Daily file photo
Trail use is exploding on the Booth Lake trail. The town of Vail may have the quickest solution to limit that use.
The Vail Town Council at its Feb. 2 meeting heard a presentation from town staff members about use on the trail, and possible options to limit use on the town’s most popular trail into the Eagles Nest Wilderness.
Vail Police Chief Dwight Henninger told councilmembers that use on the trail may have jumped by roughly 50% in 2020. That puts more people on a wilderness trail than the U.S. Forest Service wants to see.
A town-commissioned study notes that Forest Service guidelines call for no more than 12 parties encountered per day on a trail. The study notes the Booth Lake trail has exceeded those guidelines in five of the past six years. The average number of high season encounters has jumped from 36 per day in 2019 to 55 per day in 2020.