December marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act and the Hermosa Creek Wilderness. Congress passed legislation at the end of 2014 that permanently enshrined management for the beloved Hermosa backcountry that keeps it as is, free of new roads, mining and logging.
The 2014 legislation culminated a six-year public involvement process than engaged wilderness and wildlife advocates, hunters and mountain bikers, motorcyclists and ranchers. But it’s also the outcome of a century of advocacy for a remarkably undeveloped expanse of forests and streams.
The Hermosa watershed was long a refuge for fish and wildlife. In the early 1900s, when elk were largely wiped out throughout Colorado, a small remnant herd held out in the remoteness of Hermosa. The first national forest supervisor of the then Montezuma National Forest unsuccessfully advocated the area’s protection as a national game refuge in 1906. Hermosa’s elk herd was bolstered with 25 elk brought in from Jackson, Wyoming, by the Durango Elks Club in 1913.
Hermosa’s fishing appeal has a similarly lengthy tradition. The Forest Service constructed the Hermosa Trail in 1917 for “fishers and pleasure seekers,” as well as access for forest rangers and ranchers.
Hermosa’s value for fish and game created a passionate following among southwest Colorado residents. In 1968, at the height of timber harvesting across the San Juans, local champions of the Hermosa backcountry learned of plans to punch roads farther into the hills for the benefit of the Weidman timber mill, Durango’s largest employer.
Chet Anderson, cofounder of Purgatory Ski Area, challenged the Forest Service’s plan to extend the Junction Creek road up to the headwaters. The agency’s long-range vision was to bulldoze a road all the way across the top of the Hermosa watershed, following the present route of today’s Colorado Trail from Monument Hill to Orphan Butte, and making accessible Hermosa’s verdant spruce forests for clear-cutting. Anderson argued the Hermosa elk herd and primitive hunting opportunities demanded the area be left roadless and undeveloped.
A combination of community outcry and passage of the new National Environmental Policy Act derailed the agency’s most ambitious development plans. In 1973, the Forest Service adopted the recommendation of a citizens’ advisory group to leave Hermosa as wild, undeveloped backcountry, but without any formal designation that might draw unwanted recreational attention.
Thus sat Hermosa for the next 30 years, but in the intervening decades it gained evermore popularity for its wildlife, fishing, and particularly, mountain biking, with the Hermosa Creek ride touted as “the trail that made Durango famous.”
When came the time for the San Juan National Forest to update its management plan in the early 2000s, there was recognition that informal management to leave Hermosa alone might no longer be adequate. Spurred by the Forest Service’s recommendation in 2008 to designate the western half of the Hermosa watershed as a wilderness area, community advocates from all corners convened for a facilitated discussion that led to a proposal to protect the entirety of the Hermosa watershed from future development, not just the western portion.
Hence came to fruition the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act, a law that sets aside the western 37,000 acres as the Hermosa Creek Wilderness, and creates a 70,000-acre Hermosa Creek protected area across the remainder of the watershed. The law prohibits future mining, restricts timber harvest and limits the proliferation of roads and expanded motorized access, while accommodating a range of historic activities including hiking, hunting and fishing, mountain biking and motorbiking, and ranching, while protecting the Hermosa’s preeminent value as an intact watershed.
Mark Pearson is Executive Director at San Juan Citizens Alliance. Reach him at mark@sanjuancitizens.org.
