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Lohr wrote a formal proposal to GOCO, requesting a $10 million grant to be matched with $1.25 million in local money, a sum that could save 20,000 acres. GOCO promised $1 million to $2 million for the project's first phase. Now Lohr and Trampe faced another hurdle: Where would they get the local money to match GOCO's grant?
The valley began to rally. Shopkeepers in Crested Butte launched a voluntary donation program: each of their customers could add 1% to their bill, with the proceeds divided between the Crested Butte Land Trust and the Gunnison Legacy. After three months, 38 merchants had joined the program, which was expected to generate $2,500 a month--far short of the $125,000 needed to match GOCO's first $1 million grant.
Shopkeepers in the city of Gunnison were slow to get involved. Some saw the issue as an "up-valley" matter and questioned the need for open-space preservation in a county that is 85% federally owned (even if much of it consists of vertical mountainsides). Others saw the idea as welfare for ranchers--private-property zealots who, now that times were hard, were asking for handouts (even if they would be donating a quarter of their development rights).
But the naysayers failed to carry the day, because something extraordinary had been taking place in the valley. Many of the old adversaries--ranchers in white Stetsons, trust-fund hippies in silk parachute pants, resort developers and local officials--had been sitting around a table, talking out their differences. The Gunnison Valley Forum, as this monthly meeting is called, was launched by Lieut. Governor Gail Schoettler in 1996, when a battle raged over the ski resort's plan to expand onto a second mountain. Eventually, after the resort put its plan on hold, the Forum tackled other issues. At one meeting, rancher and county commissioner Fred Field, a skilled, homespun politician, proposed using a fraction of the local sales tax to back a bond issue for open-space acquisition, the only sure way to raise the money needed to match GOCO's grant. But while the towns of Crested Butte and Mount Crested Butte backed the idea, the Gunnison city council balked--let's keep Gunnison's money in Gunnison, they decided. In response, the county vowed to put the issue before voters this November. "We'll see how serious people are about preserving this valley," says Field.
At a stubborn 35 m.p.h., Duane Phelps steers his pickup along the shoulder of Highway 50. Skiers in SUVs roar past at 70. It's a late-April day shortly before the family will drive its herd up the ancient buffalo trail to the high country (other ranchers now load their cows into trucks). In a battered hat and wire-rim shades, Duane mutters at the cars, picks his moment, then wheels across the road to a corral bisected by the trout-rich Tomichi Creek. "I always wanted to fish that crick the first week of May," he says. "Never had the time."