Equitable Access Problems

Fern Meadow, the Devil's Thumb Homeowners Associations virtually private City of Boulder Open Space land.

Perhaps more than anything else Boulder’s soul is embodied in its trademark Flatirons and its much loved and always busy Chautauqua Hill. In the 1970s, recognizing continuing population pressures, Boulder residents approved a tax to fund the acquisition of the rest of Boulder’s mountain backdrop and its other "Chautauqua Hills." While this effort has been a great success there are areas in which a muddled coincidence of a "preservation over visitation" environmental philosophy and the selfish desires of neighbors to limit public access to taxpayer-funded backyard playground has effectively subverted original goals of the program.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the effectively private, neighborhood-only trails in Devil’s Thumb and Eldorado Springs area. The Fern Meadow trail, for example, (south of Stoney Hill Drive) is especially problematic. This unmapped trail (which is actively being maintained with water bars) follows an old road bed and offers, for South Boulder, a view comparable the Chautauqua Hill. For years access to this area was in dispute. The Devils Thumb Homeowners Association put up fences and gates informing the public that this area of the public Open Space was only for the Homeowners Association members and guests. Alternative access points required cumbersome, boring approaches along completely unmapped and unmarked social trails.

My understanding was that the agreement between the Homeowners Association and the City resolving these access issues included the understanding that this access point (Fern Creek at Stoney Hill Drive) would either be open to the general public or closed to all. That, unfortunately, is not what has happened. There is still a gate with a sign stating that the area is private and referring visitors to a much inferior trailhead.


The gate and sign on Stoney Hill Drive.

A similar problem exists in the Eldorado Springs area where two maintained trails lead north and south in the valleys west of the Dakota Ridge. Public access to both of these is blocked by "no trespassing" or "no open space access" signs.