Turn off North Frontage Road at Exit 173 and you have two choices within a half mile of each other. One is Buffehr Creek Road, which climbs into the neighborhood and dead-ends at a Forest Service trailhead. The other is Red Sandstone Road, which turns to dirt after about a mile and runs twelve miles north into the White River National Forest, ending at a forty-acre lakefront retreat called Piney River Ranch. Both roads have fed the same rhythm of neighborhood life for years: locals walking dogs and chasing aspen color close to home, then driving the washboard gravel further out for a BBQ lunch or a paddle on Piney Lake when the mood called for it.
This September, only one of those roads still leads somewhere permanent.
Same Corridor, Different Landlords
The land behind Buffehr Creek is not one continuous parcel with one owner. The trail system that starts at the Buffehr Creek trailhead runs 3.5 miles through White River National Forest before joining the North Vail Trail, all of it managed by the U.S. Forest Service under a use pattern that has stayed consistent for decades. Red Sandstone Road, a few hundred yards away, crosses land that Denver Water has owned since a 2012 water rights settlement, with Piney River Ranch operating under a private lease on top of it.
That distinction sounds like paperwork until you look at what happened to each road this year.
The Season That Just Ended
Piney River Ranch closed for the season on its normal date, the last Saturday in September, and this is Busold's final season as operator. As the Vail Daily reported, general manager Monique Busold ran the ranch for fifteen years under a lease with Denver Water, spending two and a half years trying to negotiate a renewal. Denver Water offered an extension through 2028, but a short-term lease made it impossible to book weddings and events years out the way the business needed to, so Busold declined and gave notice that 2026 would be her last season. The current lease runs through March 1, 2027, after which Busold has ninety days to remove the cabins, the lodge, and everything else her company built on the property.
Denver Water has been candid that no decision has been made about what comes next. The utility's own statement points out that the water rights tied to the parcel were retired back in 2007, which means the land no longer serves the purpose Denver Water originally held it for. Whether the next chapter is a new operator, a different kind of lease, or something else entirely is genuinely unresolved, and Denver Water has said as much publicly rather than pretending otherwise.
For a neighborhood that has treated the drive up Red Sandstone Road as a known quantity for a generation, that uncertainty is new.
The Trail That Didn't
Meanwhile, the trail behind Buffehr Creek never had a season to lose. The Buffehr Creek and North Trail system carries one seasonal wildlife closure a year, from April 15 through June 20, timed to elk calving and migration on U.S. Forest Service guidance. Outside that closure window, the trail is simply open, and it has been open continuously since the closure ended, with no closure scheduled again until next spring.
Part of the reason that access has held steady has nothing to do with the Forest Service at all. Back when the Buffehr Creek neighborhood was still being built out, developer Ed Zneimer placed a conservation easement on nine acres of the property specifically to protect public access to the surrounding Forest Service land, including the North Trail. That easement is recorded, permanent, and not up for renewal by anyone. It is the reason a resident can count on that trailhead behaving the same way in 2030 as it does today, regardless of who owns the houses around it or how the ski industry's fortunes shift.
Piney River Ranch never had that kind of protection. It existed at the pleasure of a lease, and leases end.
| Piney River Ranch | Buffehr Creek / North Trail | |
|---|---|---|
| Land manager | Denver Water | U.S. Forest Service, with a conservation easement layered on top |
| Access basis | Private lease, first signed 2012 | Public land plus a recorded easement protecting access |
| Current status | Lease expires March 1, 2027; operator declined extension; 2026 was Busold's final season as operator | Open now, seasonal wildlife closure only April 15 to June 20 |
| Who decides what's next | Denver Water, no decision announced | Not subject to a single owner's renewal decision |
What's Still Open Right Now
None of this changes what's usable behind the neighborhood this week. The 2.5-mile out-and-back from the Buffehr Creek trailhead to the North Trail lookout point is still one of the more efficient ways to get above the valley floor and see Vail Mountain and the Gore Range without committing to a full-day hike, and aspen color at that elevation typically holds through early October even as the lower valley floor stands start to fade. Dogs are welcome on leash on both the Buffehr Creek trail and the North Trail, and the free West Vail Red bus stops close enough to the trailhead that parking at the limited pull-offs isn't the only option.
Buffehr Creek Park itself, the small grassy lot with picnic tables and a playground off North Frontage Road, stays in normal fall rotation too. It is not the off-leash park in town, that designation belongs to Stephens Park in West Vail, but it remains a low-key spot for a short walk or a bus-stop pickup that doesn't require driving into Vail Village.
Piney River Ranch's road, by contrast, is done for the calendar year regardless of its longer-term future. The ranch itself closes for the season the same weekend it always has, and the U.S. Forest Service typically shuts Red Sandstone Road to vehicle traffic not long after, once snow makes the twelve-mile drive impassable. That part of the pattern hasn't changed. What's changed is that there's no guarantee the ranch reopens next June the way it has every June since 2012.
What Changes Next Year
The honest answer is that nobody knows yet, including Denver Water. What's more useful to a Buffehr Creek resident than speculation is the distinction itself: the destination twelve miles up the road was always contingent on a lease, and the trail a quarter mile from most driveways in the neighborhood was built to outlast one. Whatever Denver Water eventually decides about the far end of Red Sandstone Road, the nine-acre easement that keeps the North Trail open doesn't expire, doesn't require renegotiation, and isn't waiting on anyone's board meeting.
That's the part worth remembering the next time someone drives past both turnoffs at Exit 173 without thinking about what's actually holding each one open.
If you're curious what's recorded against a specific address in Buffehr Creek, whether it's an easement like the one protecting the North Trail or something else entirely, Griffin & Gardner has spent three decades tracking exactly that kind of paperwork in this neighborhood. Let's Connect if you want the plain-language version for your own property.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
