Chaffee County Search & Rescue–North is seeking to recruit new volunteers as the busy summer season closes.

Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze issued stage 2 fire restrictions for unincorporated Chaffee County effective Monday morning.

The Bureau of Land Management has enacted Stage 2 Fire Restrictions for lands throughout Southern Colorado, including those in Chaffee County.

The announcement came on a windswept fall afternoon one day after the Cameron Peak Fire north of Rocky Mountain National Park grew to become the largest wildfire in state history, breaking a record that had been set just 48 days prior when the Pine Gulch Fire north of Grand Junction grew larger than the 2002 Hayman Fire.

Members of the Central Colorado Unmanned Aerial Systems Club and the Buena Vista Recreation Department broke ground Oct. 8 for the Buena Vista Drone Flying Park, which, when complete, will offer multiple ways for drone pilots to hone their flying skills.

When the Leadville 100 was cancelled this year due to COVID-19, 22-year-old Annie Hughes, a Buena Vista High School graduate who lives in Leadville and had been training for the ultramarathon, did the sensible thing and decided that she would run a course that was even longer and higher.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife received 3,644 bear reports from April 1 through Aug. 31, down slightly from the 3,855 during the same timeframe the previous year.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife will be conducting mandatory chronic wasting disease testing during the 2020 hunting season in specific Game Management Units as part of efforts to control the spread with its Colorado Chronic Wasting Disease Response Plan.

Bronco Driver magazine’s annual Super Celebration has been going on in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee for 17 years.

Envision Chaffee County is hosting a resident and visitor survey to identify perceptions about outdoor recreation in Chaffee County. Go to http://bit.ly/CRS-2020 to take the 10-minute, online survey.

Buena Vista’s shoulder-season celebration 14erFest will not be held this year due to “too many uncertainties to juggle,” according to a Facebook post on the event’s page.

Earlier this month, the Buena Vista board of trustees approved plans for a drone park on a section of the Rodeo Grounds property.

Envision Chaffee County is hosting a resident and visitor survey to identify perceptions about outdoor recreation in Chaffee County.

Colorado landowners who want to protect private forestlands that could someday be threatened by development – or conversion to other non-forest uses – now have the opportunity to submit proposals to the Forest Legacy Program.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist Lance Carpenter and wildlife pathologist Karen Fox have initiated a study looking into a disease outbreak in mountain goats on the summit of Mount Evans.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like every other car and truck coming to Buena Vista this summer has three or four mountain bikes with it.

I have a feeling the cars without bikes on them have hiking and trail running shoes, maybe even cowboy boots, in the trunk.

It’s more than just a feeling, the increase of trail users in and around Buena Vista is real.

The body of a Nathrop man who had been missing for 5 days after going hiking alone in the area of the Three Apostles was found last Wednesday, Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze reported.

In response to recent and forecasted precipitation across the western Front Range, the Bureau of Land Management’s Royal Gorge Field Office is lifting fire restrictions on BLM-managed lands in three counties in central Colorado. Fire restrictions will be lifted on BLM lands in Lake, Chaffee, and Fremont counties effective July 30.

BLM, USFS decisions pending

The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service announced an amended management plan for the Browns Canyon National Monument Monday. The approved plan will guide the agencies’ oversight of recreation activities within the monument, while allowing for infrastructure that will help protect monument resources in anticipation of increased visitation and recreational use.

A lifejacket loaner station will be “up and running next week,” said Buena Vista Recreation director Earl Richmond.

Adventure Unlimited, which has run overnight camps for families in the Christian Science faith in the Buena Vista area since 1955, is responding to COVID-19 by opening up its ranch to all local families for week-long day camps.

Colorado is home to a large population of black bears, with numbers estimated at 17,000-20,000 in the state. As humans venture into Colorado’s great outdoors to spend quality time in nature, it is important to remember that bears and humans can and do live in harmony in our shared outdoor spaces when humans take proactive steps to avoid conflicts with bears.

Special to The Times

The Great Outdoors Colorado board awarded a $1,625,000 grant to Central Colorado Conservancy this month in partnership with The Trust for Public Land and Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust to help conserve four ranches covering more than 2,400 acres in Chaffee County.

More than 70 people stopped by the pump track in Buena Vista’s River Park last weekend to help out with a rehabilitation of the practice track before BV Rec installs new features.

A crew of four students installed metal doors they built to the privacy stall in the Buena Vista River Park last week.

Envision Recreation in Balance Task Force members plan multiple projects in the coming months that address recreation impacts on public lands in Chaffee County.

The Buena Vista Chamber of Commerce will not hold Gold Rush Days this August, postponing the event until 2021 due to COVID-19.

The Buena Vista Recreation Department is opening back up, although its programming, rentals and events are postponed until “at least June 1.”

The long-established kiosk signs at Buena Vista’s popular Boathouse trailhead got a facelift last weekend as part of National Public Lands Day.

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional start of the summer season in Buena Vista, beginning with CKS PaddleFest, although this year’s PaddleFest isn’t so traditional.

The trails in the Midland Area that have been approved by the Bureau of Land Management will be completed this summer or next, depending on the status of COVID-19 safety practices.

After months of hard work by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the engagement of more than 40 conservation partners, a new status report on Colorado’s big game winter range and migration corridors has been released that will inform future efforts to protect this invaluable natural resource.