A years-long push continues for an expanded wilderness area in northwest Colorado.

Early this month in Washington, D.C., during a committee hearing dedicated to public lands, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper stumped for the Sarvis Creek Wilderness Expansion Act, which would add 6,817 acres to the designated area currently encompassing 44,556 acres of Routt National Forest. Hickenlooper introduced the legislation earlier this spring with U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Joe Neguse.

The proposed expansion would add wilderness protections to the watersheds of Harrison and Green creeks — “rare, pristine, sub-alpine regions that feed into the Yampa River,” Hickenlooper said in a statement.

He noted also an elk herd in the area considered to be “significant” by a group that has championed the proposal, the Trappers Lake chapter of the Sierra Club.

Hickenlooper added: “The expansion area’s location provides easy public access from Steamboat Springs and Stagecoach for outdoor recreation — including hunting, fishing, backcountry skiing, and hiking — that can help boost the local economy and support the ways that Coloradans love to experience our state’s wild places.”

Growing Sarvis Creek Wilderness would complete a vision from nearly 50 years ago, the senator said.

The local Sierra Club chapter traces the effort to create the wilderness area back to the 1970s. The designation came in 1993 — shy of about 7,200 acres initially envisioned. That was while the acreage was subject to a proposed housing development and ski area that was to potentially host the Winter Olympics. 

The idea for the so-called Catamount Ski Area, to be built around the namesake lake, failed in the late ’90s.

“Now, with that proposal long since abandoned, it is time to fully protect this landscape,” Hickenlooper said in his statement.

Bruce Allbright is glad the ski area didn’t work out. But he talks of the Sarvis Creek Wilderness Expansion Act as a similar threat to the landscape and his fellow neighbors.

It’s “an ill-considered expansion of wilderness into an urban interface,” said the president of the Catamount Residential Owners Association, representing about 90 homes around Catamount Lake. 

Along with the Catamount Metropolitan District, neighbors have opposed the expansion proposal for what they see as new limitations that would be forced on the nearby forest. They see the designation as blocking fire mitigation and response — preventing machinery and timber-cutting, for example. 

“I don’t know if it’s existential to us, but it feels like it,” Allbright said. 

The Trappers Lake Sierra Club is one of several conservation groups listed in support of the Sarvis Creek Wilderness Expansion Act. The group has warned of “potential threats” from mining, logging and more particularly road- and trail-building that could disrupt wildlife. 

The local Sierra Club chapter has pointed to increased mountain biking interests, citing a spread of “social trails” in the proposed vicinity. Bikes are not allowed in wilderness.

Also listed in support are the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, Routt County commissioners, the city of Steamboat Springs and towns of Yampa, Hayden and Oak Creek.

In a stated aim to provide a 1,000-foot buffer for forest treatment and firefighting, the initial proposal adding nearly 7,200 acres to wilderness was decreased to the current 6,817-acre proposal.

Allbright called the amendment a “gesture” and said the buffer did little to comfort neighbors. 

“I just don’t think that’s enough,” he said. “I guess anything is better than nothing. But the bigger question is, Why do this? There is no threat to this area that is eminent or even imaginable.”

Allbright considers the proposed expansion area as “already protected by its natural situation,” referring to its rugged steepness and isolation. 

The proposed area “has remained in pristine state because of the difficulty of access,” granted a petition previously posted by the local Sierra Club. But “as the Yampa Valley becomes more popular for recreation, people will be attracted to this area.”