Forest Service officials in Driggs, Idaho, found a
homemade fertilizer bomb on their office doorstep Oct. 19. Targhee
National Forest Supervisor Jerry Reese thinks the bomb, which was
quickly defused by a sheriff’s deputy, might have been planted by
someone upset with road closures meant to protect grizzly bear
habitat. Off-road vehicle users and others have opposed the
closings. Reese told the Jackson Hole Guide, “There are more
positive ways of getting your concerns resolved.”
Vail ski-resort officials
worry they’re getting burned by rumors. Some stories in circulation
say the early November fires burned down Vail Mountain and
destroyed 31 lifts, according to Chris Jarnot, marketing director
for Vail and Beaver Creek. In fact, the fires destroyed a lodge,
the ski patrol headquarters and did minimal damage to three lifts.
Chair five, more seriously damaged, will be running by Christmas
(HCN, 11/9/98). Vail is sending out more than 400,000 letters to
skiers, explaining that the resort is open now, as usual. “It’s a
concern for us,” Jarnot told the Vail/Beaver Creek Times, but “our
reservations are holding strong.”
Two weeks after the Vail
fires, the Bureau of Reclamation announced it is tightening
security at dams around the West. Visitors to Glen Canyon Dam below
Utah’s Lake Powell and to Flaming Gorge Dam on the Utah-Wyoming
border will no longer be able to poke around without a tour guide.
“There has been no one single incident or threat or situation that
caused us to change the policy,” BuRec spokesman Barry Wirth told
the Salt Lake Tribune. “It’s more the cumulative change in the
atmosphere of our society.”
Along the Jarbidge River in
Nevada, Elko County crews bulldozed a Forest Service road in July,
dumping debris into the river and prompting the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service to provide emergency endangered species protection
for the Jarbidge bull trout (HCN, 9/14/98). Now, the county wants
to work with the Forest Service to repair the road. But the county
wants the road open, while the feds want it closed and planted with
vegetation to keep more sediment from washing into the river. “We
can fight over who owns the road later,” county commissioner Tony
Lesperance told the Elko Daily Free Press. “But if it turns out we
own the road, I’ll be the first to drive over their newly planted
vegetation.”
* Greg
Hanscom
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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