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Adoption Status: ADOPTED
5,491 acres (8.6 square miles)
How to get there
The Fawn Creek roadless area is located about 7 miles northeast of Buford, and 20 miles east of Meeker.
- From Buford, go northeast on Rio Blanco County Road 8 (the Flat
Tops Trail Scenic Byway), and turn north onto Fawn Creek Road (FS 280).
At a junction, go right (east) on Moeller Creek Road (AKA Sleepy Cat
Jeep Trail; FS 290; 4WD) to access the eastern and northern boundaries
of the unit. This road meets the Yellow Jacket Road (FS 250; improved
dirt) at the northwest corner of the unit.
- From the Yellow Jacket Road, the Marci Camp Road (FS 2270) provides motorized access to the interior of the unit.
- You may also reach the Yellow Jacket Road (FS 250) directly from
Buford, or from Meeker via County Road 15. At Yellowjacket Pass, FS 250
heads to the east toward the Fawn Creek RA.
- The USGS 7 1⁄2’ quads for the Fawn Creek RA are Fawn Creek and Lost Park.
Setting
The
Fawn Creek roadless area occupies the bulk of the Fawn Creek drainage,
which brings water from Sleepy Cat Peak to the North Fork of the White
River. The terrain consists of long, moderately-steep south-facing
slopes, through which Fawn Creek cuts deeply. The rolling divide along
the north edge of the unit features coniferous forest with many dead
Engelmann spruce trees killed during a beetle infestation in the 1950s,
now providing important structure for cavity nesting birds. Toppled
spruce are also decomposing into the soil, fulfilling the important
role of nutrient cycling. Most of the unit, however, is blanketed with
large aspen stands interspersed with many open parks. The area receives
heavy snowfall, and contains much unstable soil. The elevations in the
unit range from 7,700 feet at Fawn Creek to 10,154 on the Sleepy Cat
Jeep Trail.
What’s special about it?
The
Fawn Creek area has been identified by the Colorado Division of
Wildlife as high priority habitat. Here is valuable summer range for
big game, and critical elk calving terrain. The area is in a natural
state and offers high opportunity for primitive recreation and
solitude, except during hunting season, when use is quite high.
The nature of the topography limits
motorized travel here during the summer, and most hunting traffic
occurs by foot or horseback, a mode with generally much higher success
rates than access with motorized vehicles. The area possesses beautiful
scenery and makes for outstanding wildlife viewing.
Potential threats
This
area is available for oil and gas leasing and development (though no
current leases exist in the unit), a scenario with increasing
likelihood given this Administration’s orders to remove all impediments
to energy development, regardless of other values at stake.
Roadless advocates should request that this roadless area should NOT
be leased for energy development. And, in the unfortunate event that is
gets leased, the WRNF should impose non-waivable No Surface Occupancy
(NSO) stipulations throughout the entire roadless area.
Other info
There
are two sheep and two cattle grazing allotments in the unit, and their
associated fences and stock ponds. In their roadless inventory, the
USFS omitted 1,384 roadless acres from the Fawn Creek RA. Their logic:
Flat terrain and proximity to busy roads makes these acres impossible
to manage as “roadless.” That is odd logic, considering that “roadless”
describes an on-the-ground condition, not a subjective judgment call
about the agency’s inability to enforce its management decisions. The
unit is separated from the 104,000 acre Morapos/Pagoda Peak roadless
area only by a low maintenance, high clearance, 4WD road.
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