach the northern portion of the area, continue north on Highway 131. At State Bridge (13.6 miles north of Wolcott), turn right onto Trough Road (CR 11). After 7.6 miles, turn south onto FS 445, described above.
- The USGS 7 1⁄2' quads for the proposed Lower Piney Wilderness Area are Lava Creek and Radium.
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