Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005 | 7:24 a.m.
The U.S. Forest Service is preparing to demolish buildings and tear up a golf course on the slopes of Mount Charleston, the first step toward an ambitious effort to improve management of the recreational area.
The agency, which manages the surrounding 316,000-acre Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, has been struggling, along with several hundred residents in area to deal with the hordes of visitors from the urban area.
Over the last two years, the agency has worked to develop a management program to handle more than 1 million visitors annually.
Early next year, a contractor is scheduled to start tearing down eight buildings scattered on the land, once owned by developer Alan Nel, who had planned to build a golfing resort on the site. Stiff resistance to the planned resort, however, halted development in 1998.
Early last year the U.S. Forest Service, with assistance from the nonprofit groups The Conservation Fund and Outside Las Vegas, purchased the 127 acres for $15 million, funds which came from federal land sales.
The Forest Service hopes to build a small "Village" on the site that would include a visitors center for education and information about the Spring Mountains and Mount Charleston, said Hal Peterson, manager of what the agency calls the Middle Kyle Canyon Project.
Demolition of the old buildings remaining from the abortive golf course project is "basically the first phase," Peterson said. "What we're doing with the demolition work is to get rid of the ... health and safety issues with the deteriorating buildings out there."
The Forest Service, in its request for bids, estimated the cost for the demolition to be $250,000 to $500,000.
The Forest Service will begin the public review process on an environmental impact study for the area management plan next year, he said.
The master plan for the area will extend beyond the former Nel property to 2,500 acres adjacent to and near the golf course property. The agency would integrate that into a transportation plan slated to include parking at the former Nel property and shuttles to upper levels in Kyle Canyon.
The goal is to continue to offer recreational opportunities while providing "interpretation and education" services to the public and protecting the environmental resources on the mountain, which includes habitats for endangered species such as the Mount Charleston blue butterfly and Palmer's chipmunk.
John Hiatt, conservation chairman of the Red Rock Audubon Society, said the fact that work is progressing is a good sign.
"This is the first step towards implementation of the Middle Kyle Canyon management plan, which will for the first time provide a real, visible presence for the Forest Service," Hiatt said.
The Forest Service has a small visitors center in Kyle Canyon, but it is easy to overlook, he said. The Village would catch visitors before they get to the higher elevations and could serve to let people know the rules for using the national forest area.
The constantly increasing numbers of visitors is not tenable over the long term without those changes, Hiatt said.
"There's tremendous visitation right now with almost no direction to it, and that's increasing at a dramatic rate," he said.
Launce Rake can be reached at (702) 259-4127 or at [email protected].
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