Colorado’s biggest wilderness area is getting bigger, and popular trails are gaining protections.

That was the message of a recent announcement by The Wilderness Trust, which has long worked to acquire privately owned pockets within the nation’s most protected landscapes. A focus lately has been the Weminuche Wilderness, spanning 499,771 acres of western Colorado — the number listed on a U.S. Forest Service webpage.

Add another 55 acres.

That’s after The Wilderness Trust’s transfer of two previously private properties to the U.S. Forest Service, as the organization recently announced.

In the announcement, the organization noted the popular Needle Creek Trail running through one of those properties encompassing 30 acres. Commonly reached from a stop on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the Needle Creek Trail leads to Chicago Basin, a basecamp for climbing 14,000-foot peaks.

“With flat, buildable stream-side sites, the property was previously at risk of development,” The Wilderness Trust explained in the announcement. “Now protected, public access on the trail to Chicago Basin has been ensured for future generations to enjoy.”

About five miles north of that parcel is another 31 acres of previously private land that have been transferred to the Forest Service. Twenty-five of those acres are now part of Weminuche Wilderness, according to The Wilderness Trust, which said the other six acres sit just outside wilderness boundaries, in San Juan National Forest outside Silverton.

The trust acquired that Great Western Lode parcel in 2022. “Like the Needle Creek project, the addition of Great Western Lode to the wilderness area secures public access on a popular trail,” the trust noted. That’s the Whitehead Trail, which connects to the Continental Divide Trail.

And The Wilderness Trust mentioned a third “win for recreationists” in its recent announcement: the acquisition of the 20-acre Busher Claim in Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.

The announcement described the tract “on the slopes above the popular hiking destination of Cumberland Basin, below Pearl Mountain and Castle Peak.” The Wilderness Trust continued: “Because it is located near the Pearl Pass Road, an OHV route from Aspen to Crested Butte, the property was at a higher risk of development.”

The organization said it was in the process of transferring the 20 acres to the Forest Service.