Sitting on his grandma's lap, 3-year-old Sam Barnett popped a marshmallow into his mouth. With a little laugh, he shoved in another.
A shady spot next to the Big Wood River at the Sun Peak picnic area north of Ketchum provided a few quiet moments Monday for three generations of Sam's family.
"It's close to town and it's convenient ... (but) you feel like you're way out in the wilderness," said grandmother Trudy Pedersen, who frequently comes up from Twin Falls to spend time in her and her husband's Elkhorn condo. "If you get here and you've forgotten your matches or hot dog buns, it's really easy to just go into (town)."
The city of Ketchum is hoping to acquire the Bureau of Land Management-owned land that comprises Sun Peak and has commissioned an attorney to draw up a letter to the agency detailing a proposal.
Sun Peak is located north of Ketchum, west of state Highway 75 and immediately southeast of Hulen Meadows subdivision. It is part of a larger BLM parcel that stretches about a quarter-mile to the west of Highway 75 and a few miles to the east.
Ketchum leaders have identified in the city's comprehensive plan the Sun Peak area as property desirable for acquisition, said City Administrator Ron LeBlanc. It is also a prime spot for a new well that could provide water to the city's Griffin Butte tanks.
"It would be a good well site for us because it's on the upper end of our system," LeBlanc said. "If the well is to the north, everything flows downhill ... It would be less energy to pump."
If the city acquires the land, it plans to keep Sun Peak as a picnic area, with a few additions.
Among developments being considered are a kayak park and four housing units for firefighters staffing the nearby Ketchum Rural Fire District station. No new fees for park use are planned, LeBlanc said.
Sun Peak is one of the most heavily used recreation areas in the BLM's Shoshone region.
"It is very hard to keep it up because of the usage," said Tara Hagen, Shoshone field office realty specialist.
During a land reclassification procedure in the late 1990s, the BLM attempted to reclassify its Wood River Valley holdings as suitable for exchange.
But public comment helped sway the federal agency's management approach in the valley.
"One of our priorities in Blaine County is to maintain public pieces of land," Hagen said. "What the BLM wants to do is protect public land and provide for public uses."
Land-use amendments were finalized by the agency in 2003. For the 121,000 acres of public land in Zone 5, the Wood River Valley, management plans emphasize consolidation of ownership but with special considerations for the area.
In addition to maintaining public acreage, the BLM wants to acquire additional high-value lands and protect floodplains, Hagen said. Values are based on recreation, minerals, range, riparian and wetland areas, cultural and natural resources and wildlife habitat.
"Those issues would be in the forefront (in considering a transfer)," she said.
Any land exchange or sale done administratively, or through the BLM office, has to go through a public comment period and an environmental analysis, and the BLM has to ensure the relinquishment of the federal land is in the public's best interest.
"Now that the frontier is supposedly closed and we're not on a path to privatize land, there has to be some larger public purpose that is served," said Janine Blaeloch, director of Western Lands Project, a Seattle-based organization that monitors federal land exchanges.
But land can also be transferred through legislative action, Blaeloch said. If the land transfer is done in the U.S. Congress, the public process can be circumvented.
"Conveying land in Congress ... it just doesn't get on the screen for the public," Blaeloch said.
LeBlanc said the public would be involved in any proposed acquisition or development.
"We would do things in the light of day," he said.
The BLM Shoshone office has a backlog of approximately 130 such proposals, Hagen said. It typically takes between two and three years to complete a proposal's processing, from the negotiation stage to closing.
Trudy Pedersen and her husband, Ken, don't mind if the city takes ownership of the land as long as they can still enjoy a sunny afternoon with loved ones on the Sun Peak grounds.
"Just don't sell it to somebody to put up a million-dollar home," Ken Pedersen said.
