The Overprotective Librarian Syndrome

Remember the old story about the librarian who thought that the perfect library was one in which all of the books were neatly lined up on the shelves in brand-new condition? What the librarian failed to realize was that the library’s true potential could only be realized by accepting wear and tear on its resources. The same can be said for Open Space and Mountain Park land.

While it is imperative that effective steps be taken to limit damage to environmental resources, we need to remember the reasons why these resources are being protected. While some of these reasons stem from a moral obligation to protect natural flora and fauna for their own sake, the rest result from the desirability of building rewarding human/environment connections.

When I first presented this idea at a Boulder Open Space meeting I was told by a member of the staff that they liked the idea! Unfortunately, what they wanted to do was (seriously!) be the over-protective librarian!

Visitor Pathway / Trail Types

Topic: Environmental Policy
There are a lot of different pathways into Open Space and Mountain Park lands, each serving a different purpose and requiring a different administrative philosophy. The traditional distinction between officially mapped and signed trails and forbidden social and off-trail travel is inadequate. We propose the following alternative structure.

Showcase / Featured Trails and Viewpoints
The Boulder Mountain Parks offer exceptional scenery worthy of at least national monument designation. As such it is not surprising that the land constitutes a major attraction for visitors from around the nation and the world. As a community with the good fortune to live in such a wonderful place, we have a moral obligation to share our good fortune with visitors. Of particular importance are a small number of showcase trails and viewpoints—these are the places where residents take out-of-town visitors. For us this is the Chautauqua area, the Flagstaff highway and viewpoints, and the NCAR nature trail. These places sustain high levels of traffic requiring substantial hardening of facilities and the acceptance of inevitable crowding.

Primary Trails
These are, with a few exceptions, the major trails marked on the official Open Space and Mountain Park map. It is toward these areas that most traffic is being directed.

Secondary Trails
Included in this category are the many constructed, maintained, and heavily used trails that are not included on the official maps even though they provide ecologically responsible access to a broad range of rewarding routes and destinations. (See discussion of unmapped trails on the trails page.) Currently information about these trails is available only to open space neighbors and other "insiders." Their existence raises serious questions of equitable access. It is important that taxpayer-funded public lands not be seen as being reserved for the exclusive use of specific groups.

As an alternative, compromise approach information about these trails could be provided by small, on trail signs and with informative, "additional" or "secondary" trail brochures, perhaps distributed over the Web and at OSMP visitor centers. Without such information people can hardly be blamed for routinely exploring any and all social trails.

Destructive Social Trails
Not all currently identified social trails qualify for secondary trail status. Many are ecologically damaging, duplicative of existing major trails, and of little interest to visitors. As a general rule OSMP staff should continue ongoing efforts to discourage travel along these trails. Still, it would be desirable to provide some sort of petitioning process through which users could ask that favored, informal trails be granted secondary trail status.

Off-Trail Travel
Finally, there is off trail visitation which provides important access to a variety of opportunities for adventure and solitude which would not otherwise be available. This kind of access can continue to be provided in ecologically sound ways by encouraging visitors to follow off-trail travel rules such as those suggested below. The dissemination of such rules is particularly important since it is, for all practical purposes, impossible to effectively enforce bans on off-trail travel.