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Adoption Status: ADOPTED
9,876 acres (15.4 square miles)
How to get there
Deep Creek roadless area is located about 6 miles northwest
of Dotsero and the Colorado River.
- The
main access to the area is from Coffeepot Road (FS 600), which begins a few
miles north of Dotsero. An outstanding view of the area may be found at the
Deep Creek Overlook about 2.5 miles within the forest boundary. FS 620 branches
to the right just past the turnoff to the overlook, and may also provide some
access to the western rim of Deep Creek gorge. Johnson Pasture Trail (1852)
descends from Coffeepot Road into upper Deep Creek, and provides the main foot
access into the canyon.
- Access
into upper Deep Creek may also be found at Deep Lake Campground on FS 600 near
the head of Deep Creek. You may hike to Trail 1852 into the gorge, or take the
4WD Jack Springs Road (FS 618) down along the northeast rim of the Deep Creek
gorge.
- The
USGS 7 1⁄2’ quads for the Deep Creek RA are Deep Lake, Sweetwater Lake. Broken
Rib Creek and Carbonate.
Setting
Deep Creek is a spectacular 15-mile long limestone gorge
that plunges from the White River Plateau into the Colorado River. It is 2,000
feet deep at Deep Creek Overlook and a mile wide. The dominant tree in the
canyon is the Douglas fir. There are cottonwoods along the creek, and
spruce/fir forests interspersed with sagebrush on the broad, upland plateau
above the rim. The creek starts just below Deep Lake (10,500 feet) and drops to
7,200 feet at the forest boundary and 6,100 feet at the Colorado River.
What’s special about it?
This is a very scenic and unique area. Its steep terrain and
huge vertical relief have prevented significant human activity from ever
occurring here. Deep Creek canyon features karst geo-hydrology, in which water
flows rapidly through limestone, and as a result, over 40 caves have been
identified in canyon - one of the largest concentrations of caves in Colorado.
One of these, Groaning Cave, is the longest explored cave in Colorado. The
caves provide critical habitat for several rare species of bats.
Many Engelmann spruce on the plateau were killed by beetles
in the 1950s, and now provide excellent cavity-nesting habitat for birds. There
are Colorado River cutthroat trout in the creek. Big game (including bighorn
sheep) use the canyon as summer range, and as a protected movement corridor. The
area receives occasional use from hunters and cave explorers, but is generally
unoccupied by people.
Deep Creek is under consideration as a Wild & Scenic
River, and as a Colorado Natural Heritage Program Research Natural Area.
Potential threats
Water diversion projects have been proposed that involve
Deep Creek Canyon, and would disrupt the water flow in the creek. The Colorado Army
National Guard routinely conducts helicopter-landing exercises at several sites
within the canyon. Loud intrusions such as these negatively impact wildlife,
particularly bats. The relatively flat uplands above the rim are vulnerable to
illegal recreational road creation. These uplands also contain large mature
spruce that could be targeted for harvest at some point in the future. Timber
harvest in these uplands could severely damage the hydrology so critical to the
Karst formations in the canyon.
Other info
Conservation groups have identified an additional 4,820
acres of roadless are a associated with Deep Creek. The WRNF wrongly excluded
the roadless uplands above the rim of Deep Creek Canyon from their roadless
inventory. The unit is contiguous with 6,500 acres of roadless BLM land to the
east, forming a 21,273-acre (33 square mile) roadless area.
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