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The environment desk at Aspen Public Radio covers issues in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the state of Colorado including water use and quality, impact of recreation, population growth and oil and gas development. APR’s Environment Reporter is Elizabeth Stewart-Severy.

Trail traffic continues in PitCo

Courtesy of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails

More than half a million people used Pitkin County’s public trail network in 2016.

 

Automated trail counters in 23 locations keep track of how many people are using the county’s properties.

“It makes us look at overall staffing: are we maintaining them up to speed, do we have enough rangers to be on all the trails,” said Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails.   

Last year, the department added a ranger and funding for a forest protection officer to help manage parking at the North Star Nature Preserve.

The county has plans to improve parking at Jaffee Park and along the Rio Grande Trail near Basalt High School. A new lot, including spaces for horse trailers, is in the works at Glassier Open Space as well.

There were about 40,000 fewer visitors last year than in 2015, when more than 600,000 users took advantage of the trail system.

Aspen native Elizabeth Stewart-Severy is excited to be making a return to both the Red Brick, where she attended kindergarten, and the field of journalism. She has spent her entire life playing in the mountains and rivers around Aspen, and is thrilled to be reporting about all things environmental in this special place. She attended the University of Colorado with a Boettcher Scholarship, and graduated as the top student from the School of Journalism in 2006. Her lifelong love of hockey lead to a stint working for the Colorado Avalanche, and she still plays in local leagues and coaches the Aspen Junior Hockey U-19 girls.
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