Graveyard CCC

Looking for a partner to project the Graveyard with in CCC. Available every day until Wednesday. Let’s hit it up!

The Graveyard is in Clear Creek county which is currently closed due to fire danger.

O October 23, 2020

Stay Healthy. Stay Informed.

Contact: Christine Crouse, Clear Creek County Public Information Officer

  Phone: Email:

303-679-2424 / 970-389-8724

christine.crouse@colostate.edu

   CLEAR CREEK COUNTY TAKES ACTION TO REDUCE WILDFIRE RISK

To reduce the likelihood of wildfires and to protect the Clear Creek community, the following actions have been enacted by the Clear Creek County Board of County Commissioners, Open Space and Sheriff’s Office; the City of Idaho Springs; the City and County of Denver; Park County; Colorado Parks and Wildlife; and the U.S. Forest Service; and are in place until further notice:

Land Closures:

• Historic District Public Lands

o The Clear Creek County Board of County Commissioners on October 22 passed Resolution R-20-102:

Closing Certain Lands in the Georgetown Silver Plume Historic Landmark District to All Uses

• Clear Creek Open Space Lands

• Virginia Canyon Mountain Park in the City of Idaho Springs

• Guanella Pass

o Both the Clear Creek County and the Park County sides

• Denver Mountain Parks in Clear Creek County

• Echo Lake, Summit Lake, Hicks Mountain, Pence Mountain, Snyder Mountain, and Forsberg Park

• Colorado Parks and Wildlife Lands

• U.S. Forest Service Stage 3 Closure Order for Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests

o Closes national forests, national forest system roads, and the national forest system trails located in Clear Creek County (and other counties) due to fire danger and the limitation on fire safety resources to other fires in and nearby the forests

Revised County Stage 2 Fire Restrictions – no hunting:

The Clear Creek County Sheriff updated the county Temporary Stage 2 Fire Restrictions effective at 12:00 AM on Friday, October 23. This continues to mean no open fires or shooting, and was updated to include no hunting activities. The full revised restrictions are available at at clearcreekcounty.us/Documen…- 2-10-22-2020.

Currently, all public lands in Clear Creek County are closed to public access. Because Clear Creek County public lands are intermingled with Forest Service lands, these actions support the Forest Service’s Closure Order and are protective of the entire County. Suzanne Boccia, Director of the County’s Office of Emergency Management, emphasizes, “Wildfires don’t follow jurisdictional boundaries. We saw that yesterday as the East Troublesome Fire jumped the Continental Divide. What happens on any of these lands affects all the other lands and our community.”

These actions were deemed necessary in light of the historic wildfires occurring in Grand, Larimer, and Boulder counties, as well as severe drought conditions and extremely high fire danger in Clear Creek County and many parts of the state. Additionally, statewide firefighting resources are stretched thin due to high activity. Clear Creek County is continually assessing its available resources for routine public safety calls as well as the potential for larger scale emergency responses 

Anyone know if CCC is still closed in CC county?  I was hoping after the cold spell things might ease off a bit.

Not all of the canyon is in cc county, if that helps

Ok, but let's look at the good winter crags (ie, crags that get sun).  

Convenience (afternoon sun), Conspiracy (morning sun), Graveyard (all day sun), Doghouse (most of the day sun) are all in Clear Creek County.  Sports Wall is sunny after about 12pm, but apparently it's closed too.  High Wire gets morning sun, but no one in his right mind would climb there given the daily dog-shit vap-o-rama gumby circus.  What's left?  Highlander and Right Wire?

Or maybe bail and go to one of the sunny crags in Boulder Canyon?  (Oops, it's closed too.)

Bleh... feeling cranky.  Sorry...

it's not like there aren't other areas to climb near golden that are open...

Just to clarify, these places may technically be closed but nobody currently cares. CCC and BoCo are busy as usual with climbers.

falling monkeywrote:

Just to clarify, these places may technically be closed but nobody currently cares. CCC and BoCo are busy as usual with climbers.

Great. Nice to see our community respecting the closures. Hope that isn’t actually true and they are climbing in areas that aren’t affected by the closure status.

I wrote to Christine Crouse, the Public Information Officer for Clear Creek county last night.  She authored the bulletin announcing the closure:

( clearcreekcounty.us/Documen…)

She indicated that the closure was still in effect, but forwarded that email to Undersheriff Bruce Snelling at the Clear Creek County Sheriff's office.  Sheriff Snelling responded this morning stating that all public lands were still closed within Clear Creek county and that climbers violating the order by passing closure signs and/or barricades could be fined up to $5,000 and serve up to 18 months in jail.  He did not state whether such signs/barricades were in place around tunnels 5 and 6, however.

He also noted that "There are some areas along Hwy 6 that climbers can use, owned by Fry and Sons, that would not be a violation."  I don't know who "Fry and Sons" is, but it might be the quarry that operates north of Tunnel 6 (including Primo, Armory, and Conspiracy) that owns some of the land in that area and (tacitly?) allows climbers to recreate on their property.  That's a guess, however.  Does anyone know?

ErikaNWwrote:

Great. Nice to see our community respecting the closures. Hope that isn’t actually true and they are climbing in areas that aren’t affected by the closure status.

WIthout signs posted, most climbers wouldn't know an area was closed.  The mix of USFS land, CCC open space, private property, state-owned roadways/shoulders, etc, is complex.  And 99% of front range climbers wouldn't have heard of the order and don't regularly read MP.

I was up the canyon on the 24th and can confirm that there were no signs or barriers at any of the climbing/ hiking areas. Tunnel 1 parking is closed and there are signs/ cones up but those have been around for weeks. I am not sure what the fire danger is going into the weekend but they'll have to get busy if they want to put barriers and signs up because until Jay pasted that notice I had no idea those areas were closed. 

John RBwrote:

WIthout signs posted, most climbers wouldn't know an area was closed.  The mix of USFS land, CCC open space, private property, state-owned roadways/shoulders, etc, is complex.  And 99% of front range climbers wouldn't have heard of the order and don't regularly read MP.

I didn't learn about it on MP. I learned about it from the news reports and BCC alerts. Ignorance of the law is no excuse? But also agree that signage would be helpful.

Sitting at tunnel 6 right now, 1030am. Zero cars. Primo is covered in ice and I assume East Colfax is similar. 3 cars at tunnel 5. Dog house is dry and Other Critters is dry. 

Tunnel 5 has no signs or barricades and parking lot has been plowed (odd thing to do for a closed parking area?). No signs at tunnel 6 either.

33F currently, so climbing in the shade isn't gonna happen for awhile.

In Jeffco: verified signs at sports wall. "Construction access only". Anarchy iced over. People only at High Wire currently. And only 3-4

If CCC is closed it's not at all clear on the closure order's map designating what's actually closed. The closure boundary looks west of CCC.

Unless it's changed since I looked a week ago.

Erik Gwrote:

If CCC is closed it's not at all clear on the closure order's map designating what's actually closed. The closure boundary looks west of CCC.

Unless it's changed since I looked a week ago.

The Clear Creek County lands closure and the Forest Service closure are two different things

I see. 

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the bulk of CCC in Jefferson County anyway? At least until the junction of 119 and 6?

Erik Gwrote:

I see. 

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the bulk of CCC in Jefferson County anyway? At least until the junction of 119 and 6?

correct

Ohh my bad, I thought the Graveyard was before that junction.

Erik Gwrote:

Ohh my bad, I thought the Graveyard was before that junction.

the graveyard is 500 yds downstream (and on the other side) from cat slab. same TH...still well within clear creek cty.

So graveyard is still a no go?

Matt Swrote:

So graveyard is still a no go?

A friend was there Tuesday and at that time there were no signs/ barriers alerting people of any closures.