SUMMIT COUNTY, CO—Public access to a 15-mile stretch of the Blue River, from Green Mountain Dam to the confluence with the Colorado River, could come under private ownership if the Bureau of Land Management approves its preferred draft resource management plan, grandfathering land exchanges already under way… even when properties involve river corridors. The land swap called the Blue Valley Land Exchange involves billionaire Paul Tudor Jones’ Blue Valley Ranch and “his” section of the Blue River loaded with large fish of the pellet-breath variety. A meeting tonight in Kremmling is open for public input.
According to the Summit Daily News: County Commissioner Karn Stiegelmeier is worried about the land exchange, which has been ongoing for about a decade.
“We have concerns about public access to the river in these particular areas,” Stiegelmeier said in a meeting last week. Currently, the Blue Valley Ranch allows access to the river on Spring Creek Road, and there is another takeout before the one at the confluence, though neither have long-term guarantees for access.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.