The Wildwood put-in to the Roaring Fork River is a key piece in a proposed land exchange between Pitkin County and the U.S. Forest Service. While the county’s Open Space and Trails department has been working to manage high visitor use of the North Star Nature Preserve, the Forest Service owns this property, where most boaters and paddleboarders access the river. Officials think they could improve management if the county owned the land at the put-in.
For a decade, Pitkin County Open Space and Trails officials have worked to get a handle on the soaring popularity of floating the Roaring Fork River through the county-owned North Star Nature Preserve. But the effort is complicated because the county does not own or manage the land where the vast majority of paddle boarders and boaters access the river.
That could change under a land swap with the federal government the county is pursuing. Pitkin County Open Space and Trails officials submitted a proposal in January to acquire the land including and surrounding the Wildwood put-in — 23 acres of U.S. Forest Service property — in exchange for nearly 350 acres spread across nine parcels of county-owned land that sits within or adjacent to the White River National Forest.
County officials think the trade, which they are calling the Rapid Creek Land Exchange, is their best bet in managing ever-increasing numbers of river users on the relatively flat stretch of the Roaring Fork above Aspen.
“If we’re going to have any ability to manage Wildwood and North Star and the use of the river, it’s pretty imperative that we actually control the put-in,” Pitkin County Commissioner Greg Poschman said. “I’ve been a user and protector of North Star for many, many years, and I think this is the only way forward.”
Pitkin County Open Space and Trails staff committed to working toward a land exchange in the 2020 North Star Nature Preserve Management Plan in response to increasing visitor use to the area.
Such a swap “would allow for seamless rules and enforcement across the North Star float river-access areas and the potential for a permit system in the future,” the document reads.
River use at North Star Nature Preserve increased with the popularity of tubing and paddleboarding leading up to the 2015 update to the area’s master plan. The county began tracking visitor numbers in 2018, and that data shows that use fluctuates with factors like weather and water flows. Commercial use has also been increasing. Peak use was during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when nearly 15,000 people were counted on the Roaring Fork between May and September. Since then, between 7,000 and 9,000 visitors use the river each summer.
Seventy-four percent of those users access the river from a Forest Service-owned beach along Wildwood Lane, according to a recent Open Space and Trails survey. The same survey showed that up to 115 vehicles a day use Wildwood Lane to get to the recreation hotspot on the busiest days, creating a management challenge and adding to frustration with crowding.
Neighbors and concerned citizens contend that the high use endangers the ecosystem and threatens the nature preserve, though studies commissioned by Pitkin County Open Space and Trails show long-term improvements to the riparian ecosystem and increased wildlife use of the area as the county has worked to undo damage from the property’s ranching history.
Still, some neighbors aren’t convinced the county should own the property and have called for limitations on public use, a management tool county staff has said they can only explore once they have authority and own the land at the Wildwood put-in.
In addition to the recent submittal of the land exchange proposal, Open Space and Trails staff have kicked off the public process for updating the North Star Nature Preserve Management Plan, which guides policy and oversight of the 245-acre county-owned property. It all sets the stage for a conversation about how to balance access to public lands with concerns about crowding, habitat health and protecting sensitive wild places.
What’s in the proposal?
Pitkin County is offering the U.S. Forest Service 346.63 acres of backcountry land in exchange for ownership of 23 acres along Wildwood Lane, which includes a small parking area and beach where paddlers access the Roaring Fork River.
The acreage is lopsided but the county believes, based on preliminary estimates, that the proposal represents an equal-value land exchange.
“The reason the acreages are disproportionate is simply that the valuation of the Wildwood parcel is expected to be higher and it will reflect the whole East of Aspen neighborhood, which is a completely different market than these other properties, which are backcountry properties,” said Dale Will, Pitkin County Open Space and Trails acquisitions and special projects director.
One of the conditions of land swaps with the Forest Service is that the properties be appraised as if they were in private ownership. Open Space and Trails staff analyzed county code requirements to better understand the Wildwood property’s development potential.
“We think that development [on the parcel] is impossible,” Will said, given the setback requirements in the area, which is constrained by Highway 82, the Roaring Fork River and wetlands.
As proposed, the county would assume ownership of 23 acres of national forest land that borders Highway 82 and Wildwood Lane. The southern boundary of the property is the bank of Roaring Fork River, and the western boundary abuts private land.
Most of the property, about 21 acres, is wetlands, and it contains a portion of an unpatented mining claim, owned by Edgar Boyles, a resident of Wildwood Lane. The Boyleses in August 2023 filed initial paperwork to explore developing a placer gold mine at the site. The parcel also includes the Wildwood School, a local preschool that has been operating on the Forest Service land since 1975.
Most significantly to the county, however, is that the Wildwood property is home to a popular access point to the Roaring Fork River, where boaters and paddleboarders put in to float the relatively flat water through North Star Nature Preserve.
Officials with Pitkin County and the Forest Service agree that the federal agency’s ability to manage the day-to-day challenges of the Wildwood Lane property are limited.
“We just aren’t able to do it. We don’t have the budget or staffing to be able to do that on our own,” said Aspen-Sopris District Range Kevin Warner of the White River National Forest. “We’ve already been relying upon Pitkin County’s generosity to fund multiple forest protection officers to allow the Forest Service the staffing bandwidth to be there enough to manage high recreational use in a really small, somewhat confined space.”
The land exchange proposal says county spending to help the Forest Service manage the Wildwood property has increased from $52,000 in 2018 to more than $100,000 in 2024. Those funds go toward paying for a forest protection officer who can issue citations for things like parking violations on federal lands, as well as Open Space and Trails rangers who patrol Wildwood and North Star, educational campaigns, a seasonal port-a-potty and more.
Even with the increase in spending, the county feels it is hamstrung in its ability to oversee the property without owning it.
“We really want to do the best job we can to take care of the river up there and take care of the nature preserve,” Will said. “Acquiring Wildwood will allow us to have management strategies that are the same at both ends of the float. There’s a lot of work there. We think we can enhance the users’ experience on the river by supervising the situation.”
Olivia Niosi, a ranger with Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, directs traffic at the small parking area along Wildwood Lane used to access the Roaring Fork River. Pitkin County has proposed a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service to gain ownership and management authority over the popular river access point.
The county’s proposal includes the promise of a conservation easement, which would be granted to a qualified conservation organization, like Aspen Valley Land Trust, upon closing of the land deal.
“This conservation easement would protect the existing wetlands and reassure the neighbors that no residential or commercial development would occur. Pitkin County will maintain this location as a river access point for recreation,” the proposal states.
The county also vows to maintain the Wildwood School as “a key early-childhood education center in the Aspen area.”
The county’s portion of the exchange includes nine properties that are surrounded by or adjacent to national forest. The biggest piece of land is 240 acres near Marble, called the Rapid Creek parcel. The Delaney family donated the land to Pitkin County in November 2024; the other eight parcels are smaller, former mining claims that Pitkin County acquired over decades, often as owners of the claims stopped paying taxes.
The proposal highlights the fact that transferring these properties would consolidate ownership of land within the boundaries of the White River National Forest, which is in line with Forest Service goals.
“When the Forest Service looks at any potential land exchange, one of the things we look for first is the opportunities to eliminate inholdings,” Warner said.
Will said transferring ownership of the Rapid Creek property, in particular, would provide an immediate benefit to the Forest Service because of its size, location and environmental attributes.
“That parcel is traversed by Rapid Creek itself and was one that a prior owner had been evaluating, trying to get a driveway permit from the Forest Service, which would have been a hassle for them and also would have created an intrusion near the boundary of the Raggeds Wilderness,” Will said.
Paul Holsinger of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, and Wayne Ives, OST board member, check out the Rapid Creek parcel, which was donated to Pitkin County in late 2024. The property is included in a land exchange proposal between the county and the U.S. Forest Service.
The high-elevation Rapid Creek parcel is in Gunnison County near McClure Pass, about a quarter of a mile north of the Raggeds Wilderness area. There are no roads to it or within the property boundaries. It is surrounded by national forest on three sides and shares a border with private land to the east.
The remaining eight parcels are county-owned former mining claims with names like Champion Lode, Scottish Chief Lode and Unicorn Lode.
Two of the parcels, a total of about 18.5 acres, are near the Independence Townsite, north of Highway 82 in the Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness.
An additional four county properties, totaling 49 acres, are isolated inholdings that sit either entirely or partially in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness area. The remaining two parcels that the county wants to trade are a 29-acre property east of Castle Creek Road and 10 acres in the Lincoln Creek basin, near the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness.
Will said the philosophy of the exchange is that Pitkin County’s open space department, with a stronger operating budget per acre, is better equipped to manage areas closer to town.
“On the other hand, the Forest Service is already managing millions of acres of backcountry, and so they can assume supervision of these backcountry parcels more seamlessly,” Will said. The trade would promote “administrative efficiency in managing lands that each agency is better suited to looking after.”
Will also noted that the proposal from Open Space and Trails aims to maintain public access to the parcels involved. Staff members gave a heads up about the potential trade to Basalt-based Colorado Wild and Public Lands, a land-swap watchdog organization that aims to represent the public interest in real estate deals involving public lands.
“We’re optimistic that this will be a good land exchange,” said Brian Lorch, executive director of Colorado Wild and Public Lands. “It’s set up to be a public-to-public land exchange and it appears that it will be in the public interest.”
The group will keep an eye on all steps of the process, Lorch said.
Complications and challenges
Property owners on Wildwood Lane aren’t sold on having Pitkin County as a new neighbor.
Will reached out to Wildwood Lane homeowners through attorneys at Holland and Hart to seek support for the land-swap proposal. Prior to that, Will said he met Thomas Todd, a senior partner at the Holland and Hart law firm, at a meeting regarding the upcoming updates to the North Star Nature Preserve management plan and Todd identified himself as representing the Oberndorf family, who own one of three homes along Wildwood Lane. William Oberndorf has a well-documented history of making large donations to political causes both nationally and in California, where the company listed as the owner of the Wildwood Lane property is registered.
Will and Pitkin County Attorney Ry Neiley later met with Todd informally to discuss the land swap, and Will said they were under the impression that Todd was the point of contact for the three property owners. Will sent Todd and his colleague, Jeremy Syz, a draft of the proposed exchange in December 2024.
In response, “They asked us to agree to limits on public access,” Will said. “That’s not something that we will consider in a two-way discussion at the very beginning of the process.”
Any limits on access to the river, such as a permit system, would need to be part of a public process, he said. The land exchange will be subject to a review under the National Environmental Policy Act, and the North Star Nature Preserve Management Plan also is undergoing an update with a public process.
Aspen Journalism acquired communications between Pitkin County Open Space and Trails and Holland and Hart through a Colorado Open Records Act request. The attorneys, Syz and Todd, returned a draft on Dec. 20, 2024, with suggested changes to reflect the neighboring property owners’ views that the county’s efforts to manage use of the Wildwood put-in have been “inadequate.” Existing management efforts have resulted in public use of Wildwood Lane that is “excessive, dangerous, constitutes a nuisance [and] causes detrimental environmental impacts,” says the attorneys’ suggested changes.
“The neighboring property owners have not fully vetted the exchange proposal or the conservation easement, and have indicated that they will strongly oppose any land exchange that does not include use restrictions on Wildwood Lane to mitigate the impacts of public access to the put-in,” reads the suggested language in the draft returned by the attorneys.
The county did not include the suggested changes in their proposal submitted to the Forest Service, and Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury responded on Jan. 21 to the homeowners on behalf of Pitkin County commissioners, via a letter sent through attorneys Syz and Todd.
“The Board of County Commissioners is charged with representing all of our constituents and we respectively (sic) disagree with your proposal of instituting new restrictions prior to county ownership and input from all those interested,” Kury wrote. “We nonetheless commit ourselves to a continuing dialogue with you, and we hope that you will also remain engaged in good faith discussions regarding how we might best protect the riverine resources and their connection to the lives of dependent flora, fauna, and county citizens.”
The three homeowners along Wildwood Lane declined Aspen Journalism’s requests for comment.
“We are studying the county’s land exchange proposal with our clients and look forward to participating in the public review process,” Todd wrote in an email. He declined further comment.
An additional potential complication is the presence of a mining claim on Forest Service land that overlaps the parcel proposed to be swapped. Edgar and Elizabeth Boyles, longtime locals who have been fierce defenders of the ecological values of North Star Nature Preserve, filed paperwork with the Forest Service in August 2023 detailing plans to explore mining for gold on the claim.
The Forest Service is still reviewing the Boyles’ plan of operations, which includes drilling two boreholes to evaluate mineral potential, and has asked for more information to support the potential for placer gold mining in the area. If the plan is deemed valid and complete, it would undergo a NEPA process with the opportunity for public involvement before any mining is approved.
The county hired Western Land Group, which specializes in land transactions with public entities, to assist with the exchange process. Todd Robertson, a principal with the company, has worked on land exchanges in the past that include active unpatented mining claims. He said typically there are negotiations with the claim owner to resolve the claim prior to the completion of a land swap.
If the Rapid Creek exchange does not run into unforeseen challenges, like a lack of staff or government shutdown, Robertson said next steps in the process could take about a year. The Forest Service needs to first accept the exchange proposal and begin work on a feasibility analysis. After that, NEPA and a land appraisal process will happen simultaneously and could take years.
School supports exchange
Tina Person, executive director and longtime teacher at the Wildwood School, said the school would welcome Pitkin County as a new landlord.
“It would really simplify things,” Person said.
The Wildwood School operates with a special use permit from the White River National Forest, the same type of permit that much larger operations, like Aspen Skiing Co., use to run businesses on the forest. Each time the school wants to make any sort of physical changes to the property, from adding storage sheds to exploring a gate for school safety, the project needs approval from the federal government.
Person credits the county with clearing up congestion along Wildwood Lane that had, in 2015, prevented the school’s bus from leaving on time, as well as expediting simple administrative needs, like no parking signs, that can take years to work through federal bureaucracy.
Tina Person, executive director of Wildwood School, supports a proposed land swap between Pitkin County and the U.S. Forest Service that would make the county the school’s new landlord. The school has been operating under a special use permit with the Forest Service since 1975, in an uncommon use of forest lands.
Wildwood School’s current permit, for which the school pays $1,526 annually, expires at the end of 2027. Warner said if the Forest Service still owns the land when that comes up for renewal, the school would likely keep its permit, but “if a proposal like that came to us today, it’s incredibly unlikely we would approve that.”
Pitkin County, unlike the Forest Service, has a stated interest in local childcare and education. The county sent Wildwood School a copy of the proposal, and the school’s board of directors sent Aspen Journalism a statement in support of the land exchange.
“Pitkin County Open Space and Trails has helped manage the road and parking, allowing us to get our bus through the road to transport our children. They have paid for ACES to educate people enjoying the outdoors, along with (open space) officers keeping cars moving and the parking accessible,” the statement reads. “Wildwood supports the land swap between Pitkin County and the U.S. Forest Service, and is looking forward to a successful long-term lease renewal with the county, in order to continue the Wildwood tradition of environmental education.”
