Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, I love optimists, I really do. I’m one myself. I’m especially fond of the quintessential pie-in-the-sky optimists like Dyan Zaslowsky, who recommends just saying “no” to whatever hot spot is being loved to death in your neighborhood (HCN, 9/16/96). Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether someone is starry-eyed, or just loves the sound […]

Dear HCN, Writer Dyan Zaslowsky suggests that we stay home and give parks a rest (HCN, 9/16/96), which ticks me off for two reasons: If you go more than three miles on almost any trail, you are going to be alone. So the issue of parks being elbow-to-elbow with people is silly. Crowding is usually […]

Dear HCN, Jonathan Brinckman’s profile of Senate hopeful Walt Minnick is written with the arrogance that all too often portrays people of the land as part of the problem but ignores very real problems created by growth in the West (HCN, 9/30/96). Consider his thesis: Those in Idaho who care about the environment are battling […]

Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ otherwise excellent “Washington Watch” column Sept. 16 contained the following sentence: “Bill Clinton has the aesthetic sensibilities of a frog.” On behalf of the Amphibian-American community, I would like to state that this is an unfair and unkind slur against frogs. What would a moonlit evening be without the musical chorus […]

Dear HCN, There is another side to fire as a “natural tool” for achieving forest health. One problem is that we no longer have natural forests, since for the last 80 years, fire has been suppressed, giving us an unnatural condition. I have been monitoring some of the Forest Service’s controlled burns in Wallowa County […]

Dear HCN, Your Sept. 30 issue profiling Walt Minnick was encouraging; let’s hope he prevails. But Minnick’s strategy and Stephen Stuebner’s report misses the mark. The politics of the New West are much more complex than the hope that newcomers are liberal, pro-environment, urban refugees. Between 1985 and 1991, according to Census Bureau estimates, 2 […]

Dear HCN, High-powered environmentalists, stealthily working behind the scenes, have persuaded President Clinton to support a $65 million land exchange that will rescue Yellowstone National Park from the proposed New World Mine (HCN, 9/2/96). I wish I could be pleased by this news, but I am not. Like many Americans, I consider the mining proposal […]

Dear HCN, I’m a bit puzzled by your article on “Earth First! The Next Generation” (HCN, 9/2/96). It’s not the first of its kind I’ve read this year but I continue to wonder what all the fuss is about. Could it be the unexpected appearance of consistency among a group of people generally portrayed as […]

Dear HCN, I wish to thank my detractors, who have flailed away at me and my poem, Advice for visitors to Rock Springs (HCN, 9/16/96). One accused me of being full of shit. Darn it, it’s probably true, and may be the main reason I write at all. I’m glad HCN liked the poem enough […]

Dear HCN, Hal Walter is all wet. I’ve packed with llamas an average of 300 miles, 65 miles per week at elevations averaging 12,000 feet, each summer since 1985. The average weight carried per llama during the week has been 90 pounds. When my llamas want to crap or pee at a creek crossing I […]

Dear HCN, I am a professional engineer and general techno-fan who aspires eventually to get a pilot’s license for recreational flying. I am also a hiker and boater who can’t understand why Americans feel they must have access via gasoline-powered aircraft to some of the few remaining remote places in this country. I believe all […]

Dear HCN, Ed Quillen’s article on the Disappearing railroad blues shows the West is changing (HCN, 8/5/96), but I must disagree with his inference that tourism brings only minimum wage jobs. Tourists bringing in their $1,800 bikes on $30,000 vehicles are also going to spend millions on motels, quality restaurants, bike and vehicle mechanics, outfitters, […]

Dear HCN, Although poetic license and the First Amendment no doubt allow Chris Ransick the right to perpetuate a myth if s/he wants to, still I have to comment on the mean-spirited “Advice for Visitors to Rock Springs’ (HCN, 8/19/96). If people who so freely criticize Rock Springs ever left I-80’s truck stops they might […]

Dear HCN: Last November, I was in the White House, having secured an appointment with the Clinton administration to talk about the salvage-logging rider. I wore the same suit as when I was arrested for civil disobedience two days before – now somewhat scuffed up. We started into discussions about the terrible impact of the […]

Dear HCN, I am a former staff member of Pathfinders, a wilderness, emotional-growth program which ceased operation in July due to an investigation into alleged negligence and abuse after two students contracted strep A virus in Colorado. I thought that your article on a Utah wilderness therapy program (-Tough love proves too much’, HCN, 6/10/96) […]

Dear HCN, Hey, Hal Walter, take a geography class (HCN, 8/19/96). Juan Valdez lives in Colombia, llamas don’t. Coffee grows in the tropical highlands, llamas haul loads over high and arid Andean passes in the altiplano of Peru, Bolivia and Chile – just a few thousand feet higher than your 12,000-foot Colorado mountain pass. And […]

Dear HCN, I really loved Hal Walter’s piece on llamas (HCN, 8/19/96). I hope it will dispel the myth about the world’s most over-rated beast. As for Chris Ransick on Rock Springs, he’s full of shit. There is an excellent diner (cum Chinese) on Elk Street. I’ve no idea who Poiesis is, but I hope […]

Dear HCN, Thanks for the story of the U.S. House of Representatives voting 221-200 to cut funding for the Animas-La Plata Project (HCN, 8/5/95). Since the Senate then voted to include funding, it will now go to a conference committee for some sort of compromise. But it is clear that the dam’s days are numbered. […]

Dear HCN, In response to your article about benefits from releasing water from Glen Canyon Dam (HCN, 7/22/96), I called the Bureau of Reclamation in late April, and their best projection was that 104,000,000 kwh of hydro generation would be lost due to the release. It takes more than 60,000 tons of coal to generate […]

Dear HCN, Those of us who regularly pack with llamas were dismayed by the condescending nature of Hal Walter’s essay (HCN, 8/19/96). This burro packer’s diatribe against llamas is fraught with misinformation. For example, Walter states that he has never seen a llama perform well when carrying over 40 pounds. I regularly put 80 pounds […]