On Sunday, August 16 @ 11 a.m., join Save JeffCo Parks on an easy 2-mile, 2-hour hike to witness, document, and mourn the destruction of the once-beautiful Jefferson County Open Space Beaver Ranch Park (outside Conifer off Route 285), while taking courage and inspiration from the forest that remains.

RSVP here: https://forms.gle/3Am7AHWhQKZ8vB177

Jefferson County, Colorado government under Commissioner chair and candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Lesley Dahlkemper, has been perpetrating the state’s—and arguably the nation’s—most aggressive and destructive industrial logging under the scientifically-debunked guise of “community protection” and “stopping high-severity wildfire” while shutting out all meaningful public engagement.

(Peer-reviewed science proves that “fuel reduction” logging not only won’t save homes and lives from wildfire nor stop the weather and wind-driven high-intensity wildfires that threaten them and firefighters, it is “not designed to prevent or stop fires.”)

After Jefferson County ignored the scientific, conservation, and local community to clearcut and log some of the largest trees (up to 211 years old) out of several County Open Space Parks, Save JeffCo Parks tried to save Beaver Ranch Park from imminent destruction.

In 2025, Save JeffCo Parks led a hike to the threatened forest attended by about 15 local residents. Several of the hikers took photos in front of their favorite tree, asking County Commissioners to pause cutting until they incorporated the full-range of science disputing the efficacy of “fuel reduction” (including the County’s own studies!) and community engagement into decision making.

Instead, County Commissioners Lesley Dahlkemper, Andy Kerr, and Rachel Zenzinger didn’t respond to a single communication from their own constituents, entities like Conifer Area Council promoted logging industry disinformation while blacklisting conservationists from speaking at their public events (while privately bragging about doing to so Jefferson County Open Space), and zero local media covered the story.

Sadly, Jefferson County’s latest sidestepping of peer-reviewed science and participatory democracy caused a large section of Beaver Ranch Park to be logged to pieces. Now, the formerly cooler, moister forest is exposed to the heating and drying sun, its tree stands open to winds which can spread embers and flames to communities, and its compacted and eroded soil overrun with highly flammable invasive cheatgrass and logging debris.

While devastating, this is an opportunity for those of us who care about nature and actual scientifically-proven community protection from wildfire (home hardening) to document the harm Jefferson County Open Space and other “land management” agencies like Colorado State Forest Service and U.S. Forest Service, and career politicians like Lesley Dahlkemper are perpetrating on our last intact ecosystems at taxpayer expense so we can hold them accountable.

On the hike, led by Save JeffCo Parks local advocates, we’ll witness and photograph what’s been lost in hopes of preventing it from happening elsewhere in the park, the county, and the state. We’ll also visit unlogged sections of forest to inspire us to join more of our voices together so we can be heard—and listened to—by the decision makers and their gatekeepers who ignore and silence the facts to threaten our forests, communities, and democracy.