Despite vandalism, road stays closed

Back in mid-March, I wrote about a wonderful development on one of my favorite local dog-walking routes. The federal Bureau of Land Management had blocked motor vehicles from this half-mile stretch of old bad road along the Arkansas River just east of Salida.

I predicted that the closure sign would get knocked down, the blocking boulders would be moved, and there would be agitation to re-open the road to pickups, ATVs, motorcycles and the like.

The post with the closure sign hasn't fared well. Soon after it went up, it was pushed hard by a vehicle. It was cracked and leaning, but still standing, more or less. By last weekend, though, it was fully broken off and lying in the dirt.

However, the boulders are still in place, and we've seen only one violator, a motorcyclist who briefly intruded, then turned back.
 
As for agitation to re-open the road, it's come from a surprising place -- a local fly-fishing outfitter who claimed at a public meeting that citizens were being denied "recreational access" to the area.
 
When I called him on that, he conceded that there remained plenty of recreational access, albeit by foot, horse, or bicycle, but that he still didn't like the road being closed to vehicles.
 
He may be the only angler who feels that way, though. I don't walk the dog there every day -- three or four visits a week is typical -- but when the road was open, I typically saw one or two anglers along that stretch. Now we often see at least half a dozen who don't seem to mind walking for five or ten minutes to sample one of Colorado's "Gold Medal" fisheries.
 
In other words, the area now appears to host more fishing than before the road was closed to vehicles. Granted, much of this recent popularity may be a result of clement weather, low water and hatching flies. Even at that, though, it demonstrates that there are plenty of anglers who don't have a problem with the road closure.
 
As for the broken post with the closure sign, a public-spirited citizen (okay, I'm married to her) set it back up and placed rocks around it to hold it in place until the BLM can get in and replace it, perhaps with something more substantial.