ROLLINSVILLE - High above Longmont and the rest of eastern Boulder County, the Needle's Eye Tunnel beckons.

It beckons Fred Untch, who remembers driving through the now-closed tunnel on family fishing trips to high country lakes. He still visits the area, pole in hand.

It beckons Clark Misner, the transportation engineer who headed a project in 1987 to reopen the 100-year-old tunnel, only to see it closed three years later following a tragic rock fall.

And it beckons Dan Straight, who has a dream that one day he'll be able to hop into his car in Longmont, then drive up from Nederland, through the tunnel and Rollins Pass, to Winter Park the way he used to.

And now the federal legislation that created the surrounding James Peak Wilderness Area is providing hope to Straight, Misner and other tunnel supporters that the tunnel and road connecting Nederland to Winter Park will one day reopen.

Completed in 1904, the Moffat Railroad provided the first direct rail link between Denver and Salt Lake City. For 24 years, trains struggled up the Front Range, through the 200-foot-long tunnel and then across Rollins Pass before descending to Winter Park.

Sweeping views encompass the Continental Divide, the Front Range and eastern Colorado. Several lakes, including the man-made train-refreshing Jenny Lake, are popular fishing spots.

That's what drew Untch and several of his buddies to the area Wednesday. At 10 a.m., they said, blowing snow created whiteout conditions, although the sun was shining brightly by noon and the fish were biting.

The 23-mile route - along with the tunnel and two wooden trestles clinging to the mountainside - fell out of use by trains in 1928 when the 6.2-mile Moffat Tunnel was finished, slashing travel time from two and a half hours to 12 minutes.

"There's a lot of history on this pass," Untch said, recalling how his family used to drive through the tunnel on fishing expeditions from their Arvada home. "I wish they'd open it back up. Driving across the trestles was the best part. What is it, 1,000 feet to fall before you land?"

A few weekends ago, he said, he brought his family to Rollins Pass to show them the area, a trip he hadn't taken in nearly 20 years. The fishing was so good then, he said, that he had to come back.

With the tracks removed in the late 1920s, trains gave way to cars, and for decades the pass and tunnel drew sightseers and travelers from across the Front Range.

"It was really cool," said Misner, Boulder County's deputy transportation manager.

The road follows the old railroad grade and winds from the town of Rollinsville and past the East Portal of the Moffat Tunnel before climbing from Gilpin County back to Boulder County.

Part of the Needle's Eye Tunnel collapsed in 1979, but it was re-opened to cars in 1987 before another slide that injured a sightseer closed it again in 1990.

Now, visitors to what is considered the least-visited area of the local national forest must drive more than 15 miles along a wash-boarded, rock-strewn road before walking nearly a mile along the railroad bed to see the tunnel.

The area regularly records massive snowfalls, a problem railroad workers battled with rotary track-mounted snowplows and long sheds over exposed areas. Timbers from the sheds still litter the exposed slopes flanking the tunnel openings.

The heavy snows means the road often opens only around July 4 and is snowed in sometimes by October.

"I'm just amazed at the people who built it," said Straight, president of the Rollins Pass Restoration Association. Straight has been working on the project for nearly 20 years.

Boulder County is a lifetime member of the association, after taxpayers paid Misner and a team of engineers to stabilize the tunnel in 1987. Half of the money came from private donations, while Boulder County provided much of the remainder.

Technically difficult to pull off at 11,000 feet, the tunnel stabilization project entailed drilling eight-foot-long holes into the tunnel walls and roof, then gluing in inch-thick steel rods.

But three years after the reopening, an area firefighter walking through was hit by rocks falling from the roof of the tunnel's southern entrance.

The cause: a single missing rock bolt. Ironically, the space where the missing bolt should be is clearly visible in the commemorative photos given to association members.

Misner keeps his photo prominently displayed in his office, and the indignity of the substandard work still grates.

"It was devastating," he said. "We were angry. How did it get missed? It was a tough project to pull off, and to have that happen... we had engineers by the carload and we all missed that bolt."

After the lawsuits were settled, engineers brought in by Misner estimated that further stabilization might cost $1 million and would require lining the inside with concrete.

That would destroy the tunnel's historic value, Misner and Straight said, even if it would reconnect Grand and Boulder counties.

But tucked onto the eighth and final page of the 2002 wilderness law is language requiring the Forest Service, which controls the road and pass, to help reopen the tunnel and road if any of the neighboring counties request it.

The Forest Service, Misner and Straight say, was initially reluctant to support the 1987 reopening and felt burned by the subsequent accident that saw several agencies, including the county, the Forest Service and the contractors sued.

Now, Boulder Ranger Christine Walsh said she's willing to consider investigating a reopening as mandated by the wilderness legislation.

The law says: "If requested by one or more of the Colorado Counties of Grand, Gilpin, and Boulder, the Secretary shall provide technical assistance and otherwise cooperate with respect to repairing the Rollins Pass road in those counties sufficiently to allow two-wheel-drive vehicles to travel between Colorado State Highway 119 and U.S. Highway 40."

Walsh, however, worries that since the area is so scenic and pristine that it might get overused. The James Peak Wilderness legislation contemplates improving the pass so that cars could drive over.

"We have the direction from Congress ... and if the counties request it, we will respond," Walsh said. "We haven't been approached by any of the counties.

Today, an illegal mile-long road connects the Rollins Pass Road at Yankee Doodle Lake to the old Boulder Wagon Road atop the pass, on the western side of the tunnel.

The closed but unbarricaded route is popular with off-roaders willing to face Forest Service fines if caught. Walsh said she's preparing to close that illegal road permanently, regardless of whether the tunnel reopens.

Burned once, Misner said he'd like to see the tunnel reopened but is wary of the liability.

"The fact is that since we had an accident and an injury, the (government) players are reluctant to take the lead," he said.

For Walsh, the mandate to consider reopening tunnel must be balanced by the staggering impact that thousands of cars could have.

Walsh fears that making the area accessible to sedans and other two-wheel-drive cars could wreak havoc on the least-used part of the wilderness area

"There would be a huge demand. Everybody in the metro area could make it over," Walsh said. "You open this road and you take the last place in the (Boulder Ranger) District that doesn't get much use and you end up with a drive-through wilderness."

For Straight, the reopening starts with a fresh look at the tunnel's strength.

Since the 1990 fall, no other large rocks have dropped from the tunnel's mesh-covered roof, a fact not lost on Misner. The floor of the bore is scattered with small rocks, and each end is blocked with imposing concrete barriers.

The entrances are crumbling, Misner said, because melting snow runs into cracks and freezes, forcing the rock apart.

In a process described by Walsh as a "CAT scan for the tunnel," Straight wants to hire a Golden company to map the cracks and possible faults in the
tunnel roof.

After that, Straight said, he'd like to see the road reopened only to four-wheel-drive vehicles, a plan Walsh said would help her gauge demand for the route.

If hundreds of cars daily were driving up the pass road, the Forest Service would be obligated to improve it with turnouts, toilets and other amenities, Walsh said. And that would mean a lengthy environmental review, she added.

"The design isn't going to work for hundreds of cars a day," she said. "It could be risky.

Risky is something Straight is prepared for: He's already seen the tunnel fall once and is convinced it wouldn't happen again.

"Our goal is to apply for grants," Straight said in a recent letter to the Boulder County commissioners. "The Needle's Eye Tunnel should be the first restoration goal. The road is still rocky but the tunnel is still there after 100 years."

Trevor Hughes can be reached at 303-776-2244, Ext. 220, or by e-mail at thughes@times-call.com.