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Adoption Status: ADOPTED
8,520 acres (13.3 square miles)
How to get there
The North Woody roadless area is located 4 miles north of Aspen. Approach the area from the settlement of Woody Creek.
- From Woody Creek, take Lenado Road (County Road 18) to the
southeast. Pass the Little Woody Creek Road (no public access). If you
turn left at the Woody Creek Cemetery, a short road leads into the
National Forest. From its end, a hiking trail continues up Collins
Creek through the roadless area. (Note: The Hannon Creek Trail (1998)
either does not exist or is extremely difficult to locate.)
- The Lenado Road becomes FS 103 at the forest boundary, and the
North Woody RA is north of this road. Go past Lenado toward Larkspur
Mountain and go straight onto Kobey Park Road (FS 508) at a fork. This
road passes through a rat’s nest of ineffectively closed timber roads
that sit on the northeast boundary of the roadless area. FS 508
continues down through forested slopes on the north edge of the unit to
a private closure at the forest boundary. As above, there is no public
access to Little Woody Creek. (Note: Good luck finding the eastern end
of the Collins Creek or Hannon Creek Trails in the maze of motorcycle
singletrack.)
- The USGS 7 1⁄2’ quads for the North Woody RA are Ruedi and Aspen.
Setting
The
North Woody RA is part of the divide that separates Woody Creek from
Rocky Fork Creek. This area occupies the Woody Creek side of that
divide and consists of steep south/southwest-facing slopes that are
deeply divided by six V-shaped drainages. These are (from W to E)
Little Woody, Collins, Hannon, Casady, Sawmill, and Wilbur Creeks, all
of which feed Woody Creek. The steeper slopes are blanketed in Gambel
oak and shrubs that grow on the sandstone substrate. Spruce/fir forest
covers the divide, much of which has been logged, and Douglas firs grow
in the steep draws. Elevations range from 7,800 feet near Woody Creek
to about 10,900 feet near Kobey Park.
What’s special about it?
Despite
its proximity to the historic Kobey Park timbering area, and the
settlement of Woody Creek, the North Woody RA has remained relatively
undisturbed. This is due to the steep, rugged terrain, and the lack of
timber on these dry slopes. Although the area is completely surrounded
by roads, most of these are small dirt roads, and it is part of big
game migration corridor from the Williams Mountains in the
Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness Area to the Sloan Peak area near the
Roaring Fork/Fryingpan confluence. This unit is big-game summer range
and receives light hunting activity.
Potential threats
Although
the numerous timber roads in the Kobey Park area are officially closed,
the closures are ineffective. That area, on the northeast boundary of
the RA, has become a motorcycle playground, with miles of looping
singletracks that lead nowhere. This has effectively reduced the size
of the roadless area and, if the Forest Service doesn't get a handle on
it, could spill over into the roadless area further reducing size of
this undisturbed core and fragmenting the remainder.
Other info
There
is a cattle grazing allotment in the north portion of the unit, with
stock ponds and fences. If the Kobey Park area were counted as roadless
by the USFS (motorcycle trails are not roads), then another 1,441 acres
could be added to the North Woody roadless area. |
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