On March 12, the Carbondale Parks and Recreation Department sent a press release detailing recent vandalism at the Red Hill/Mushroom Rock trail. According to that statement, the Red Hill Council’s trail counter box, a device that captures heat sources to help track trail usage and wildlife movement, was broken into and damaged. It was located on a section of the trail under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management.
Additionally, woody debris was displaced into roughly 30 large piles, resembling bonfires awaiting ignition, along Ruthie’s Run, Three Gulch Trail and further up toward Mushroom Rock.
The material had previously been placed by volunteers in high-impact areas to deter hikers and bikers from wandering off-trail.
Rebecca Schild, executive director of Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers (RFOV), said the laying of this debris was part of 264 hours of work that RFOV performed last year. While RFOV has plans to send a crew to Red Hill later this spring, the scope of work has yet to be determined.
“It seems from our communication with the Town of Carbondale it may be a priority to fix that work that was completed last year as soon as possible,” she told The Sopris Sun. “It’s a disappointment that that work was dismantled and that there was a lack of care for all of the community effort that went into it.”
The vandalism has left all entities involved in investigating it baffled, including the BLM, Carbondale Police and Red Hill Council. Penalties for destroying property on federal land can include hefty fines and potential jail time. This destruction has been estimated at $7,000 to $10,000 in damages.
“We’re trying to figure out who’s doing this,” said Carbondale Parks and Recreation Director Eric Brendlinger. “It is considered vandalism to work done specifically for restoration purposes, and they are dismantling that work. All these people have such a vested interest in the long-term maintenance of this trail system, and we want to figure this out.”
Brendlinger pointed out that displacing the woody debris not only harms efforts to protect wildlife and cryptobiotic soil, but also creates a fire hazard when accumulated into piles.
“We want to investigate this to ensure that there is no nefarious reason behind these actions,” he stated. “It might be somebody thinking they’re doing something helpful, but it’s misguided and misinformed if that’s the case.”
Chris Brandt, president of the Red Hill Council board of directors, echoed Brendlinger’s sentiments. “It could be someone motivated to dismantle things, someone rejecting or not agreeing with the philosophies of our trail maintenance, or someone who’s uninformed about what they’re even messing with. They could be unaware that what they’ve changed was intentionally made that way by volunteers with restoration interests at heart,” he speculated.
Red Hill Council was made aware of these damages immediately and has since been working with others on the investigation, while also emphasizing the importance of respecting trails during mud season. This has included posts on social media accounts, bilingual fliers and newspaper ads and banners at the trails.
This is not the first time they have struggled to maintain restoration efforts, Brandt said. “We’ve battled with it many times over the years. We’ve worked on several restoration and reclamation projects on Red Hill to consolidate and limit the footprint of disturbance to the established trail route to discourage the formation of social braids, alternative routes and shortcuts.”
If you have any information regarding vandalism at Red Hill/Mushroom Rock, contact the Red Hill Council at redhillcouncil@gmail.com or www.redhillcouncil.org