Currently, Koch’s ranch is split by a slim Bureau of Land Management parcel. That parcel contains a public access road into the Gunnison National Forest. In return for eliminating this forest access, and gaining a few other parcels in the same area (totaling about 1800 acres), Koch is offering the federal government a pair of […]
Recreation
Posted inNovember 28, 2011: Growing a Revolution
Fighting the wind on a Montana camping trip
My wife does not like the wind. I know this because she says so. “I hate the wind!” Crissie hollers, doing her best to be heard above it. It’s late June, 7 p.m., the first night of a three-day float down the Marias River in northern Montana, 40-some miles from the Canadian border. We woke […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Hunting deer on a mountain bike
In the tangle of gear in my daypack, the phone started ringing. It was a wholly inappropriate moment: My phone is pink, and its jaunty notes clashed with the traditional hunter’s world of blaze orange and camouflage. I sat on a rock by the trail and cringed. Everything about this — my first hunting trip […]
Posted inGoat
Trampled by tourists
In the five years I’ve been an environmental journalist, and during the previous several seasons I worked in conservation, helping manage and mitigate recreational impacts on public trails in Colorado, I’ve often heard the argument that maintaining a constituency for environmental protection depends on getting as many folks as possible out into the places most […]
Posted inRange
Nibbled to death by neighbors: the future of public lands?
Editor’s note: Sharon Friedman blogs on forest policy at “A New Century of Forest Planning” and will be posting occasionally on the Range blog. Some of the “public lands issues” that you usually don’t hear much about in the press are what we call “lands” issues. These have to do with infringements on public land […]
Posted inRange
Rhetoric around wolves clouds reality
If you only believed what you read in the papers, blogs or bumper stickers, you might think that hunters in the northern Rockies are revving up for a war on wolves. But when you look at hard numbers, the picture is quite different. Biologists have taught us that looks can be deceiving and unquestioned prejudices […]
Posted inWotr
Out stealing rocks from special places
A few months ago, I was making my way up Notchtop, a spire of rock in Rocky Mountain National Park. Just below the summit, I squatted over a thumb-sized piece of black and white rock and picked it up. I took a quick glance around to see if anyone was watching — besides my climbing […]
Posted inRange
A tale of two maulings
Two headlines recently caught my eye: in eastern Idaho, a hunter after elk with archery gear was mauled by a grizzly bear. His partner turned the attack around with pepper spray, although the bear still inflicted serious injuries. Details here. Earlier in September, another hunter was mauled in northwestern Montana, by a grizzly he and […]
Posted inGoat
Calories and economics on public lands
Back in the glitzy ’80s, uber-designer Diane von Furstenberg gained notoriety for telling women “you can never be too rich or too thin.” Turns out she was wrong on both counts. But those central obsessions of Americans, weight and wealth, have become a lens through which to view the benefits of a surprising array of […]
Posted inRange
Time to get serious about fun!
Now for some serious talk about fun. The world needs more fun. Lighten up. Grab a kid and a sack lunch and get outside. The backyard or the Brooks Range. It’s your duty, if you care about Mother Earth. Yes, write your Congressman. Yes, make that donation. Shop for organic, fairly traded, locally grown soy-burger […]
Posted inGoat
Illegal trailblazing as negotiation tool?
If you build it, the federal land agencies will include it. That’s what Montana mountain biking enthusiast Ron Cron counted on when he embarked on a three-day, illegal trail-making frenzy in the Flathead National Forest in May 2009, complete with jumps and other technical features. Illegal trail building is ubiquitous on Western public lands, plaguing […]
Posted inGoat
How much should hunters with ATVs be regulated?
The hunters stalked their game for hours, carefully taking note of scat and tracks the herd left behind. They hunted on foot through the West’s backcountry wilds, through brush and over mountains. A rumble in the distance sounded like the characteristic clap of a Rocky Mountain thunderstorm. It spooked the elk. Over the hill emerged […]
Posted inArticles
In search of diversity in our national parks
In the crowd of tourists on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, the Griffin family immediately caught my eye. Allen, Hashmareen and their two small boys were surrounded by thousands of other visitors, but the Griffins stood out because they were among only a handful of African-Americans I encountered in my travels. People of […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
Speaking truth to the Forest Service
Thanks for reporting on Jim Smith, who courageously pursued and won his 2010 court case against the Coconino National Forest for “parking and hiking” without paying fees (HCN, 6/27/11). I respectfully disagree with labeling him a “fee-dodger,” though, as the online version of your story did. Jim is a fee truth-teller! The Federal Lands Recreation […]
Posted inGoat
Montana Fly Shops Welcome New Customers: Hair Stylists
Despite their reputation as hangouts for brawny hook and bullet types, fly-fishing shops–particularly the fly-tying sections–have always been a tad swishy. No matter how you slice it, scores of straight-faced men poking through purple Krystal Flash and pearl Flashabou or inquiring about the next shipment of pink chenille isn’t exactly manly. But a recent women’s […]
Posted inWotr
Shifting gears to a brave new world of Lycra
After riding for 25 years atop my old English 10-speed with the skinny steel wheels and tape-wrapped handlebars, I finally bought one of those fancy, 21-speed mountain bikes. When I got the new bike home — they don’t call them bicycles anymore — and leaned it against the wall in my garage — where did […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
A fee-dodging retiree forces a national forest to rethink access charges
Soft-spoken, bespectacled Jim Smith makes an unlikely activist. The former Mobil Oil geophysicist retired to Sedona, Ariz., about 10 years ago, drawn by the spectacular red-rock scenery. In November 2009, Smith drove five miles of rough road to the Vultee Arch trailhead and backpacked in for a night. When he returned, he found the Forest […]
Posted inRange
An idea of Eden
I’ve been lucky enough to spend the past several days in paradise, which for me is the rough, unforgiving backcountry to southeastern Utah. Everyone has their own idea of Eden, shaped by individual as well as cultural ideals. These can shift and evolve due to circumstance, inclination, and, sometimes, tragedy. I haven’t always appreciated pinyon/juniper/sagebrush […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
How developers and businessmen cash in on Grand Canyon overflights
Tusayan, Arizona In the lobby of Papillon Helicopters’ terminal at Grand Canyon National Park Airport, Enrique Ochoa stared at his smart phone, searching for a WiFi signal. Unlike the scores of late-April tourists, who were waiting to board one of Papillon’s noisy helicopters for a $175, 30-minute Grand Canyon sightseeing flight, Ochoa was simply trying […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Sounds of the Grand Canyon, followed by a quiet helicopter
The natural sounds of birds and wind in the Grand Canyon, followed by the sound of one of the newer, quieter helicopters used in overflights. Sound clip taken at Dripping Springs trail by Mike Garvey.