Red Table

64,987 acres (101.5 square miles)

How to get there

• From Gypsum, drive south on Valley Road which turns into Gypsum Creek Road (FS 412) at the forest boundary. This road provides access to the Sundell Trail (1863), which traverses the RA above Gypsum Creek, at two trailheads. Further up 412, you can make a long hike up the closed Red Creek Road (FS 425) to the crest of Red Table Mountain, which overlooks Ruedi Reservoir. From this spectacular location, you could continue down the Ruedi Overlook Trail (1912) all the way to the reservoir, or stay up on the Red Table ridge for unsurpassable views. Hike west on the closed Red Table Mountain Road (FS 514), or east on the Mount Thomas Trail (1870), which you can take all the way to Crooked Creek Pass. (These are long hikes). FS 412 also provide access to Lost Lake Trail (2224) , and ends at L.E.D.E. Reservoir, where the Antoine Lakes Trail (1871.1) and Antoine-Cabin Creek Trail (1871) begin.
• From Eagle, drive south on Brush Creek Road, which becomes FS 400, and go to Sylvan Lake State Park. From here, FS 414 winds NW and connects back to FS 412 (see above). Continue south from Sylvan Lake on FS 400 to reach Crooked Creek Pass and the trailhead for the Mount Thomas Trail (1870), which combines with FS 514 to travel the length of the Red Table Mountain crest. You can also reach Crooked Creek Pass by driving north from Thomasville on FS 400.
• From Cottonwood Pass, between El Jebel and Gypsum, you can drive on Red Table Mountain Road (FS 514) to its closure, and then continue on foot along the top of Red Table Mountain to meet the Mount Thomas Trail (1870). From Cottonwood Pass, you can also travel north to the Powerline-Cottonwood Road (FS 430), which makes up the NW boundary of the roadless area, and connects to Gypsum Creek Road (FS 412). FS 430 follows a large powerline and provides access to the Suicide Mountain area.
• The Red Table RA can also be accessed from the Ruedi Overlook Trail at the lower end of Ruedi Reservoir.
• The USGS 7 1/2’ quads for Red Table RA are Cottonwood Pass, Leon, Suicide Mountain, Toner Reservoir, Red Creek, Ruedi Reservoir, Meredith, and Crooked Creek Pass.

Setting
The proposed Red Table Wilderness Area is dominated by Red Table Mountain, an enormous 18-mile long sandstone massif that divides the Eagle Creek watershed from the Fryingpan River. It is separated from the proposed Basalt Mountain Wilderness Area only by the 4WD Taylor Creek Road (FS 510).

The elevation ranges from 7,200 feet near the Fryingpan River to 12,000 feet at the top of Red Table Mountain. The terrain consists of vast areas of steeply rolling mountainsides covered with mixed conifer forests (Engelmann Spruce/Subalpine fir/Lodgepole pine), interspersed with areas of sagebrush, piñon/juniper, gambel oak, and aspen forests. The ridge itself is above timberline and supports an extensive alpine corridor. The north side of the massif contains many cliffed cirques and several small alpine lakes. Red Table Mountain is essentially a very long ridge with no distinct peaks.

What’s special about it?  
From a volume standpoint, Red Table Mountain is surely among the largest massifs in the state. It runs east/west, providing a unique mid- and high-elevation corridor from the Colorado/Roaring Fork Valleys to the Sawatch Range and Continental Divide, and its vertical relief provides a diversity of habitat types, many of which are currently underrepresented in the National Wilderness Presevation System. It is a massive sandstone deposit of the Maroon formation and very rare paleontological evidence of an early reptile has been discovered here.

This large proposed Wilderness Area has had little historical disturbance and retains an excellent remote and primitive character. At least forty separate drainages radiate from the crest of Red Table, providing outstanding topographical diversity. Red Table contains critical habitat for bighorn sheep, lynx, and peregrine falcons, and is a calving area for deer and elk. The NW portion of the proposed Wilderness Area has been identified by the Colorado Division of Wildlife as one of ten trophy big game areas in the state. A sensitive plant species also occurs in the unit.
Because it lacks any large lakes or 14,000-foot peaks, there has been little recreational tourism in the proposed Wilderness Area. This has allowed it to retain great capability for solitude and challenge. The gently rolling terrain on its 18-mile ridge makes Red Table Mountain one of the greatest moderate ridge hikes in the Rocky Mountains, with excellent 180 degree views of five Wilderness Areas. A ski tour along the ridge would be phenomenal and relatively safe. The unit is popular with hunters in the fall, and some outfitters run operations here, especially on the east side. If you fly into Aspen from Denver, look down at Red Table Mountain as you fly over, and imagine yourself on that ridge, passing above the lakes and creeks that seemingly go forever. There is no other area like this on the White River National Forest.

Potential threats
There are areas of this unit that regularly receive illegal use by motorized vehicles, especially motorcycles. The highest concentration of such use is in the Suicide Mountain area in the NW portion of the proposed Wilderness Area, where several crisscrossing bandit trails have been blazed steeply through the forest. These ORVs mostly come from Gypsum. The Ruedi Overlook Trail (1912) also receives motorcycle use originating from the recreational development at the western end of Ruedi Reservoir. There is a large amount of old-growth timber in the proposed Red Table Wilderness Area, which, if harvested, would necessitate road construction and significant habitat loss.

Currently, the Colorado Army National Guard routinely conducts high altitude helicopter training operations on Red Table Mountain. These operations are an important element in preparing our troops for overseas duty but take a heavy toll on the wild and quiet character of this unit. The impacts and appropriateness of these training activities are currently being analyzed in an Environmental Assessment. We hope that the analysis will steer towards a solution whereby these important trainings can continue in appropriate places without jeopardizing the wild, quiet character of this area.

Other info
If the Taylor Creek Road FS 510 (a dead-end, road to nowhere) were closed, the resulting Red Table/Basalt Mountain roadless complex would be over 66,000 acres (103.2 square miles) in size, roughly equivalent to the Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness Area. The USFS has recommended 49,848 acres (81%) of the Red Table Roadless Area to become a designated Wilderness Area, and is currently managing it as such.  Conservation groups have identified an additional 4,133 roadless acres to be included in the Red Table Mountain Wilderness Area.