Sites under siege by the homeless
nederland» The ragged yellow tent perched on a site in Gordon Gulch near Nederland held three young people. They were passing a joint that filled much of the space not occupied by a tangled mess of blankets, sleeping bags and random provisions with a pungent blue smoke.
Two young women, one young man. No pictures, please. No names, either.
The trio didn’t have much interest in discussing increasing problems posed by transients, displaced families and others camping long-term on national forest land in Boulder County — other than to suggest that placing dumpsters at campsites and hiring more rangers would sure help.
A few miles to the south, at the U.S. Forest Service’s West Magnolia campground, another cluster of campers was far more receptive.
Their site was littered with more refuse than most outdoors enthusiasts would tolerate. But you should have seen it before, they said.
“It was trashed when we got here, so I understand what the people down there (Nederland) are complaining about,” said Alex Fearday, 20. An Illinois native, he left his “boring” hometown for Colorado’s seemingly greener pastures and had been in the state about a week. “We pretty well cleaned this whole place up.”
Fearday spoke as he stood by a smoldering campfire at the center of a site still littered with the detritus of hard living on the land. He described what his party of five had found on arrival. Anna Begley and her 10-month-old daughter, Liberty, are part of a group of homeless campers at the West Magnolia Campground. Cliff Grassmick, Daily Camera
“There was three or four tents just flattened, destroyed. There was a box with cans and trash. There was all these old blankets, scattered over the fencing. Just a lot of miscellaneous stuff.” Gesturing vaguely with the stout tree limb with which he was tending the fire, he said, “There’s a trash bag we’ve been putting stuff in.”
But clearly, their janitorial project was still a work in progress.
As Fearday spoke, Anna Begley, the wife of one of his buddies, was ensconced in a nearby tent with her 10month-old daughter, Liberty.
Begley, who claimed a music arts degree from Humboldt State University, doesn’t consider herself homeless. Home, she said, is where her family is. At the moment, that was the woods. Which, she said with a disapproving glance out her tent flap, could really use some work.
“Always leave it cleaner than when you found it,” she said she’d been taught. “They’re seriously considering closing all camping to the public up here, because of people who don’t clean up after themselves.”
Although authorities are not planning to close West Magnolia, or any other of the designated-dispersed camping areas on the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests land, they are struggling to find a solution — or a menu of solutions — to a problem at what should be one of the public’s greatest natural assets on Colorado’s Front Range.
USFS designated-dispersed areas are free, do not have amenities such as picnic tables, restrooms or electrical hookups, but are typically marked as such and sometimes include an established fire ring.
Nobody can occupy one for more than 14 consecutive days or 28 days in a 60day period. And the fundamental outdoorsman’s credo applies: Pack it in, and pack it out.
Enforcing the regulations is difficult for agencies faced with limited resources.
The problem is hardly isolated to national forests in Boulder County. The phenomenon has received attention at the national level and was the subject of a USFS-commissioned study in 2014, led by Josh Baur, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Science and Recreation at San Jose State University.
Boulder County Sheriff’s Office records show that the number of calls handled between West Magnolia, Gordon Gulch and Ruby Gulch shot up from 213 in 2013 to 294 in 2014 and hit 388 in 2015. The three camping areas have recorded 117 calls through April this year.
From persistent issues with trash to fears an abandoned campfire could spark a catastrophic blaze, the cumulative effects of homeless or transient camping on the national forest have some saying the situation has reached full boil.
“We’re at a crisis point,” said Boulder County Undersheriff Tommy Sloan.
Referring to the associated trash problem, John Thompson, who with his wife owns Nederland’s Mountain Man Outdoor Store, said, “It’s an atrocity.”
Chris Current, executive director of the Nederland Food Pantry, said: “The fire department is called out every single day, with illegal campfires. You look at that Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, and it’s terrifying to us because we’re surrounded the same way.”
The increasing frequency of families living off the forest service land most bothers those providing human services.
“There’s more families, and that breaks my heart,” Current said. “And, some of the seniors I see really have medical issues that aren’t being addressed. And that’s heartbreaking, too. I don’t know why they can’t get into the system to get some of that resolved.”
Meanwhile, whether Nederland and its neighbors are on course to correct problems associated with people living in the national forest remains to be seen. Tools being employed even include Boulder County Jail inmates, periodically being taken on work details to campgrounds that need cleanup or rehabilitation.