You may have seen news photos of the massive, shaggy beasts that are a national totem, standing more or less complacently while hunters approach. Easy as one, two, three, the animals come crashing down. It’s an outrageous sight, but strangely acceptable — the first hunting of Yellowstone National Park bison in 15 years. The last […]
National Park Service
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
Colorado River gets a recreation plan
The National Park Service’s new plan for the Grand Canyon river corridor may torpedo wilderness advocates, who are already swimming against a tide of motorboats and helicopters. Ten years ago, the Grand Canyon Management Plan required park managers to devise a new recreation strategy for the Colorado River that would address motorized usage, tourism’s impacts […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
An ecosystem wanting for wolves
Predators could bring Rocky Mountain National Park back into balance
Posted inWotr
Bison aren’t Buicks, and other dangerous beliefs
Don’t believe everything you hear about the West. While some Western myths are mere entertainment, others can kill you. Like thinking a 4-wheel drive provides traction on ice. Recently, some dangerously incorrect statements gained serious media attention during the first hunt in 15 years for bison leaving Yellowstone Park. Calling the hunt a slaughter, protesters […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
The Latest Bounce
So just who was it that helped the National Park Service rewrite its management policies? The agency has repeatedly said that “more than 100 key (Park Service) career professional staff” contributed to a controversial rewording of park guidelines in October to emphasize recreation over preservation (HCN, 11/14/05: Business booster still guides national park rules). But […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Business booster still guides national park rules
A newly released National Park Service management policy will reduce environmental protection and boost commercial interests, according to conservation groups. Specific words, entire paragraphs and whole chapters in the new rules trace back to a controversial document written this past summer by Paul Hoffman, the Interior Department’s deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Blood spills over a $14 camping fee
When Chief Ranger Jerry Epperson hired me to be a seasonal ranger at Arches National Park in Utah 25 years ago, I wasn’t sure what my duties were. So it seemed like a good idea to ask. Epperson smiled wryly and said, “A ranger should range.” So even though we had to endure chores like […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
To Save the Wild Bison
To Save the Wild Bison Mary Ann Franke309 pages, hardcover: $29.95University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. Mary Ann Franke traces the controversial history of Yellowstone National Park’s bison, the only wild bison herd that’s persisted since pre-Columbus days. Praised as a potent restorer of biodiversity, the animals have also been persecuted as transmitters of disease; dozens […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Revealed — secret changes to park rules
Critics say the Bush administration is again subverting the public process
Posted inWotr
Park ranger presides over the meeting of heaven and earth
In the dog days of this August, the ashes of “gonzo” writer Hunter S. Thompson are to be blasted out of a cannon from the top of a 150-foot tower, over the beauty of his mountain home near Woody Creek, Colo. Just a few weeks ago, while I was working at the Black Canyon of […]
Posted inWotr
How Delicate Arch was saved by bureaucratic stonewalling
“There have been some, even in the Park Service, who advocate spraying Delicate Arch with a fixative of some sort — Elmer’s glue perhaps or Lady Clairol Spray Net.” Believe it or not, that’s what Edward Abbey wrote in Desert Solitaire, and when I first read that, I thought he was kidding. The idea of […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Mountain bike association wheels into national parks
Mountain bikers scored an access victory last month when the National Park Service agreed to explore opening the long off-limits national park system to knobby tires. But riders won’t be hitting singletrack in Yellowstone or Yosemite anytime soon, says International Mountain Biking Association spokesman Mark Eller. The association signed a five-year deal with the Park […]
Posted inWotr
You don’t need a motor to experience Yellowstone
While I disagree with Interior Secretary Gale Norton’s agenda for Yellowstone National Park, I have to admire her political smarts. She showed great form during her recent snowmobile and snow coach tour of the park this winter. Secretary Norton charmed reporters with her grit, gamely bouncing through sub-zero temperatures on a three-hour snowmobile excursion, and […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
Lawsuits swarm around Yellowstone snowmobiles
As predicted, after seven years of lawsuits, contradictory plans and court rulings, the National Park Service announced on Nov. 4 that it will continue to allow hundreds of snowmobiles per day into Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks for the next three winters (HCN, 11/8/04: Judge vaporizes Yellowstone snowmobile ban). The new rules will allow […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
Anasazi outpost dodges the drill
In early December, Hovenweep National Monument, in the remote southeast corner of Utah, narrowly escaped an attempt to lease nearby land for oil and gas drilling. The monument’s 400-acre Square Tower unit was created in 1923 to protect the remains of an almost 800-year-old Anasazi settlement, where as many as 500 people once lived. From […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
What’s wrong with user fees?
Sen. Larry Craig’s article about “Fees and our forests don’t always fit” makes a few good points, although I think that it misses some others. What I do not understand is the reluctance of Sen. Craig to support these user fees, since according to him, activities like hunting, fishing and hiking are done on “unimproved […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
National parks pinching pennies
Former Park Service employees say headquarters is hiding budget woes
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Park police chief canned for candidness
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “National parks pinching pennies.” U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers didn’t know what to expect when she reported to the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy, on Dec. 5, 2003. “I had […]
Posted inWotr
When does our garbage become archaeology?
A rusted cooking pot, an old stove top, bits of china and pottery. Exploring in the woods around a backcountry chalet in Montana’s Glacier National Park, we poked through the remains of garbage–everything from glass chips to bed springs. We prodded these remnants of the past: Historic rubbish. Knowing the National Park Service classifies these […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
One national park could tell the truth about the West
The Black Canyon in western Colorado is one of the world’s most splendid examples of the depths to which erosion and uplift can go. A steep gash in ancient granite, nearly 3,000 feet deep — only 40 feet wide at its narrowest, and not a whole lot wider at its rim — the Black Canyon […]