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~ The study area includes the dividing ridge and the valleys of <br />• Stevens C~lch and Fast Roatcap Creek. These are small and normally <br />perennial streams flowing southward out of the mountains and into the <br />North Fork. Stevens Gulch and Fast Roatcap Creek receive their water <br />from smaller intermittent streams, a few springs and diverted flan fran <br />Overland Reservoir. The valleys of the creeks are extremely narrow. <br />Overall, the study area is best described as very steep and rugged with <br />very min » 1 amounts of flat ground. It is heavily vegetated and ground <br />visibility is limited except in areas where pinyon, juniper and <br />I sagebrush dominate (Figures 4, 5, 6 and 7). <br />While locals speak of the "North Fork Country", historically <br />speaking, the North Fork Valley is located on the western margin of the <br />"Gunnison Country". This has been described as follows: <br />Technically speaking, the (~nnison country includes all of <br />that land drained by the Gunnison River and its tributaries. <br />Yet, because Guruuson was the hub of related regions outside <br />of that description, the Gunnison country included nncch more <br />territory. To ,the east, the top of Monarch Pass at 11,312 <br />feet forms one of the limits; to the south, the early center <br />of the San Juan Country, Iake City, holds forth. The western <br />border is Cimarron, early cattle center and important Denver <br />and Rio Grande railroad station. 47ce northen~ perimeter halts <br />at the rugged and unique town of Marble, located high in the <br />Elk Mrwntains, over fifty miles from Gunnison. <br />• The Gunnison country has always been a land of extremes. Snow <br />has fallen uc amounts exceeding 350 inches, causing mythical <br />[sic] tso-story outhouses and twenty foot high clotheslines to <br />• be built in towns like Crested Butte. Fifty-six belay zero <br />has been recorded at the Taylor Reservoir to the northeast. <br />The region has always been isolated, yet well known. Here <br />also the calm, seemingly harmless waters of the late sunnier <br />acid fall can becr~ raging torrents in the spring when the <br />runoff from the mountains descends into the valley waters. <br />i The land is so violent, fur trappers virtually ignored it; su <br />I rugged that railroads skirted parts of it and failed in <br />others, so tough that the Ute Lidians craved out and spent <br />~ their winters elsewhere. (Vandenbusche 1980:1). <br />• <br />S <br />