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Adoption Status: ADOPTED
1,510 acres (2.4 square miles)
How to get there
The Treasure Mountain roadless area is located three miles southeast of the Town of Marble. There are no maintained trails in the area.
- From Marble, take FS 314 up Daniels Hill east of town. Stay on FS 314 toward Lead King Basin. The unit is south of the road as you drive toward Crystal.
- From the Yule Creek road, south of town, an old jeep road switchbacks up the west side of Treasure Mountain. Take care not to trespass through Treasure Mountain Bible Camp. This leads to an old mine at Skyline Saddle between Treasure and Whitehouse Mountains. From here you can hike along Treasure Mountain’s massive ridge or, if on skis and avalanche conditions permit, attempt a challenging 3,000-foot ski descent to the Crystal River.
- The USGS 7 1⁄2’ quads for the Treasure Mountain roadless area are Marble and Snowmass Mtn.
Setting
The Treasure Mountain RA occupies several enormous steep cirques and bowls that plunge from the crest of Treasure Mtn into the Crystal River. Treasure Mountain is a massive feature that dominates the region between Marble and Schofield Pass. It is a five-mile long, 13,000 foot-high massif that divides Yule Creek from the Crystal River.
This unit covers parts of four huge basins separated by cliffs and towers that drain the north side of the mountain. Aspens grow on these slopes below 10,000 feet, Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir to about 12,000 feet, and only alpine vegetation above that. The elevation ranges from about 9,500 feet at the corner of the unit, to 13,500 feet at the high point of Treasure Mountain.
What’s special about it?
The extremely steep and rugged topography of this area have precluded any human developments. The area has every quality of wilderness, is adjacent to the Raggeds Wilderness Area, and creates an important linkage between the Raggeds and the Maroon Bells/Snowmass Wilderness. You will experience complete solitude and challenging travel here. Mountain goats and ptarmigans thrive on the high ridge top.
Treasure Mountain makes Mount Sopris look small! The main recreation here is awesome, but difficult, backcountry skiing, and only by a few individuals per year.
Potential threats
A helicopter skiing operation once occurred here, and there has been a movement to reactivate those operations. The topography will limit incursions from private property along the Crystal River.
Other info
The USFS has included only 1,510 acres in the Treasure Mountain RA, but conservation groups have actually identified 3,783 acres of roadless area associated with the unit. The USFS has arbitrarily drawn an administrative boundary that cuts across the basins in a linear and arbitrary fashion across the slope (making no sense from an ecological or a management perspective) justified by some nonsense about not being able to manage as roadless the acres between that line and the private lands boundaries down slope. This is another example of the WRNF inappropriately confusing their inability to discharges its stewardship responsibilities with the duty to accurately inventory the on-the-ground roadless condition of this area. To the WRNF’s credit however, the 1,510 acres that the USFS has recognized in this unit has been recommended by them to be added to the Raggeds Wilderness Area.
The Treasure Mountain RA is one of several roadless areas that abut the 65,400-acre Raggeds Wilderness. Together they form a roadless complex of over 99,000 acres (154 square miles).
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