Telluride BC closed - Tom Chapman royal douche

[mania]

The Durango Herald 12/10/2010 | Skiers beware: Feds close access near Telluride

[bobbuilds]

if you have the money...........

fuck the poor.

[rwhyman]

Just another example of why the top 1 % should continue to get their tax cuts so they can piss on or I mean trickle down on the poor. Those poor rich bastards really need our help.

[DurangoSteve]

Greed trumps the greater good... again.

[mjpowhound]

Wow. What a scumbag.

[Dave Frank]

Sure seems like the historic use clause could not only keep it skiable, but possibly even strip it from the guy. A legitimate building lot in Boulder, got taken from the actual owner because the neighbors could demonstrate they had been using it as a path for a certain # of years. This seems like the same idea.

[glenn]

Nothing like being turned away from public land. Hope this fucker gets his land removed.

[blutzski]

No argument Chapman is an unapologetic douche. But what are you all saying? People have to allow skiers access to their property? Telluride is the one who closed the gates. The skiers are the ones who didn't respect private property boundaries. It's private property not public. The problem is our ridiculous antiquated mining rights laws that allows people to buy these lands under the ruse that they are somehow miners.

[glenn]

I'm not there, and I don't know the whole story. It sure sounded like there was access to/from public ski lands without crossing the private property, but many/most/all BC travelers were cutting through the private land right now. It also sounds like there isn't anything there yet, and Chapman is setting a precedent so he can offer those public lands up as a private playground for his buyers/renters.

[JCKeck1]

I'm not a t-ride local, but I've skied Bear Creek a fair bit. My understanding is that Chapman bought a thin strip of land that goes from one side of the valley to the other. The valley has 400+ vertical walls on either side. There is no road to the land and no motorized access. Hence, the land for development purposes is essentially worth nothing. However, if you ski out any of the backcountry gates into the Bear Creek drainage, you are pretty much committing yourself to briefly skiing across his land. There are exceptions for those on monster BC tours that could egress somewhere else, but 90% of people are going right over his land. It sounds to me that he saw T-ride trying to expand into that area with guided tours, etc and decided to take advantage of the situation. He bought pretty much worthless land surrounded on all sides by huge cliffs and forrest service land. Then he demanded that people stop skiing across it. The Forrest Service (not Telluride - they don't really have any say) decided to close the backcountry access gates to keep people off his property. I imagine that he's in negotiations right now with T-ride to see how much they'll pay for his sliver of property.

Again, I'm not a local and this is not fact, but I have spent some time back there and know the lay of the land...
Joe