Thompson Creek Roadless Area

Adoption Status: ADOPTED
18,498 acres (28.9 square miles)

How to get there
Thompson Creek roadless area is located 8 miles SW of Carbondale and 5 miles NW of Redstone, although access is best from Glenwood Springs.

• From Glenwood Springs, take Garfield County Road 117 to Sunlight Ski Area. The road becomes Thompson Creek Road (FS 300), and provides the main access to the Thompson Creek area. Stay on this road to reach Middle Thompson Park. From here hike down Middle Thompson Creek (1950), or climb up to Stony Ridge on your left and hike along its crest. From the road closure south of Middle Thompson Park, hike up closed long abandoned roads to a giant high meadow at 10,900 feet. From there you can pick up trails leading into South Thompson Creek (1951) or into Clear Fork Basin on the Gunnison NF. Trails can be faint here, so stay oriented.
• From Carbondale, access to Middle Thompson and South Thompson Creek Trails, is from South Branch Thompson Creek Road (FS 306). To get there, take Garfield County Road 108 to the Spring Gulch area and bear left onto FS 305. FS 306 will branch to your left.
• The USGS 7 1⁄2' quads for Thompson Creek RA are Quaker Mesa, Stony Ridge, and Placita, with a small amount on Elk Knob.

Setting
The Thompson Creek roadless area occupies a large part of the Thompson Creek drainage. It has three major forks that drain a broad and gently rolling divide that separates the Divide Creek and Roaring Fork watersheds. Elevation in this unit climbs from 8,100 feet on Middle Thompson Creek, to 11,500 feet on the divide above South Thompson Creek. The hills are coated in a vast spruce/fir forest, although there are some impressively large stands of aspen at lower elevations. Large park-like meadows and areas of high wetlands also characterize the area.

What’s special about it?
The Thompson Creek roadless area is part of a larger network of roadless land that occupies a mid-elevation swath of forested highlands that stretches from the Elk Range to Grand Mesa. In addition to the largest stands of old-growth spruce/fir forest on the White River National Forest, this area contains part of what is thought to be the largest aspen forest in the world!

The area has been recognized by the Colorado Dept. of Wildlife as high priority habitat for a variety of species. The unit contains the Middle Thompson Creek Potential Conversation Area, proposed by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program, because of its significantly high biodiversity. This unit has some of the most important lynx habitat on the White River National Forest, and is also home to wild turkeys. The threatened Colorado River cutthroat trout is found in two forks of Thompson Creek. The streams also feature rare wetland shrub communities, and the old-growth forest is habitat for the boreal owl and northern goshawk. The entire area is important elk calving habitat and summer range for big game, and is thus important for hunters.

Potential threats
The gentle terrain and thick forests have historically made this an area attractive for timber extraction, as evidenced by the web of old roads around the area.  The large, valuable old spruce trees in the area are always coveted by the timber industry and it is reasonable to foresee a time when attempts will be made to log them.

However, the gravest threat to the Thompson Creek area is posed by oil and gas development. Most of the area was leased in 2001 and 2003, with a set of parcels auctioned off in 2004 still pending due to conservationists’ challenges to them. As the Piceance Basin natural gas boom depletes deposits accessed from lower, flatter elevations, the demand for developing these higher elevation, steep sloped areas like the Thompson Creek roadless complex will increase. The network of well pads, roads, pipelines and industrial truck traffic will forever despoil what is considered the Town of Carbondale’s scenic backyard and part of its domestic water supply.Roadless advocates should request that any development of the existing leases require No Surface Occupancy stipulations. Existing leases should also be allowed to expire at the end of the current lease term. No new parcels in this roadless area should be leased.

The area is also part of the North Thompson Cattlemen’s Association (NTCA) pooled allotments. The industrial fragmenting that would accompany natural gas development in the area would wreck havoc on the NTCA’s ability to manage its herds properly. Ranches on the nearby Roaring Fork valley floor already face a number of tremendous challenges to their economic security and the impacts of natural gas development here could be the last straw for some of these ranches. Their loss would eliminate important winter habitat for the signature elk herds of the area, significantly reducing hunting opportunities on public lands.

Other info
There are three active cattle allotments in this unit, and you will see fences and stock ponds. In addition to roadless acreage considered by the USFS here, conservation groups have identified 12,718 more roadless acres associated with the Thompson Creek RA. This unit is part of a larger complex of contiguous roadless areas (Assignation Ridge, Hayes Creek, East Willow, Baldy Mountain, Clear Creek, and Reno Mountain) that together occupy nearly 125,000 acres (187 square miles) of mid-elevation land - the largest unprotected roadless complex in the state.