Gary Sprung

Although mountain bikers are essentially silent, as well as not motorized, not polluting, muscle-powered, and most importantly, appreciative of Nature and wild places, environmentalists like HCN Editor Greg Hanscom have from the beginning thumbed their noses at us. In his Sept. 18 editorial, Hanscom says we “should stay out of wilderness politics,” because there ought […]

Dear HCN, In his Bulletin Board story on the BLM’s OHV Strategy (HCN, 1/29/01: Agency will try to track trails), Matt Jenkins wrote that the Strategy “will now include … possibly even human-powered vehicles like mountain bikes.” It’s important to note that BLM chose to not include bicycling in its OHV Strategy. BLM’s decision came […]

Dear HCN, I want to offer what I hope people will perceive to be a constructive alternative to the controversial Animas-La Plata dam project. The solution is simple: Purchase ranches in southwest Colorado and give them to the two Ute tribes and their members (HCN, 11/11/96). Most ranches come with significant, high-priority water rights. The […]

Dear HCN, Sierra Club leader Michael McCloskey was correct when he told his board that community collaboration processes “have the effect of transferring influence to the very communities where we are least organized and potent.” He went on to note that local environmentalists often lack experience, training, skills and money. So what is the correct […]

Dear HCN, Jeffrey St. Clair complained in the last issue that no “abolitionists’ were included in the Colorado grazing reform working group. Of course they were excluded! That decision was deliberate. The sharing of goals is a necessary preliminary to any successful resolution of conflict, and the abolitionists declare outright that they don’t share the […]