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Bear Creek At Telluride
Broker Tom Chapman and Ron Curry are planning a 1,300 acre, human-powered and helicopter ski area – pending federal approval – on land adjacent to Telluride ski area.
Real estate broker Tom Chapman and his partner Ron Curry tomorrow will announce plans to develop a 1,300-acre ski area adjacent to Telluride ski area. The Bear Creek at Telluride ski area will be anchored on the 103 acres of mining parcels the duo acquired in 2010.
A press release touts the “highest ski area in North America” and “Colorado’s newest ski area.” The area would offer human-powered skiing with optional helicopter and snowcats trips, all on avalanche controlled slopes. The bearcreekattellurideresort.com website notes that the helicopter, snowcats and avalanche control – and the entire resort, really – are subject to federal permit.
Curry said late Thursday that “the permit process has begun.”
The last new ski area permitted in Colorado – Silverton Mountain – took almost six years of intensive environmental review before the Bureau of Land Management approved unguided skiing on roughly the same number of acres as Chapman’s permit request, also accessed from privately owned land.
“Yes, sometimes these processes take more time than seems necessary, but the process cannot be avoided,” Curry said in an email. “We have taken the first step in the formal process.”
Curry said any skiers planning trips into Bear Creek, which is accessible from the Telluride ski area, should register by printing out and signing a legal form available on the website. The form is a waiver of liability and covenant not to sue Chapman and Curry’s Gold Hill Development Co. in case of any injury in the steep, deep, avalanche-prone slopes that tumble through narrow gullies into the box canyon of Telluride.
Access to the Bear Creek backcountry has been hindered since Chapman and Curry acquired the mining parcels in 2010. U.S. Forest Service district ranger Judy Schutza in December 2010 closed three backcountry gates connecting Telluride ski area with the popular Bear Creek drainage, citing potential trespass issues raised by Chapman and Curry. The closures required skiers to hike further to reach access points that led into Bear Creek and was not popular with the valley’s avid backcountry community.
“Most of you know the new landowners and a long-time landowner in Bear Cr. have asked us to remove the backcountry access points along Gold Hill Ridge that generally cause trespass across their private property. After much discussion with local and regional staff, I’ve made a decision to remove the three points that potentially cause trespass,” Norwood District Ranger Schutza wrote in an email to San Miguel County leaders in early December 2010.
Chapman is a renowned broker who developed a luxury home inside the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and has a history of planning development for remote alpine parcels. He and Curry acquired the Bear Creek mining parcels just as the Telluride ski area began developing avalanche control in the area and offering guided backcountry trips into Bear Creek. The ski area had acquired a small mining parcel that could potentially host a chairlift for the upper Bear Creek basin. When Chapman and Curry announced they had purchased the mining claims, they threatened legal action against skiers who traversed their land, prompting the access gate closures.
Curry said late Thursday that skiers now can travel across their land if they printed, signed and carried the forms.
“Otherwise they are trespassing. Skiing (with a signed waiver in hand) will cost nothing for the remainder of this season,” Curry said in an email. This “takes care of nearly every issue over which many have long argued.”
Chapman, a longtime property rights advocate, said in the press release that the Forest Service and ski area policy of allowing access from Telluride “enable trespass on private property, unfairly dumping unwanted liability onto Bear Creek private lands – lands that were there long before skiing became fashionable in Telluride, long before there was a Telski ski area, and long before there was a National Forest Service.”
The Curry-Chapman plan calls for a warming yurt on a removable deck. The announcement promises no lift towers, no grooming, no permanent structures and “no trace of wintertime skiing to the summertime user of Bear Creek.” The highest point will reach 13,555-foot Wasatch Mountain and the base will be located on their private land at 11,562 feet, which would make it the highest peak and base of any ski area in the country.
The press release also includes a classic Chapman twist: an alternative to the yurt and the ski area would be securing zoning for a 1,000 square-foot single family home – with “hand-adzed, dovetailed corner” – that would be “Telluride’s ultimate ski-in, ski-out homesite.”
“As such, it essentially makes upper Bear Creek a private ski area for the home owner’s family, guests and friends, with human powered skiing to any point on the basin ridgeline, as well as private land to private land helicopter skiing on owned private lands, leased private lands, or licensed private lands within Bear Creek.”