{"id":2453121,"date":"2020-01-10T21:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-11T04:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/pitkin-county-mind-parking-rules-at-backcountry-accesss-points\/"},"modified":"2020-01-10T21:44:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-11T04:44:00","slug":"pitkin-county-mind-parking-rules-at-backcountry-accesss-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/pitkin-county-mind-parking-rules-at-backcountry-accesss-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitkin County: Mind parking rules at backcountry accesss points"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Backcountry enthusiasts who park haphazardly at the end of Pitkin County roads are causing access problems this winter, officials said Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had more complaints this year so far than all of last year,\u201d said Brian Pettet, county public works director. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know why that is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pitkin County sheriff\u2019s deputies had to help a resident of the Lenado area access his property earlier this week because of parking issues with mainly snowmobilers, Pettet said.<\/p>\n

Also challenging has been the Prince Creek area, where Pitkin County road and bridge workers installed winter closure gates for the first time this season to keep people from accessing the area in snowy conditions, said Pettet and Scott Mattice, county road and bridge manager. The county recently provided six to eight new parking spaces on the Carbondale side of the Prince Creek gate closure for those who want to walk the road with or without dogs, Pettet said.<\/p>\n

The winter closure gates on Maroon Creek and Castle Creek roads pose fewer problems because they offer more room to park vehicles, though there can be parking issues in those areas, too, they said.<\/p>\n

Emergency vehicles and county maintenance vehicles must be able to access the areas beyond winter closure gates at all times, Mattice said.<\/p>\n

While Mattice said he doesn\u2019t think there are more people in the backcountry, he believes social media might have something to do with the parking problems. When people hear conditions are good in a certain area, or read reports of an interesting animal sighting on Facebook, the area can get crowded quickly, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still the same number of users,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it used to be dispersed more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Burchetta, director of operations at the Pitkin County Sheriff\u2019s Office, said deputies will encounter parking problems at backcountry access points more often in summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s worse in the sense that it\u2019s winter,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t typically see it in winter as much as in summer. But when the snow\u2019s good and the weather\u2019s decent, people are just getting out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deputies often find people parked in signed no-parking areas and along county roads, both of which are not legal, Burchetta said.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Backcountry enthusiasts who park haphazardly at the end of Pitkin County roads are causing access problems this winter, officials said Friday. \u201cWe\u2019ve had more complaints this year so far than all of last year,\u201d said Brian Pettet, county public works director. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know why that is.\u201d Pitkin County sheriff\u2019s deputies had to help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 21:28:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}