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Adoption Status: NOT ADOPTED
5,081 acres (7.9 square miles)
How to get there
Chicago Ridge roadless area is located 8 miles north of
Leadville on the east side of Tennessee Pass. There are no maintained trails
within the unit.
- The
primary access road to Chicago Ridge is RA is FS 714, which travels along the
East Fork Eagle River and makes up the northern boundary of the unit. Reach FS
714 from Camp Hale on US Highway 24. FS 714 can also be reached by taking FS
726 from US 24 about 3 miles north of Tennessee Pass.
- You can
reach the central part of Chicago Ridge RA from the 4WD road FS 731, which
begins from US 24 about 1.5 miles north of Tennessee Pass. This road climbs
steeply past the El Capitan Mine and the 10th Mountain hut Vance’s Cabin to a
berm closure at appr. 11,000 feet in Jones Gulch. Hike up the closed road to
reach the top of Chicago Ridge.
- The
USGS 7 1/2’ quads for Chicago Ridge RA are Pando, Copper Mountain, Leadville
North, and Climax.
Setting
Chicago Ridge is a high-elevation spur of the Continental Divide
that divides the East Fork and South Fork of the Eagle River. The bulk of the
unit is above treeline and exhibits extensive alpine tundra vegetation. The
east and north sides of Chicago Ridge are steep and rocky. Below the tundra, spruce/fir and lodgepole
pine forests blanket the flanks of the ridge. The primary drainages in the area
are the East Fork Eagle River and Jones Gulch which feeds the East Fork at
Eagle Park. The elevation ranges from 9400 feet on the East Fork to 12,714 feet
on the Continental Divide.
What’s special about it?
The Chicago Ridge RA is prime habitat for the endangered
lynx and provides a high-elevation migration corridor along the Continental
Divide between the Sawatch Range and the Gore/Mosquito Ranges. The area
contains an important subalpine willow carr (a wetland shrub community),
identified by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program. The area is also summer
range for deer and elk.
The proximity of this unit to Vance’s Cabin and to Ski
Cooper ski area make it a popular backcountry skiing destination. In summer,
there is a high opportunity to experience solitude, naturalness, and
magnificent views from the ridge.
Potential threats
Heavy motorized recreation use occurs in the area and,
coupled with the USFS hamstrung law enforcement capacity, this area could see
an increase in illegal motorized activity leading to the creation of bandit,
resource damaging roads.
Other info
Two undeveloped private inholdings (probably mining claims)
exist in the eastern portion of the RA. The unit contains a vacant grazing
allotment. Chicago Ridge RA is contiguous with the 6,900 acre Chicago Ridge RA
on the San Isabel National Forest, forming a larger Chicago Ridge RA of 11,972
acres (18.7 square miles). An additional 3,364 acres of roadless area
identified by conservation groups on the west side of this unit were
inappropriately excluded from the WRNF’s inventory because of a high potential
for encroachment from private developments there. If the 4WD portion of FS 714
were closed, this unit would be contiguous with the larger Ptarmigan Hill RA to
the north, and would form a roadless complex of 32,758 acres (51.1 square
miles) that stretched from Leadville to Vail Pass. A proposed “wildlife bridge”
would be at Vail Pass, and could provide a migration route across Interstate
70, linking this roadless complex to the Eagles’ Nest Wilderness Area. These
linkages have been identified through numerous studies to be a critically
important linkage, or contrastingly a bottleneck, for movement of wildlife
through the Southern Rockies Ecosystem.
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