Lower Piney

27,479 acres (42.9 square miles)

How to get there
The proposed Lower Piney Addition to the Eagles Nest Wilderness Area is about 8 miles NE of Wolcott

• From Wolcott, travel north on State Highway 131 for about 2 miles. Take Eagle County Road (CR) 6, which turns into FS 701 near Muddy Pass. From the pass, taking FS 744 to FS 406 to the east brings you near Marma Lake. Here you can catch the trail up Piney River (1884) into the Eagles Nest Wilderness Area. FS 701 continues along the southern boundary of the unit and continues all the way to Vail.
• To reach the northern portion of the unit, go east on CR 6A and turn onto FS 445. This is a 4WD road. After about 6 miles, turn right on FS 444 on Piney Ridge. Three miles later, turn right on FS 401, and make subsequent forks onto FS 784, and FS 449. You are now on Piney Ridge. At the end of this road, look for Big Park Trail (1892) for access to the interior of this area. FS road 401 can also be reached from the Sheephorn Creek area to the NE.
• The USGS 7 1⁄2' quads for the proposed Lower Piney Wilderness Area are Lava Creek, Piney Peak, Edwards, and Vail West.

Setting
The proposed Lower Piney Addition to the Eagles Nest Wilderness Area occupies a large portion of the Piney River drainage. This river begins at Piney Lake, north of Vail, and flows into the Colorado River at State Bridge. The north portion of the proposal Area is on Piney Ridge, which separates Piney River from Sheephorn Creek. Many wooded tributary drainages dissect the landscape, which ranges in elevation from 7,800 feet on the Piney River to 11,107 feet at Chimney Rock. Spruce/fir forests dominate the hills, with lodgepole pine and aspen in the drainages.

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. Piney River supports an impressive diversity of native plants, and provides wonderful fishing opportunities.

Potential threats
During hunting season, some off-road motorized use occurs, damaging forest resources. The Big Park Trail (1892) is a legal motorized trail bisecting the area. 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.

Other info
The proposed Lower Piney Wilderness Area is the largest of 12 Roadless Areas that are contiguous with the Eagles Nest Wilderness Area, which together forms a roadless complex of over 168,000 acres (262 square miles)!