Arid landscape along the Roubideau canyon bottom photo © Jeff Widen

Western Colorado is famous for its spectacular landscapes, like the Colorado National Monument, Black Canyon National Park, and Million Dollar Highway. Yet many other precious wild places are less well known and rarely traveled.

Ranging in altitude from 4,800 feet to over 9,000 feet, these lands in the Greater Dominguez Proposal encompass magnificent canyons, spectacular vistas, rare and endangered plants and animals, ancient petroglyphs and dwellings, fascinating rock formations, flower-studded meadows, and perennial streams with waterfalls and plunge pools carved into ancient bedrock.  Protection of these lands would safeguard outstanding recreational opportunities like hunting and fishing, solitude, wildlife habitat, and archeological and fossil treasures, while still allowing for continuation of historic grazing and hunting.  

The Greater Dominguez Proposal was developed in response to comments received from federal agencies and from local elected officials, taking into account expressions of support and boundary preferences from nearby landowners and agricultural users of the area, and providing for public recreation activities on the lands involved. We believe that it provides a comprehensive, sensitive, and appropriate array of protection for this beautiful place.

Specific areas within the Greater Dominguez Proposal include: 

Dominguez Canyons includes Dominguez Wilderness Study Area (WSA) and the headwaters of Big and Little Dominguez Creek.  Winding canyon bottoms offer over 30 miles of exploration, and infrequently visited mesa tops provide magnificent vistas which include the San Juans, Grand Mesa, and the West Elk Mountains, the canyon bottoms, and soaring sandstone cliffs. Numerous plunge pools, waterfalls, interesting rock formations, which include hoodoos, alcoves, exposed black precambrian bedrock, numerous petroglyph panels and a vibrant early anglo history add unrivaled interest for visitors.

The lower end of Big Dominguez Canyon receives extensive recreational use as its mouth is a favored campsite for canoe and raft parties that frequent the adjacent Gunnison River throughout the summer, estimated at more than 8,000 recreational user days annually.

The area's wide elevation range, from 4,800 feet in lands along the Gunnison River to 9,000 feet in the forested lands of on the Uncompahgre Plateau, results in a broad array of topographic and biologic diversity. This includes ecosystems as disparate as upper Sonoran desert along the Gunnison River and Douglas fir-aspen forest ecosystems higher on the plateau. Perennial streams flow in the two major canyon systems, Big and Little Dominguez Canyons. This area would provide permanent protection for the Dominguez watershed, which flows into the Gunnison and provides water to Mesa County. 

Northern Dominguez is located 12 miles southeast of Grand Junction, on the west side of the Gunnison River and to the North of Dominguez WSA. The area does NOT include the river. Gunnison River Bluffs encompasses an intricate system of mesas and canyons and hosts three distinct ecosystems. Pinyon-juniper covered canyons and cliffs rise up from the river, creating quiet, spectacular, and dramatic views for boaters and other recreationists.  Home to desert big horn, deer, and diverse plant species, this proposed Wilderness Area is a wild gem close to the growing population center of Grand Junction.

Roubideau Canyon includes the Camelback WSA, which is managed by the BLM’s Uncompahgre Field Office, and the adjacent Potter Creek, which stretches into the national forest lands of the Uncompahgre Plateau.  Both drainages are closed to motorized and mechanized use, which offers protection to important riparian habitat in an otherwise arid landscape. 

Named for French fur trapper Antoine Robidoux, the canyon originates in subalpine spruce and aspen forests high on the Uncompahgre Plateau before it flows 20 miles north to the Gunnison River. BLM’s WSA encompasses the lower eight miles of this canyon as it moves down into the desert reaches. Recognizing the outstanding wild values of Roubideau Canyon, Congress in 1993 designated 19,650 acres in the adjacent Uncompahgre National Forest as the Roubideau Area and placed it off limits to development and motorized vehicles.

As it flows down out of the spruce and aspen forests onto BLM lands, the canyon becomes more arid, with rock buttresses, freestanding pinnacles, pinyon-juniper forest, and a meandering stream lined with cottonwoods.

Because the expanded Roubideau Wilderness spans life zones from upper Sonoran desert at 5,000 feet to subalpine at 9,500 feet, it provides a rare opportunity to preserve an ecologically diverse canyon that would greatly enrich the National Wilderness Preservation System.

For more information please visit the Colorado's Canyon Country Wilderness Proposal web site.