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Committee flags easement, access and trespass risks around Hell’s Revenge amid Steen rezone debate
Summary
Committee members and counsel discussed BLM easements, prescriptive-easement risk, and how legal access for the Steen parcel could force paving or fencing actions that change trail character; BLM confirmed a 1969 easement and staff noted 2016 corrections.
Committee members and Grand County counsel spent significant time clarifying access and easement issues linked to the rezone discussion. Katie Stevens, the BLM representative, stated that BLM "holds that easement from Charlie Steen in 1969." Andrea Brand and others described that when Raven’s Rim was developed the on-the-ground easement did not match the recorded easement and required a 2016 correction. Cristin Hofhine explained that property owners have rights of legal access and that "the easement could be moved, just has to exist," meaning the route of an easement can be altered provided an easement is preserved or negotiated.
Committee members raised practical management concerns: if legal access is determined to be through Class D roads near the Hot Tubs, building or formalizing that access could require paving segments of Hell’s Revenge and diminish the trail experience that underpins local guide businesses. Members discussed fencing, trespass, and the potential for a prescriptive-easement claim if vehicular use has been uninterrupted for more than 20 years. No formal decision was made; the committee recorded these concerns in the letter transmitted to the county.
