End of an era at Piney River Ranch as operators unable extend lease with owner Denver Water

Piney River Ranch General Manager Monique Busold spent the last 15 years of her life pouring her heart and soul into the private, 40-acre retreat, wedding and family event venue along the shores of high-altitude Piney Lake at the base of the towering Gore Range.

Busold also spent the last two and half of those years trying everything in her power to renew her lease on the land owned by Denver Water. But those efforts came up empty, and this will be the last season for the current version of an iconic destination for Vail tourists and locals alike.

Thanking everyone in the Vail community and visitors from around the globe who’ve canoed, fished, stayed overnight in her cabins, camped, enjoyed her barbecue or shopped in her store, Busold said this is her final summer season and her operations will wrap up on Sept. 26.

“For everyone that’s been engaged, married … {celebrated] their anniversaries, people who caught their first fish and [made] lifelong memories of just staying in our accommodations, just generations of locals and visitors who have experienced it — please, come up,” Busold said by phone this week, holding back tears. “Most importantly, thank you to the Vail Valley, my employees, the couples, guests and everyone else who supported us over the years.”

Busold and Piney River Ranch LLC inked a 15-year lease with Denver Water in 2012 but could not come to terms on an extension. The current lease expires on March 1, 2027, but there are no winter operations on the property approximately 13 miles north of Vail across U.S. Forest Service land at the end of Red Sandstone Road. That’s why this is Busold’s final season.

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“The long and short of it was for two and a half years I tried for a different outcome to extend our lease, including a purchase,” Busold said. “And, unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in coming to terms with any extension.”

The water authority responsible for providing water to 1.5 million people in the Denver metro area (the oldest and largest utility in the state) owns approximately 66 acres surrounding Piney River Ranch, but in 2007 gave up its water rights there, so this move is not about a water diversion project to the Front Range. 

“Denver Water no longer has any water rights associated with the Piney property so we will not be pursuing any diversion projects,” Denver Water spokesperson Todd Hartman wrote in an email. “As such, we are evaluating options for the site. Denver Water offered to extend the lease for a shorter term while we explore future options for this property, but we understand that the current tenant is not interested in a short-term lease. We hope to have a plan in place for the ranch’s future before the current lease expires.”

Busold said all 2026 events and weddings will go on as scheduled but that a short-term lease made it prohibitive for her to start booking the 2027 summer season. She will have 90 days from the end of the current lease ending March 1 to remove or sell what the lease deems “improvements,” which basically means all the structures erected by Piney River Ranch LLC.

Asked if Denver Water is trying to sell the property, move forward with a different leaseholder, and whether there will still be any sort of public access to the property for recreation in the future, Hartman responded, “It is premature to speculate on the ranch’s future options since no decisions have been made.”

Asked how long of an extension Denver Water was offering and whether it was for the same terms ($30,000 a year), Hartman had this to say: “We had discussed various lease extensions, most recently until 2028, but Piney River Ranch, LLC told us it was not interested in continuing those discussions and wished to conclude operations after this season.”

Busold said the shorter lease offer “came with a whole other set of terms and conditions that the only thing my partners and I have other than the shirts on our back when we’re walking out of there are those buildings and the infrastructure. And how am I even possibly going to take those with me? I have no idea.”

At one point Denver Water’s Eagle-Piney proposal was one of three water projects that would have diverted a great deal of the utility’s 183,000 acre-feet of water it owned from Vail to Wolcott through a 24-mile tunnel under Vail Pass and into Dillon Reservoir, according to the Vail Trail. The Eagle-Piney project specifically would have diverted Piney River water.

But litigation by Western Slope water interests led to a settlement by which Denver Water kept some rights, including the possibility of a future Wolcott reservoir, but relinquished its rights associated with the Piney River and many of the up-valley tributaries of the Eagle River. That settlement led to 2012 Colorado River Cooperative Agreement.

Under the settlement, Denver Water conveyed by quit claim deed all of its Eagle Piney project water rights, including its conditional water right decreed from Middle Creek, to the Colorado River Water Conservation District. It also conveyed a 170 cfs Piney River right to the district, the Eagle River Water and Sanitation District and the Upper Eagle Water Authority.

But Denver Water still owns the 66 acres of land around Piney Lake, and now some form of change is coming this fall at Piney River Ranch.

“We’re proud of what we’ve created and the culture … the experiences that we’ve delivered on so many different levels,” Busold said. “Just please come and see us.”