The popular Boswell Road in southern Albany County remains officially closed, but a landowner there said that people have been using it all summer anyway.
“As long as they close the gate behind them and drive slowly through my property, I have no problem with people using the road. This summer, everyone has been respectful,” Gary Williams told Cowboy State Daily.
Who controls Boswell Road remains an unanswered question. The U.S. Forest Service and Albany County both have a stake in it, but neither entity claims the road.
The roughly 11-mile road also winds through several sections of private property, parcels controlled by the state of Wyoming and the Bureau of Land Management. It also at one point dips into Colorado.
There’s an unlocked gate across Boswell Road at the edge of Williams’ property, perhaps a quarter-mile from the road’s intersection with Highway 230 near the Wyoming-Colorado state line.
Williams said he intends to keep the gate unlocked and allow people through, so long as they continue to behave themselves.
He’s expecting large crowds soon. One of the most popular times for camping is Labor Day weekend. That overlaps with the opening of big game archery hunting seasons in the Snowy Range, set for Sept. 1.
Closed, But Not Really
Other than landowners, anybody traveling the road is technically breaking Forest Service rules.
The other end of the road to the east intersects with Highway 10 on property owned by former Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead.
Mead hasn’t gated his end of the road, but has marked it with signs reading “private road, no trespassing.”
The Forest Service closed the road to the general public this spring, but apparently hasn’t been enforcing that and has allowed access for landowners along Boswell Road.
There’s been no change in the road’s status from the Forest Services’ perspective, Aaron Voos, spokesman for the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, told Cowboy State Daily.
Nothing’s changed from the county’s perspective either, Albany County Commissioner Terri Jones told Cowboy State Daily.
She remains hopeful that the county can claim jurisdiction over the road and settle the matter once and for all.
“I think the idea is still very much alive, and we’ll see what happens,” she said.
‘This Is Workable Right Now’
Williams said he’s had a steady stream of people coming through his property throughout the summer. Some meadows, on public national forest land, lie up the road beyond his property.
Those make great camping spots and people have been taking advantage of them, apparently with no interference from the Forest Service, he said.
For now at least, things seem to be working and the Memorial Day weekend-archery season crowds should be free to enjoy themselves, Jones said.
“If people go up that road, and they close that gate (at Williams’ property line), I don’t think there will be any problem,” she said. “They can go into there to hunt, they can go in there to camp, and there shouldn’t be a problem.
“This is workable right now, (but) it’s not a long-term solution by any means.”
Jones thinks the best solution is for the county to take control of the road, and said she’ll keep pushing for that as a county commissioner.
The Forest Service could maintain Boswell Road in exchange for Albany County maintaining a Forest Service road elsewhere.
“I think in the long run, it would be better off to be a county road,” Jones said. “We serve the people of the county. And then the Forest Service could never shut that road down because of all the bizarre politics that go on at the national level.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
