The Boys of Winter Charles Sanders257 pages, softcover: $19.95University Press of Colorado, 2005. Charles Sanders, an avid skier himself, tells the true stories of three champion skiers who joined the Army’s 10th Mountain Division during World War II. After training on the West’s snowy peaks, they went off to fight — and die — in […]
Recreation
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
RVs R Us
Living in a western Colorado mountain town that panders to tourists, vacationers and white-knuckled early retirees driving Greyhound buses converted to homes nicer than I live in, I, too, have suffered. I have been damned, dammed behind these tin-can condos as they’ve labored up passes like mastodons running a marathon. I’ve watched with a perverse […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The restoration will not be televised
In nature, there is neither right or wrong — only consequences. The truth of that is demonstrated in After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park. The wildfires that swept Yellowstone in 1988 were the first prime-time forest fires, according to the book. Television viewers stared aghast at the raging flames and […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The meeting of heaven and earth
In the dog days of August, Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes were blasted from a custom-made cannon at the top of a 150-foot tower on his land near Woody Creek, Colo. A lot of people were on hand, including former Sen. George McGovern and actor Johnny Depp, when the “gonzo” writer’s cremated remains, encased with fireworks […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
His playground pulls fun hogs off the public lands
NAME: Jeremy Parriott VOCATION: Extreme-sports videographer and promoter AGE: 32 HOME BASE: Moab, Utah CLAIM TO FAME: Helping to create “Area BFE,” a private playground for “extreme” off-roaders, mountain bikers and climbers. HE SAYS: “Public lands around here are getting pretty bombarded with use — why not bring it to a private place?” Standing […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
Winnebagos: Don’t fear ’em, cheer ’em
This is America: You can drive just about any kind of gas-guzzling, hydrocarbon-spewing rust-exhibit you want — unless you drive a recreational vehicle, otherwise known as an “RV.” Among the pundits of political correctness, driving an RV puts you one social notch above suspected terrorist. Sure, RVs are big, ugly, get notoriously poor mileage and […]
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
The beginning of everywhere, as seen on Lolo Peak
I have no doubt that I stand here at the very center of creation. Every fir tree, each of its needles, the movement of wind, all that I perceive and even more that I don’t, all resonate with a vital hum. It is the hum of the universe, what the Chinese call the ten thousand […]
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 inWotr
The last I looked, national parks weren’t zoos
“Yellowstone is a better park than Glacier because you can see more animals,” so announced one hiking client as I guided us through dense old-growth cedars. I didn’t know how to respond. Was I puzzled by the implication that our national parks should be rated on the same scale, even though each was set aside […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Developer blocks trail to a famous ‘fourteener’
Ambitious hikers eager to scale all of Colorado’s 54 “fourteeners” almost had one less peak to cross off their list. Texas developer Rusty Nichols owns a 300-acre patchwork of mining claims on Wilson Peak, a 14,017-foot-tall mountain in southwestern Colorado whose image adorns calendars, posters and Coors beer cans worldwide. Last July, citing liability concerns, […]
Posted inJune 13, 2005: Owning a Piece of Paradise
In the nation’s most dangerous park, the desert’s heat still beats
In Organ Pipe: Life on the Edge, author Carol Ann Bassett heeds the advice of her mentor, Ed Abbey: “Learning about the desert takes time,” she writes. “Abbey once wrote the best way to do so was to ‘Pick out a good spot and just sit there, not moving, for about a year — and […]
Posted inWotr
Why this ‘seasonal’ rides the public’s range
It’s day three into my 14th season at Grand Teton National Park, and now I must pass the infamous pack test. By carrying 45 pounds for 1.5 miles in less than 46 minutes, I’ll qualify for “arduous duty” as a wildland firefighter keeping an eye on lightning strikes. I wear a vest packed with weights […]
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 inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Revamped road to Chaco may be the park’s ruin
It takes an intrepid visitor to reach the ancient sites at Chaco Culture National Historic Park. After leaving the highway, archaeology aficionados travel a tooth-rattling 16 miles over a washboard gravel road. The road is passable, even to low-clearance passenger vehicles, but it isn’t the most comfortable drive. And that’s just the way the park […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Moab: On the horns of a recreation dilemma
Finally, a limit to off-roading on public lands
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Learning from Moab’s example
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Moab: On the horns of a recreation dilemma.” In western Colorado, the Bureau of Land Management has tackled the issue of dueling recreationists head-on, and come up with a plan that gives each user group room to […]
Posted inMay 16, 2005: Unsalvageable
The Hayduke Trail: A Guide to the Backcountry Hiking Trail on the Colorado Plateau
The Hayduke Trail: A Guide to the Backcountry Hiking Trail on the Colorado Plateau, Joe Mitchell and Mike Coronella, 288 pages, paperback $19.95. University of Utah Press, 2005. If you have to ask, “Who’s Hayduke?” this isn’t the book for you. This guide wanders from Zion National Park to Arches via the Grand Canyon, Bryce, […]