The Pitkin County Open Space and Trails board voted Thursday to purchase 10 acres from a private landowner in the upper Hunter Creek Valley.
Dale Will, acquisitions director for the program, said this purchase is key in preventing residential development in the scenic valley.
“The reason we’re so highly motivated to go after it was to protect the entire valley from getting turned into a driveway corridor,” Will said.
The land is comprised of two mining claims, the Rolland and Mamie lodes, and sits high on a ridge beyond Van Horn Park near Bald Knob.
Open Space and Trails will pay the property owner $1.3 million, plus $200,000 in options to develop elsewhere in the county. An anonymous donor will contribute $100,000 to the purchase, according to Will.
“This is kind of the culmination of decades of work by thousands of people in Aspen to protect Hunter Creek Valley,” Will said.
Pitkin County commissioners will need to approve the deal by the end of the year as a condition of the sale.
