New campground at Shelf Road

From our feedback:

Hopefully this email will fall under the eyes of the appropriate person at your magazine or you could forward it to the person that would best be able to help.

I am currently working on a project to build a new campground at the Shelf Road recreation area north on Canon City in effort to promote a better outdoor camping experience in the area as well as educating people on sustainable living and green energy at the same time. We are currently trying to get as many people as possible to show support of our idea and dream before we launch our campaign on May 1st and put up a video on a crowd funding site in order to try and raise the funds. I was reading your guiding principles and I thought you may be interested in partnering with us in order to achieve a broader impact. If you have any ideas or suggestions I would love to hear from you.

Getting like minded people together to make it happen is the only way that a sustainability initiative going to work. Not only for our campground but for the earth and the people that inhabit it. If you are interested, I would be glad to set up a meeting at your convenience.

Here is the link to our page:
facebook.com/shelflife.co

Most Sincere Regards,

Kaleb Brown
Co-Founder of "Shelf Life Campground"
KALEB.BROWN.22@GMAIL.COM

The Facebook page provides very little information on the campground details. It looks like it would be 15 miles northwest of the Shelf Road climbing area ... as the crow flies. The campground would be a solid 30 to 40 mile drive to get there from the Bank Campground.

Edited based on subsequent post:

Additional camping available near Shelf Road will be a good thing...it can certainly fill up there on weekends. Best of luck.

Hello,

I am one of the co-founders of the "Shelf Life" campground project that we are trying to make happen on the North plateau of the canyon. The road that runs north past cactus cliff (just past the toilet)is the road that leads to the property. Yes, we will need to update the road; we understand this and are already working with the BLM on accomplishing this. We know that the Facebook page is vague at the moment but our video that we are currently working on to put on the crowd-funding site will answer all of your questions. Our goal is to make Shelf Road a better campground that will serve more people. Providing at least water, showers, recycling, compost, and a place to wash dishes. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to working with avid visitors of the area to make it the best experience and camping for all. The land is literally across the canyon from the bank campground, maybe a ½ mile as the "crow flies".

Thanks for the clarification Kaleb. The map on your facebook page placed the campground by Cover Mountain just east of Guffey, CO. Anyways, it sounds like an interesting project.

Camping at Shelf is a nightmare so more spots to pop a tent wouldn't hurt. I would be interested in hearing your sustainable practices though.

It would be difficult, at best, to add 30 extra campgrounds to an already overstressed area and have it be sustainable. That becomes increasingly difficult when you add an amphitheater to the layout. No part of an amphitheater is ecologically sustainable. It may make a campground more financially appealing to a private landowner (assuming this is on private land) but you can't add that kind of traffic and expect it to be good for the bunnies and trees. Semi-arid climates don't recuperate very quickly. Especially not with weekend traffic like shelf.

Also, why the shower/bath complex? We're climbers damn it, shower when you get home. Its a waste of water and an added expense to campers.

Hi there!

I am the other co-founder of the Shelf Life campground. First, I want to say thank you for your interest in this project. Your interest and constructive criticism has been very helpful. Once our video is released, many of these details will be covered but we understand the lack there of currently.

As we were doing preliminary research, this research document BLM Shelf Road created by the BLM shows the exponential increase of visitors since 2006. Without an increased infrastructure, there is even a greater chance of damage to the area.

Many ideas have been put in the air as we are still in the preliminary phase. The amphitheater was just an idea to hold educational talks and events about sustainability. By no means would it be a mini Red Rocks.

Shelf Road is becoming a large recreation area for many more activities than just climbing (mountain biking, hiking, horse back riding, ect.). Families commonly camp there and some visitors stay much longer than just a weekend. In order to improve on the camping experience, a recycling/compost/waste center would be available instead of people not separating there trash and carrying it out. The showers won't have running water to them, it would be a simple shower bag that you can fill, warm in the sun, and shower in at the end of the day. The greywater will then be filtered to use on vegetation and organic plant growth. This would also save people a trip to Canon City if they "had" to shower (conserving gas and emissions). The use of composting toilets will decrease the lovely aroma that we are all use to and create fertilizer for vegetation as well.

Please, if there any other details or concerns any of you may have let us know and we will address them. Our video will be released on May 1st and we will be excited to receive some feedback!

which road(s) will access the new campground? ie, will it be further up shelf road, or would you access it via the road that drops down into the bank and then eventually cuts back right onto the top of the mesa?

This is a great idea as Shelf Road probably needs the campground doubled or tripled to accommodate all of the visitors. If you are planning to upgrade the road that runs up between Cactus and the Vault you should get some cost estimates on that first before you go too far with other parts of the project. Even though there's a road of sorts already there, making that an all weather road capable of handling a lot of traffic may be prohibitively expensive. There may be other ways to access your proposed location through the Bank valley and looping around, just something to think about.

That makes much more sense. You are right in that something needs to be done to handle the amount of traffic Shelf sees. It sounds like you have a good plan and could really be a benefit to the area.

I WOULD LOVE TO HELP!! Me and a pretty big crew were there last weekend and were commenting on the... odd lack of camping for such a popular spot.

A trash / recycle / compost center sounds good - but how much will it cost to pay someone to take the stuff away? Same with composting toilets (I have one in my house in the mountains), but again -- that's an expensive item for the toilet for multiple people. Have you priced them out? What's the eventual funding source for these items?
(I do support this -- but not if camping fees go up to $20 per night.)

Our plan is to keep it as cheap as or cheaper than the Bank campground. It all kind of depends on how much we raise through crowd-funding. The more we can raise for the front end cost of buying the land and developing everything means the less we have to take out in loans to make it happen. If we can raise everything we need our ultimate goal would be to make everything as cheap as physically possible. We do not have all the answers right now, but we both will be living out there and taking care of the property and the campground to better keep costs low. We are looking into and researching some cool new technologies to take care of the waste situation. We are going to be as innovative as possible in dealing with the normal upkeep situations involved with something like this. We really aren't in this for the financial gains, because let’s be honest camping typically doesn't produce huge financial gains. But if we can keep our operating and upkeep costs as low as possible through creative ideas and thinking outside of the box then we can then make it hopefully cheaper than the existing camping in the area. Allowing visitors to enjoy the area without having to worry about how much it costs to camp. If anyone has any creative ideas to help we are all ears.

Our biggest challenge coming up is getting people to the crowd-funding that has our project video where they can then contribute however much they can or would like to. For those that do not know what crowd-funding is I encourage you to check out the site that we will be using called indiegogo.com. It is a very interesting idea that allows young entrepreneurs like ourselves to try and raise funds to pursue ideas and dreams that otherwise would not be able to happen, going through the traditional method borrowing money from a bank or investor. (Because of how much in debt college has put on both of us) The idea is that we set monetary values that you can contribute (could be a little or could be a lot) however much you want to contribute, and then for that amount of contribution you then in return get something from our project. Sticker, T-shirt, Free night stays, gear, etc. Kind of like pre-selling a product before you have it sort of thing. It is a lot easier to ask a lot of people for small amounts than one person a large amount.
On May 1st we will be posting the video. Then we have 60 days to raise as much as possible. So for those of you that want to help, the biggest thing you can do right now is generate support to our project through our Facebook page. Then after the video is posted it's just a matter of getting as many people as physically possible to watch the video. That is really the only way that this is going to work.
We have been working on this project for the better part of 6 months now and are truly committed to making this happen.

Again, thank you so much for your critical feedback and support. Please feel free to contact us through our emails or by posting on this thread. We will try and check it frequently and respond promptly to any posts.

Climb on,
Kaleb
Co-Founder of "Shelf Life Campground"

Have you contacted Mark Hesse? If not, he can be invaluable, if this is a project that is of interest to the Rocky Mountain Field Institute.

good call darryl!

Darryl,

We have not contacted Mark Hesse. Do you happen to know the best way to get a hold of him? Doesn't look like he has any contact information up on Mountain Project. Thanks for the recommendation!

First go to rmfi.org/ and see what they've done in the past and the way Mark and his organization think, so you can present your idea in a way that will be most effective... RMFI has had a BIG hand in Shelf projects in the past, so you'll probably have some interest.
Contact info:
815 South 25th Street, Suite 101 • Colorado Springs, CO 80904 •
(719) 471-7736

Well here it is guys. Hope you like it!

indiegogo.com/projects/shel…

What do you guys think!?!? Eager to hear input and suggestions!

liked the video, but it didn't have any technical/financial information. if you are looking for serious investors, or looking to make a good impression to agencies that can help or hinder you, you will need a pretty solid plan. enthusiasm is good, but without a solid plan and numbers backing it up, it will be really hard to pull off.

one big question that i have; what are you going to do about accessing it (ie the road)? there are only 2 roads that i know of that easily access the top;

1) the old cactus cliff road, which is currently closed to the public. even if you are able to re-open this road, it would require a LOT of work. it is very prone to erosion and a lot of work to maintain (particularly in the winter), and it is basically one lane.

2) the road that drops down into the bank and eventually hooks a right up onto the mesa. again, this is a single lane road that already requires serious maintenance and is difficult in bad weather. there aren't many passing opportunities for opposing traffic.

what sort of financial forecast have you made for operating the campground? are both of you planning on living there? with only 30 spots, and shelf being more of a weekend warrior getaway, is this realistic?

where will water come from? you might contact kirk miller (here on MP). he might have recent cost info for installing a well.

I dig the stoke, but how about a business plan that I can look at?

Also, your whole message is about sustainability and caring for the planet, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, it appeared the clip of the mountain bikers showed them riding off trail. Something which is not sustainable and is generally frowned upon by groups like IMBA.

Best of luck guys, I think your heart is in the right place, just not sure your plan is fully baked.