Imagine pulling up to your favorite trailhead near Carbondale or in the White River National Forest only to find it closed — forever. The ridge you’ve skied every season? Fenced off. The singletrack where your kid learned to ride? Gone, paved over for a private development.

It sounds unthinkable, but it nearly happened.

Just last month, a proposal buried deep in a U.S. Senate budget bill would have forced the sale of up to 3.25 million acres of public land across the West—including right here in Colorado. Not surplus land. Not developed lots. We’re talking about wild, open public lands: quiet canyons, critical wildlife corridors, headwater forests. All could have been on the chopping block with no public input.

As a Colorado resident and founder of a small business that depends on healthy public lands, I was outraged. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone.

The amendment, introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, would have ordered the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to identify parcels to sell in 11 Western states — without local consultation or conservation safeguards. While supporters claimed it would help address the housing crisis, the reality was different: these lands are often remote, without infrastructure, jobs, or transit. If anything were built, it wouldn’t be affordable — it’d be exclusive.

Here in Colorado, we know what’s at stake. Our public lands fuel a way of life and an economy that can’t be exported or replaced. These are the places we fish, hunt, bike, camp, ski and recharge. They’re also why so many of us choose to live here and raise families or start businesses.

At mountainFLOW, we make plant-based ski wax and bike products. We rely on snow, clean air, flowing rivers, and trail access. When public lands are threatened, so is our livelihood — and the livelihood of tens of thousands of others in Colorado’s $11 billion outdoor recreation economy.

That’s why the backlash to this proposal was immediate and overwhelming. Small businesses, hunters and anglers, tribal nations, conservationists and tens of thousands of citizens pushed back. We called our members of Congress. We showed up. We made noise. And just like we did when a similar scheme showed up in the House bill earlier this year, we helped stop this latest attack in its tracks.

Let’s be clear though: the fight is far from over.

There will be more attempts to carve up our public lands — some louder, some quieter. And if we’re only playing defense, we’ll always be one bad deal away from losing what we love most.

That’s why we need to flip the script. We need to protect more public lands — not just preserve what’s already safe. Across Colorado, iconic places remain unprotected and vulnerable to development, drilling, or short-sighted politics. From wildlife migration corridors to intact watersheds and beloved backcountry trails, many areas deserve permanent protection. And the threats — from climate change to unchecked development — aren’t slowing down.

Protecting public lands isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a unifying one. And here in Colorado, people from all walks of life are coming together to defend the places that define us.

Local communities, ranchers, Tribal Nations, recreation groups and small businesses are already working together to safeguard these lands. Now we need our elected officials to join us to advance good ideas. To lead. To act.

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t just about trails or business or even jobs. It’s about our connection to place. It’s about the legacy we leave and the future we’re building — for our kids, our economy and our wild lands.

So here’s my ask: If you value the rivers, trails, and peaks that make Colorado, Colorado — stay involved. Keep calling your representatives. Support local and Tribal-led efforts to protect public lands. And demand that leaders stop treating these places like bargaining chips — and start treating them like the irreplaceable treasures they are.

We protected our public lands from one dangerous proposal. Now let’s go further. Let’s protect what we love.

Peter Arlein is the founder and CEO of mountainFLOW eco-wax, based in Carbondale. MountainFLOW produces award-winning, plant-based ski wax and bike maintenance products. Peter is a lifelong skier, mountain biker, and advocate for public lands.