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Lower Hermosa Road closed to campers

Human waste, drug use cited
In 2013, San Juan National Forest employees Jim O’Neil and Missy Carter hauled a couch up a steep embankment near the lower campground at Hermosa Creek. Because of garbage, human waste and other issues, camping is now off-limits along the Lower Hermosa Road.

The mess was becoming too big to ignore, so the San Juan National Forest has closed Lower Hermosa Road to campers.

The road, which begins as County Road 201 and becomes Forest Service Road 576, is now closed to campers for 2½ miles past the forest boundary, Matt Janowiak, Columbine District ranger, said Friday. The first allowable camping is at the Lower Hermosa Campground at the top of the road.

“If you’re camping up there, you’ve got to be in one of our developed campsites,” Janowiak said.

Up to now, “dispersed” camping was allowed along the road on forest land. But many people have set up long-term residency along the road, and that has led to problems.

“We’re seeing human waste, garbage, drug use, underage drinking and vehicles denuding vegetation and rutting up wet areas,” Janowiak said in a news release.

The Forest Service received complaints both from neighboring homeowners concerned about loud parties and steady traffic, and hikers who complained about the “general mess” in the area, he said.

“It’s just been getting progressively worse,” Janowiak told The Durango Herald. “It was people setting up long-term residency that seemed to be the biggest culprit.”

Camping is allowed in designated spaces in the Lower Hermosa Campground for up to 14 days. But camping is not allowed along the Lower Hermosa Campground Loop Road and the day-use parking area. The camping closure extends ¼-mile up both the Hermosa Creek and Jones Creek trails. The Forest Service is in the process of posting signs in the area.

Violators will face federal fines of up to $5,000 and/or imprisonment up to six months, the news release said.

Similar situations led to camping closures along two other Forest Service roads in the 1990s.

In 1995, the upper part of the Durango Hills subdivision road, which becomes Forest Service Road 071, was closed to dispersed camping.

In 1996, the first eight miles of Junction Creek Road past the cattle guard (Forest Service Road 171) was also closed to camping. The closure extends up to the Animas Overlook.

Meanwhile, illegal camps near Telluride prompted San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters to call for more aggressive efforts to stop the practice. In a message on the sheriff’s office website last week, Masters called for action “to stop an alarming increase in the amount of illegal camping on, and trashing of, public and private land in the Telluride region.”

The San Miguel Sheriff’s Office was investigating two reported illegal residences – one on private property north of the Lone Tree Cemetery and the other in the Bear Creek wilderness.

“What we are seeing is beyond illegal,” Masters said. “These trashed sites are a threat to public health, the environment and also pose enormous obstacles physically and financially to clean them up.”

Human waste, beer cans, liquor bottles, garbage and other hazardous waste have been found at numerous sites over the last year, the website said.

johnp@durangoherald.com

Lower Hermosa map (PDF)



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