Whats going on near the Flat Tops?

I have a place I keep on the western slope of Colorado near Paonia, Colorado. I drive there quite frequently and take Interstate 70 from my home in Denver west to Glenwood Springs and then south to Carbondale. I have often noticed (maybe 10% of the time, traveling once a week at around noon on weekdays) that I see an un-marked Blackhawk helicopter flying from what is the gypsum, Colorado area (The Eagle county airport is right there), west towards Dotsero, Colorado and up the valley towards the Flat Tops wilderness area. Since I live near an airforce base outside of Denver I see helicopters all the time. But the one I see near gypsum is not marked, black in color and are flying into an area where I am unable to find any government facilities. Nor do I believe they are transiting through the area because where would they be going? There is nothing due north of dotsero. From the road I cant tell which direction it heads in after the corner, but nothing much up the road but mountains and forest. Unfortunately I dont have any pictures or video, only locations and what I see.
Location:
39°38'58.65"N 107° 3'51.66"W
This is the point at which I see the helicopters go north. They are approx 500 feet off the ground and flying nap of the earth.

I would like to know if anyone has any information to what is going on near Gypsum? Has anyone seen the same thing? Where could these helicopters be flying to?

This may be what you are seeing????


High-altitude helicopter training restricted
www.rockymountainnews.com...


The Colorado Army National Guard will maintain its annual high-altitude helicopter training on Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands in Eagle and Garfield counties at 3,000 hours.

The Guard also has agreed to additional stipulations in order to protect wilderness areas, wildlife and livestock, the White River National Forest and BLM announced today.

The military believes high-altitude combat training is vital for the protection of pilots and aircrews. In combat, aircrews trained in high-altitude aviation have a higher mission success rate as well as fewer accidents. As such, the Army had asked for 6,000 hours that could spend training in the High-Altitude Army Aviation Training Site area around Gypsum.

"We all understand and respect the need for this training, and the three agencies sat down to work through potential issues while keeping in mind the important goals of the Colorado National Guard," said White River National Forest Planner Wendy Haskins. "What we found is that the current 3,000 training hours meets the needs of the pilots without providing an undue burden on public lands resources."

Working together on the environmental assessment, including reviewing public comments and the environmental analysis, the three agencies added stipulations for the site to include:

Avoiding flights over congressionally-designated wilderness.


Decrease significantly the number of landings within the Red Table and Dome Peak recommended wilderness areas.


Respect the needs of wildlife and livestock.


Honor special interest areas.
For more information on the decision, contact Wendy Haskins, White River National Forest planner at 970-945-3303; or Brian Hopkins, Bureau of Land Management community planner at 970-947-2840.

It's the Colorado Air Guard doing high altitude training. You can read about it here:
www.coloradoguard.army.mil...

It's a great program. Sorry no secret ET base..

Thanks for the information, this is what I keep seeing. I never thought it was ET but was just curious of where they were going. It just looked out of place for the area, but gotta train at high altitude somewhere. Thanks again for the reply!