White River National Forest approves Pitkin County plan to take over management of Maroon Bells Scenic Area

The White River National Forest has approved a plan to transfer daily management of the Maroon Bells Scenic Area over to Pitkin County

As the Forest Service contracts with fewer workers and tighter budgets under the Trump administration, the agency is expanding a nearly 50-year-old partnership with Pitkin County, which will take over daily management of the busy scenic area much like a concessionaire manages a campground on public land.

“We want to ensure the Maroon Bells Scenic Area continues to be effectively and sustainably managed for public benefit,” said Aspen-Sopris District Ranger Jennifer Schuller in a statement announcing the new five-year special use permit for Pitkin County, saying the new arrangement is “a natural expansion” of the decades-old partnership.

In September, Schuller told Pitkin County commissioners that the scenic area “has become increasingly challenging to manage.”

The Forest Service in May announced it was considering a “categorical exclusion” for issuing a special use permit to Pitkin County, meaning the process would not require public comment or intensive review under the National Environmental Policy Act. 

But federal watchdog groups urged the Forest Service to more closely scrutinize the proposed agreement. Wilderness Workshop and the Center for Western Priorities argued the categorical exclusion shortcut — which is typically used for concessionaire permits and smaller projects — is playing into a federal agenda to privatize public lands by turning over management of public lands to third parties.

“Public lands are not a business, and they should not be expected to turn a profit,” reads a September statement from Aaron Weiss at the Center for Western Priorities. “Our national public lands do not and should not have to ‘pay their own way’ — stewarding landscapes like the Maroon Bells is our privilege and obligation as Americans.”

Expanding a 49-year partnership

In 1977, the city of Aspen and the Forest Service launched a shuttle bus system on the county-owned road leading to the Maroon Bells Scenic Area. As visitation neared 200,000 a year, the Forest Service started charging a $10 day use fee for vehicles in 1997. In 2023, the local governments and the Forest Service scripted a comprehensive recreation management plan after five public meetings and 8,000 comments that addressed how best to protect natural resources.

The Forest Service has typically hired 10 seasonal workers and three to five permanent workers to manage the busy gateway to the 181,973-acre Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. With the soaring cost of living in the Roaring Fork Valley — Aspen homes typically sell for $3,000 to $5,000 a square foot — the agency has struggled to find workers. The slashing of the federal government has left the White River National Forest with 50 fewer workers in 2026 compared with the previous year. And the $10 vehicle fee from 1997 is not keeping up with rising costs, the agency said, pointing to a limited capacity for the White River National Forest that requires the help of partners.

As the Forest Service weighed either a concessionaire or an increased partnership with Pitkin County, the county made a plan. Last year it started paying for a Maroon Bells Scenic Area operations manager. Under a special use permit, county employees would handle daily operations and the county would invest its permit fees on deferred maintenance at the scenic area. 

“It’s going to take a village to operate this site,” Liz Woods, the county’s finance director, told commissioners in September, urging their support for an enterprise fund that would direct the 18% special permit fee paid to the Forest Service into upgrades. “So all the money generated by the Maroons Bells stays with the Maroon Bells.”

The 2.3-million-acre White River National Forest has 66 developed campsites that are managed by third parties with a special-use permit. There are 75 national forests in the U.S. with outside groups managing recreational sites with campground concessions special-use permits.

Earlier this year the Forest Service and Pitkin County agreed to consider a stronger partnership for daily operations at the Maroon Bells Scenic Area. The county proposes a $75 annual vehicle pass, up from $25, a $30 daily vehicle fee up from $10, a $10 motorcycle and e-bike fee up from $5, a $16 shuttle ticket, which is the same as the existing price and $33 for an individual campsite, up from $15.

The commissioners unanimously approved the five-year special-use permit plan and enterprise fund on their second reading of the proposals in September. 

“Our bottom line is to ensure the safety of the public use and bring it back — this beautiful site — to where it needs to be as far as sustainability and enjoyability,” Commissioner Patti Clapper said before her vote at the Sept. 23 meeting. “This is one of those treasures, for not just the state, but the whole world.”

Gary Tennenbaum, the head of Pitkin County’s open space and trails, told commissioners in September there would be no new fees, only increased fees.

“One-hundred percent of the fees will go to manage the Maroon Bells,” he said. “There will be no change to what visitors see up there. The county has proven that since the ‘70s, it’s a core value of the county to protect the natural resources and scenic beauty of this area.”

But conservation groups warned the Forest Service that litigation is likely if the agency declines to follow federal environmental review guidelines. The groups pointed to the ongoing National Environmental Policy Act review of the plan to have Colorado Parks and Wildlife manage the Forest Service’s newly acquired 840-acre Sweetwater Lake property.

The White River National Forest in late September announced it would pursue a 15-day public comment period on the Maroon Bells plan. The agency analyzed nearly 120 comments on the proposal.

“Driven by need, not by an inclination to pawn off our responsibilities” 

Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado Law School, was concerned about the lack of public scrutiny for the plan.

But beyond that public component, Squillace said the deal with Pitkin County could represent “a slippery slope for shifting responsibility for public lands to local governments and private concessionaires.”

He fears the Pitkin County plan could be used by the federal government to support even more reductions at U.S. land management agencies.

“I do not believe that Pitkin County has bad intentions, but already they are proposing to increase fees, in some cases substantially, and who knows where that will end,” he told The Sun last month. “If this works, I can see the administration slashing more public lands funding and using that as the reason for transferring more management responsibility to public and private third parties. I see no end to this if we don’t make a stand here.”

In an email exchange with Squillace, White River National Forest Supervisor Brian Glaspell said the plan is “driven by need, not by an inclination to pawn off our responsibilities,” or drive revenue for a private party. 

“I would prefer that we had the resources to manage the bells on our own, but we don’t, and I’m hopeful that this expanded partnership with the county will be net positive, yielding benefits we would not otherwise realize,” Glaspell wrote, calling Pitkin County a “co-owner’ of public lands. 

The conservation groups cheered the decision to open up the Pitkin County plan to public review. But they remained critical of the overarching mission to shift management over to a local government. Will Roush with the Wilderness Workshop said he was grateful for Pitkin County stepping up “to backfill an unthinkable gap created by the Trump Administration.”

“These short-term bailouts of our most treasured natural landscapes cannot become the norm,” Roush said in a statement. “Public lands belong to all Americans. They are not businesses to be handed off to third parties, managed for revenue, or made accessible only to those who can pay higher fees. If we treat public lands like a business and tie their management to fee revenue, we risk losing the values at their core: freedom, access to the outdoors, and wild nature.”  

Roush told commissioners at their September meetings he was grateful that Pitkin County was stepping up to help and he wished every place in the West had a community committed to public lands. 

Still, he called the Forest Service handing over management of Maroon Bells “far less than ideal.”

“And the blame has to fall squarely on Congress that has failed to fund our public lands and agencies,” he said, hoping that federal lawmakers restore funding for public lands and the county ends up handing management back to the Forest Service in five years.