Aspen Times series: Challenges grow, funds shrink in Aspen's public forest lands

Jerry Gerbaz remembers the days when he would play on the dirt road that would eventually become Highway 82 in front of his family's midvalley ranch roughly 10 miles west of Aspen. Vehicles were few and far between. Gerbaz, 73, still lives on a corner of the ranch his grandparents started homesteading in 1897. It's an understatement to say he's seen a lot of changes in the valley and the surrounding White River National Forest. He recalls an era when more sheep and cattle populated the national forest than well-heeled skiers or thrill-seeking mountain bikers visited it. Gerbaz used to help take his family's 1,000 ewes and their lambs up to federal grazing allotments in the Rocky Fork and Chapman areas in the Fryingpan Valley prior to construction of Ruedi Reservoir. They would guide their flock up Woody Creek, through Lenado and over to the Fryingpan Valley in mid-June. “We'd never see anyone,” Gerbaz said. National forest use in the 1940s, '50s and even into the '60s was largely utilitarian. The valley floor was full of working ranches and virtually all of them had permits to graze their cattle, sheep or both in summer pastures on public lands. While Aspen's reputation as an international ski resort was growing, industrial-strength tourism hadn't hit yet. Aspen was so little known while Gerbaz was growing up that the Maroon Bells were advertised as a place of stunning beauty “approximately 40 miles from Glenwood Springs,” he recalled. Now, of course, Aspen is an internationally famous resort and recreation reigns supreme. “The U.S. Forest Service was a land of many uses. Now it's the land of no uses,” Gerbaz said...more