Dear HCN,
Scott Stouder’s article
about extending a road on the rim of Hells Canyon brought back
memories (HCN, 4/14/97). I guided river trips in Hells Canyon,
backpacked through the Oregon-side wilderness areas, and taught
school in Halfway, Ore., in the early “70s. His article illustrated
the continuous assault on wilderness values throughout the West by
“wise-use” forces.
There are other examples:
snowmobile tracks in Yellowstone National Park’s Hayden Valley,
race-car driver Bobby Unser’s well-documented snowmobile invasion
of the San Juan Wilderness in Colorado, and rock star Ted Nugent’s
recent plea to “tear down the walls to wilderness in North America”
so he can hunt in national parks.
The attempt by
New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Steve Schiff to delete 8.5
acres from Petroglyph National Monument to bisect the monument with
a six-lane highway is another development-inspired attack upon the
integrity of the national parks system. While that urban element of
the system is not wilderness by any stretch of the imagination, it
is a sacred landscape to Native Americans and is as close to
wilderness as many people in Albuquerque ever
experience.
I say defeat Rep. Bob Smith’s HR-799
to dilute Hells Canyon wilderness. I say defeat the proposed
Domenici-Schiff legislation to desecrate Petroglyphs National
Monument. And may I suggest two new books to read: Rick Bass’ The
Book of Yaak and Jack Turner’s The Abstract
Wild.
Verne
Huser
Albuquerque, New
Mexico
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Stop the assaults on wilderness.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
