Roaring Fork Valley Horse Council

The Roaring Fork Valley Horse Council is involved with the BLM and other partners in building a 12 mile horse and hiking only trail, the beautiful “Crown Jewel Horse Trail”. This spectacular trail will connect the Glassier Parking Lot off of Hooks Spur Lane in Emma and will traverse Crown Mountain to the Divide Parking Lot at the top of Prince Creek Road and West Sopris Creek Road. The views are breathtaking, there are looped rides if you prefer a shorter distance and the parking is easy to access, safe and excellent. This trail is not open to bicycles or 4-wheelers.

We are pursuing various avenues for grants, and no matter our source of funding the Horse Council will provide a minimum of $3-5000.00 this year adding to the $4000.00, which we spent last year on trails. We are proud to announce that we worked with partners Rocky Mountain Youth Corps; the RF Outdoor Volunteers; and the Roundup Riders of the Rockies; with additional supporters Pitkin County Open Space and Trails; Bob and Sue Pietrzak; Diana and Howard Vagneur and Western Adventures Inc.

Aspen Fire is excited to coordinate a Large Animal Rescue class taught by experts coming up from the Front Range area.The training is scheduled to be held on August 6-7-8, the classes are to help train and equip a valley-wide Large Animal Rescue response team.
This class was initially brainstormed by both law and fire agencies in response to multiple large animal incidents. They will be training a multi-disciplinary team consisting of not only law, fire and EMS responders but also Veterinarians from the valley.


They will be offering two courses. The First Course is targeted at the Awareness/Operations level responders that will be an evening class on how to operate around large animals to keep the responders and animals safe. The Second Class is a two-day hands-on Technician Level Training that will likely be attended by
representatives from all law and fire agencies in the valley, the DOW and Forest Service.


BACK STORY: There have been a number of large animal calls in Pitkin County recently and want to be more prepared as a valley to respond to these incidents whether it’s a horse stuck in an overturned trailer, an elk stuck in a pond, a large animal stuck in the mud or an animal injured on a trail.

In years past, Glenwood Vet Clinic and Zoetis gave away 40 vaccines, bringing awareness to our valley about the CoreEQ vaccine that inoculates horses against Rabies, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Western Equine Encephalitis, Tetanus and West Nile Virus. These are all diseases that we do not want in the RFV valley and can be transmitted via vectors or other animals.

The RFVHC asks all our members to reach out to your friends that own horses to tell them about this vaccine need in our valley. of free vaccines.

We asked, and You answered! In 2021 RFV Horse Council sponsored a Trail Survey for Hikers and Horseback Riders, with 25 Questions about Trails & the Equestrian Access to Truck and Trailer Parking in the Roaring Fork Valley. So, in the respondents own words, in 2022 the RFVHC included their advice, their reactions and their hopes providing these comments and solutions for solving the signage and parking problems and the multi-use conflicts. There are 12 Roaring Fork Valley trails covered in these documents. In 2023, the RFVHC Survey Monkey Results and Recommendations will be posted on our website www.rfvhorsecouncil.org/trails

Potentially, with a 2023 trails grant with the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, the RFVHC Board of Directors may use this labor with our partners to work at Sutey Ranch removing old homestead barbed wire and creating safer travel for wildlife, horses and hikers enjoying the Sutey trails. This is an ongoing summer project.

During the week of July 26th in 2021, the RMYC crew removed approximately 1 mile of barbed wire fence totaling approximately 1,000lbs. The wire and about 2/3rds of the t-posts were recycled at Green Zone in Silt.

Sutey Ranch is managed for Wildlife Habitat year-round and is open to hikers and equestrians from April 15 through November 30th. The Red Hill Bike Access Trail - called the Northside Access Trail to Red Hill SRMA - is open from June 1 – September 30th. No other routes on Sutey Ranch are open to Mountain Bikes.

In the summer of 2021, the RFVHC, together with the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, TOSV and a team of RF Outdoor Volunteer leaders improved this trail last week. The two-day work was made possible through the generosity of our partners, RFVHC members and by a grant from the Round Up Riders of the Rockies. In the summer of 2023, RFVHC has the potential of a work week with the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. The lower section of the Upper N. Mesa Trail needs improvement.

Equestrians and hikers will immediately notice the trails improvements. Based on the preference from crew leaders of RMYC, the crew remained together for both days of trail work. The first day and a half was spent rerouting the upper section around the pond. This included clearing existing brush and sage, scratching in a trail, and completing the finish work of tread. The remainder of the project was spent corridor cutting from the reroute back down trail to lower fork.