Feds consider blasting herd of cows frozen inside cabin

A farmer grooms a cow on February 25, 2012. / Getty Images

(AP) DENVER - It may take explosives to dislodge a group of cows that wandered into an old ranger cabin high in the Rocky Mountains, then died and froze solid when they couldn't get out.

The carcasses were discovered by two Air Force Academy cadets when they snow-shoed up to the cabin in late March. Rangers believe the animals sought shelter during a snowstorm and got stuck and weren't smart enough to find their way out.

The cabin is located near the Conundrum Hot Springs, a nine-mile hike from the Aspen area in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness area.

Michael Carroll, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society in Colorado, said cattle are often allowed to wander on federal wilderness lands as long as ranchers get a permit from the Forest Service, and sometimes the animals get separated from the herd.

The Forest Service said Tuesday the animals came from a herd of 29 cows that went missing last fall from the nearby Gunnison National Forest where the rancher had a permit. An aerial search failed to turn up any sign of the animals.

Forest Service spokesman Brian Porter said rangers saw about six cows inside the cabin, and several dead cows lying around the building.

"There is a lot of snow, and it's hard to determine how many cows are there," Porter said.

U.S. Forest Service spokesman Steve Segin said Tuesday they need to decide quickly how to get rid of the carcasses.

"Obviously, time is of the essence because we don't want them defrosting," Segin said.

Segin said officials are concerned about water contamination in the nearby hot springs if the cows start decomposing during the thaw.

The options: use explosives to break up the cows, burn down the cabin, or using a helicopters or trucks to haul out the carcasses.

But Segin said using helicopters is too expensive and rangers are worried about using trucks in a wilderness area, where the government bars permanent improvements and tries to preserve the natural habitat.

Carroll praised the Forest Service for trying to remove the animals while doing the least damage. He said burning down the cabin or packing out the carcasses are probably the best solutions.

"They need to use the minimal tool to get the job done. They don't want to leave the land scarred," he said.

Segin said the Forest Service occasionally uses explosives to destroy carcasses of animals that can't be retrieved.

"We've used them as a means of disposal to remove dead horses, elk and other animals in areas where it's impossible to get them out," he said.

[evanravitz]

This is at Conundrum hot springs, almost certainly the highest hot spring in N. America. I spend more time up there than anyone, over 600 nights in 34 years. Here's my photo Sunset Mag published last Nov: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-4vyAc5Y72J4/TFI7S_bXxVI/AAAAAAAApOk/3sPix2pMbME/s720/P1040504.JPG It's impossible for the cows in the cabin to contaminate the hot springs, as the ranger worries. The springs are more than 1000' away and 100' higher than the cabin -UPstream. This is easy to see with Google Earth.

The FS has wanted to tear down the cabin for decades due to their policy of "no permanent structures" in the Wilderness. They floated the idea in the '90s but people protested. It's saved many lives, as has getting in the hot springs itself. About 4 yrs ago a former Special Forces guy and his 12 yr old son had their (old, sun-bleached) tent shredded by hail, so they spent that night in the cabin with a young guy who also was washed out. Then they left. Nobody WANTS to stay in the cabin: it's dirty, with a very cold and broken concrete floor. Conundrum hot springs is at 11,250' and the valley faces North, and the East wall of the valley is one of the highest and longest in Colorado, so it's wet and cold. Most midsummer nights the temps get to the low 40s. I've seen it snow inches in June, July and August.

If you want to be on our Friends of Conundrum Hot Springs email list, email me: evan at vote dot org. It took us years but we managed to get the FS to close THEIR trail which was tearing up the wetland adjacent to the hot springs and make OUR dry social trail the new official trail to the upper campsites. We got them to put in a sign to educate people on taking care of the springs, and we got them to at least temporarily give up their plan to close the upper campsites and put the remaining lower half of the sites on a reservation system. Instead they give out free (human) poop bags. Dogs are now banned from Silver Dollar Pond (2/3 of the way up from the Aspen trailhead) all the way past the Springs to Triangle Pass, on the way to Crested Butte.