As a cyclist, hiker and returnee to Colorado after a 30-year absence, I was surprised at the level of mayhem that piston-head vehicles have inflicted on the Front Range (“Western kids have fun — and die — motoring off-road,” HCN, 6/24/13). It’s a disappointment. Rather than sacrifice a beautiful state like Colorado, maybe we should […]
Recreation
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Next stop: Nanny State
It’s a proper function of the law to protect the public from improper actions by others, such as wanton destruction of public lands through thoughtless use of ATVs (“Western kids have fun — and die — motoring off-road,” HCN, 6/24/13). It is not a proper function of the law to protect people from their own […]
Posted inRange
How the BLM’s communication style can backfire
Land managers have a hard enough job without the repercussions of using words that leave the public confused and misled. The latest example comes out of southwestern Idaho, a modest parcel of public land called Big Willow near the town of Payette. There, off-road vehicle riders were running roughshod on both public land and adjoining […]
Posted inWotr
Con: Colorado National Monument should not become a national park
As a close neighbor and regular user of Colorado National Monument in western Colorado close to Grand Junction, I suffered a sharp attack of NIMBYism when I heard of a 2011 proposal to turn one of the nation’s oldest national monuments into one of its smallest, newest national parks. I blanched at the prospects of […]
Posted inWotr
Pro: Colorado National Monument should become a national park
There’s been a lot of hoopla and public meetings here in Grand Junction, Colo., about turning the nearby Colorado National Monument into a national park. My opinion is simply: Why not? I know this is not a passionate position, but this isn’t a passionate subject. As a former national park ranger, I know that the […]
Posted inWotr
River access in Montana is worth fighting for
For people who think heaven must be a lot like fishing and floating Montana’s beautiful rivers, access to them is once again at the top of our agenda. For many of us, it’s always been our first concern. Montana has probably the best and most egalitarian access laws in the country — at least when […]
Posted inWotr
About a disappearance in a national park
This happens all too often in the rugged backcountry of the West: A hiker goes out for a day, or an afternoon, and never returns. A search is launched, and eventually the person is found safe — or it ends less happily, and a body is recovered. This time it happened at Mesa Verde National […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
The ATV culture includes loose regulations — and kids’ funerals
Diezel De Rupp “enjoyed doing his little dance to the Dubstep” — electronic music propelled by drumbeats and heavy bass. In a photo, the 5-year-old looks delighted, his hair brushed upward in a peak and his shirtfront covered by the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s TapouT logo, celebrating martial arts. The boy lived in the Denver area, […]
Posted inWotr
My public land pup
My dog is the best dog in the world. Now, he hasn’t always been that way. He’s a springer spaniel-Labrador or a “springador,” and he was the puppy from hell. He chewed up three pairs of reading glasses and nibbled the top off of one of my cowboy boots. He didn’t do too well in […]
Posted inWotr
Five windshield visions
One: Nevada. A few miles from the California line, heading into the setting sun, I have to put my hand up to shade my eyes, so bright is the starflash on the windshield. Signs have warned, in wordless silhouette, of horses on the highway, and in fact I have seen two small herds of wild […]
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
Sycamore Canyon: an essay
These rocks are warm to the touch under noonday sun. I strip my socks off sweaty feet and stand in unlaced boots in the shade of a juniper. Angie perches with her left foot wedged toe-first into a crevice above me, her right leg hanging free. She snaps a quickdraw onto a hanger bolted into […]
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
Of sense and salinity: A swim in the Great Salt Lake
Standing barefoot and swimsuited on a concrete boat ramp, I eyed the shimmering surface of the Great Salt Lake. On this June morning, clouds of brine flies roiled inches above the water: mouth level if you’re a swimmer. Worse, the brine shrimp had hatched, and their countless tiny bodies had turned the water — usually […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Just the facts, ma’am
I was very disappointed with your travel issue (HCN, 3/18/13). The trees of Bernal Heights, a kayaking adventure to Alaska, gambling on the rez, volunteer tourism, secret getaways of the BLM groupie — it read more like a tourist tabloid for the West rather than the newspaper that I expect to inform me of the big […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
You, too, can be a BLM groupie
Craig Childs’ March 18 article about the Bureau of Land Management’s “shadow national park system” highlighted the remarkable discoveries — personal and scientific — available on the millions of acres within the National Landscape Conservation System (“Secret Getaways of a BLM Groupie,” HCN). On the hundreds of unique and irreplaceable conservation sites managed by the […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Bikers aren’t the only bandits
I just returned home from a long vacation to southern Arizona to find High Country News’ travel issue in my mailbox. “Volunteer tourism” by Henry Ring and Craig Childs’ “Secret Getaways of a BLM Groupie” were particularly well done (HCN, 3/18/13). Thousands of volunteers give tens of thousands of hours to protect and maintain our […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Ruins ruined in New Mexico, too
Tsankawi, a satellite ancestral Pueblo site of Bandelier National Monument, like the archaeological sites of Cedar Mesa, has been minimally supervised, and because it is right off the highway to the park it is often visited by people who want a less-groomed experience (“Ruining the ruins?” HCN, 3/4/13). Unfortunately, that hands-off approach has taken its […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Secret getaways of the National Landscape Conservation System
Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. Updated 4/9/13 The only map I have shows the way out of Las Vegas — always a good thing to know. It is crisp and folded-up on the passenger seat and it says to take the eastbound interstate, […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Field notes from a solo paddle in Alaska’s Inside Passage
Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. Mid-day on the last Fourth of July, I sat in my kayak and watched a parade like nothing I’d ever seen: Icebergs shaped like elaborate floats bobbed past me, one resembling an eagle, another a house, still others […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Kids in the backcountry: The earlier, the better
Note: This essay is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. The three of them race out in front of us — dots of colorful energy bushwhacking across the tundra, elevation over 10,000 feet, deep in the northern Wyoming’s Washakie Wilderness. Ruby, 11, Sawyer, 13, and Eli, 14. They […]