The Bureau of Land Management has issued a draft Environmental Assessment that would allow Telluride Helitrax to fly in up to 300 skiers a year to backcountry sites north and east of Silverton under a five-year permit.
But the preferred alternative identified by the BLM would limit the heli-skiing outfit to eight specific areas on about 14,183 acres. Currently the company is allowed to operate on more than 37,000 acres of BLM land to the northeast and southeast of Silverton. It has averaged 35 to 50 skier-days a year.
Richard Speegle, a recreation specialist for the BLM in the Durango Public Lands Office, said Telluride Helitrax wanted a 10-year permit to bring in up to 600 skiers on the 37,000 acres of their existing annual BLM permit area.
Speegle said the BLM would like to reduce the heli-skiing permit area because of competing uses by backcountry skiers, the lynx recovery issue, noise factors and the proximity of much of the land to the Weminuche Wilderness.
“They’ve been a good operator, so that wasn’t a factor,” Speegle said. But he said the BLM heard from many backcountry skiers who didn’t like helicopters buzzing their favorite runs.
“We heard the public when they raised the issue,” Speegle said, but he noted the Telluride Helitrax proposal also received “quite a bit of support” among the 90 letters of comment in the earlier scoping phase of the proposal.
Speegle noted that the company already has a 10-year permit to operate on adjacent Forest Service land in the area.
The BLM’s Preferred Alternative would allow Helitrax to operate under a multi-year permit for a five-year period. At the end of the five years, the permit would be re-evaluated for a possible increase to a 10-year permit.
Telluride Helitrax has held a one-year permit with the BLM since 1995, allowing it to conduct commercial helicopter skiing on BLM lands in the Alpine Loop Backcountry area near Silverton. The Telluride-based company has renewed this permit each year for the past 10 years.
Written comments on the proposal will be accepted by the BLM until Dec. 3. Comments can be mailed to Richard Speegle, Project Manager, San Juan Public Lands Center, 15 Burnett Court, Durango, CO 81301, e-mailed to richard_speegle@blm.gov or faxed to 970 375-2331.
The draft EA will be available for review online at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/sanjuan/projects/projects.shtml.
Hard copies are available by calling the San Juan Public Lands Center at (970) 247-4874.