CARBONDALE – A 10-acre patented mining claim perched on a high ridge between Aspen and Crested Butte was purchased this week by a Carbondale-based organization that will hand it over to the U.S. Forest Service to be managed as wilderness.
The Wilderness Land Trust purchased the Denver Lode for $12,500 in partnership with the National Park Trust.
The Denver Lode is about 2.5 miles northeast of the old mining town of Gothic, along the Copper Creek trailhead. The property is also in the same valley as the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, which researches issues such as climate change in the mountains.
The title will be handed to the Forest Service for inclusion in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.
The land is highly visible along the popular hiking and biking corridor between Aspen and Crested Butte. Reid Haughey, executive director of Wilderness Land Trust, said the patented mining claim was vulnerable to development, even though it is within wilderness. There is an ol