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. 1)01972 Page Three By Roger C. Brown . No similar official letters are enclosed from Minturn, Vail, Eagle, Glenwood Springs, Rifle, and Grand Junction mentioning their water needs. Probably some didnlt vlrite letters. Of course these \'Iest Slope cities didnlt have the Denver Hater Board to organi ze them and they probably di dn I t real i ze the Forest Servi ce was about to dupe them out of their. water. ilow it may be too late. The Eagle County Commissioners did write a letter. Apparently they would rather lose the water than have the land tied up in wilderness, or at least thatls the way they seew.ed to feel at that time. I hope they will see fit to look at wilder- ness with a more favorable eye in the future. The Forest Service increased the size of the wilderness from 71,785 acres to 87,950. This is impressive on its face value but, in my opinion, it's another ploy in the numbers game. If you study the area on foot, personally, you will find they have sacrificed the heait, and added a few toes. It is Obviously the philosophy of the Forest Service that if the land is good for nothing else turn it into !1ilder- ness. East Meadow Creek, the area above Piney Lake, Booth, Pitkin, Big Horn, and Gore Creeks presently receive some of the heaviest use by backpackers because they are accessible 2nough for family trips and they are areas of extraordinary beauty. If the Denver Hater Board goes ahead with its plans these areas will be carved up by roads, ditches, pipes, catch basins and a highly fluctuating lake. And wilderness users will still have to scramble over these scars in order to reach the high country beyond. The Gore Range will have a 9,200-foot high water diversion line on both its east and west sides. The more suitable wilderness below that altitude, gentle wilder- ness highly suitable for less physically capable visitors, excellent winter tour- ing country, country that is free of snow a full month longer than the high rock '-pile they have chosen to leave in the wilderness classification will be lost. By their own figures 42,000 acres of the recommended 87,000 is either grasslands or barren. But this lower forested land will be lost to transmountain diversion structures and a greatly decreased water table which will, over a long period of .--'time, undoubtedly cause -changes in the flora and- fauna. Another discrepancy in the Proposal--Figure 5, Page 41, shows a misleading (in- accurate) picture of the Denver Hater Boardls proposed diversion plans. The actual diversion sites will be much closer to the wilderness boundary, particularly in the cases of Booth, Pitkin, Big Horn, on i,lain Gore Creeks. Middle Creek is talked of in terms of a potential expansion of the Vail Winter Sports area and for timber harvesting. This is a contradiction in uses to begin with. Economical timber harvesting and ski areas don't mix on the same acreage. --On-top of this-r.liddle Creek is very marginal 'in terms of . its feasibility for skiing. The lower slopes coming into Vail face soutil and are free of snow much of the winter. The valley floor, which might hold some snow, is plugged by a giant microwave station. It is obvious, in my opinion, that the suggestion of a -'ski area in r.1iddle Creek is simply to placate Vail v/hile the land is lumbered and access is created for the construction of a water diversion. Nuch of the land in Middle Creek where the harvestable timber is located is highly visible from the upper part of the LionsHead trails. Presently no heavily scarred timber sales are visible from the ski trails, but when operations begin on Middle Creek the view will be different. The only timber harvesting which is visible from the ski trails is on Spraddle Creek and that's an old cut which was harvested on a sus- tained yield basis and is almost invisible now, unless you go right i~to it.