“Wholly an unattractive country. There is nothing whatever in it, no object of interest to the tourist, and there is not one out of twenty who visits for purposes of observation this remote section.” So declared one congressman in the late 1800s, dismissing the valleys of Yellowstone. What a difference a century can make: Today, […]
Recreation
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
President Bush should consider a “land grab” of his own
I flew into the sprawling city of Phoenix recently not expecting a nature experience or a political revelation. My colleague and I rented a car and, after an appointment in the city, fought through an hour of bumper-to-bumper afternoon traffic on our way north to Flagstaff. What a relief it was to finally see the […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Ski areas get greener
Western ski areas got their best grades yet in the 2003-2004 Ski Area Environmental Scorecard — but they weren’t spectacular. The median score for the 76 ski areas, graded by the Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition, was a C+. Tops were Colorado’s Aspen (93.9) and Buttermilk (93.3), which earned high marks for being environmentally conscious. Vail […]
Posted inWotr
You can’t share a trail with an obnoxious machine
Around my hometown, as in so much of this quality-of-life Western landscape, there is strong competition for recreational space, and strident discussions about how to allocate that resource. In the debate, an occasional cry for tolerance is expressed, a call for the equable sharing of trails between practitioners of different forms of recreation. Mostly, the […]
Posted inWotr
Surprise: Snowmobiles aren’t completely evil
There’s no question: They stink, they’re noisy, and they scare wildlife. Snowmobiles are truly obnoxious. But while I applaud Yellowstone’s contested ban on snowmobiles, I’ve had to rethink my own stance. For as much as I dislike the smelly machines, snowmobiles have their place. As a cross-country skier, I’ve never really cared for snowmobiling, especially […]
Posted inWotr
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 and not much wider at its rim, the Black Canyon is the kind of geological anomaly we like to single out […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Park Service wilderness in disarray
Departing wilderness boss blasts the agency
Posted inWotr
Death in the backcountry comes with the territory
Search-and-rescue teams have been busy the past few weeks in the mountains of Southern California, looking for lost hikers, and instead finding corpses. Six times since Jan. 1, men described by friends and family as “experienced” outdoor travelers have slipped from icy trails and suffered injuries that, if not fatal outright, proved to be so […]
Posted inWotr
Super-heated Yellowstone and the restoration of awe
In the Yellowstone ecosystem, super-heated water bubbles from fissures and cauldrons, cascades over rock, steams in sub-freezing air, encrusts trees, hair and clothing with frost. It’s a landscape of paradox: enchanting and fierce, suggestive of both eternal stillness and perpetual change, a reminder that — even now — we inhabit a molten world that existed […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Yellowstone snowmobilers suffer whiplash
Judge says Interior Department is to blame for last-minute reinstatement of snowmobile ban
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
A moment of truth for user fees
Critics say fees take the ‘public’ out of the public lands
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Can skiers and snowmobilers coexist?
With conflict on the rise, “quiet” recreationists want segregation in the backcountry
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Cattalo could get the boot
The verdict is in — genetically speaking — on a troublesome bison herd in the Grand Canyon. The state-owned bison herd has been straying from its range north of the canyon and venturing into Grand Canyon National Park (HCN, 4/28/03: Bison arrive in Grand Canyon uninvited). The state wants to leave the herd on the […]
Posted inWotr
Why I love one of Utah’s most remote places
I’ve always been attracted to parts of Utah that others describe as being a whole lot of nothing, godforsaken or not-the-end-of-the-earth-but-you-can-see-it-from-there. I think our preference for landscapes can be just as trite as our preference for beautiful people hawking products in magazines or delivering the mundane news on television. We like pretty. Not me. So-called […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2003: San Diego's Habitat Triage
Park expansion threatened
A ranch that promised to be an important addition to Wind Cave National Park in the Black Hills is now for sale on the open market. The 5,555-acre Casey Ranch would increase the park’s land base by 20 percent, and add an 85-year-old homestead and a “buffalo jump” — a cliff from which American Indian […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2003: San Diego's Habitat Triage
On a new national monument, has an agency been cowed?
Can cows coexist with rare plant communities in a national monument? That is what President Clinton asked the Bureau of Land Management to determine when he created the 52,947-acre Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in 2000. The monument, east of Ashland, Ore., is an ecological crossroads where three distinct bioregions – the Siskiyou Mountains, the Cascade Range […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2003: The Gear Biz
National monuments are here to stay
President Clinton’s national monuments have survived a legal assault by two conservative groups that sought to strip the areas of protection. On Oct. 6, the Supreme Court declined to hear arguments against six Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service-managed monuments created in 2000 and 2001. The monuments, including Grand Canyon-Parashant in Arizona and Giant […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2003: The Gear Biz
Snowmaking and drought: a bad combination
Researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder say that extended drought, coupled with mining pollution, could make for rocky winters at Colorado ski resorts. A recently released study published in the American Geophysical Union’s EOS Journal examines the Snake River Watershed in Summit County, Colo., where hotter weather threatens snow conditions at popular ski resorts […]
Posted inWotr
Ski resorts go for the green
Because ski resorts are beautiful in winter and green in summer, they have usually been considered good environmental citizens. But in the last few years, that perception has begun to erode. In 1997, there was the Earth Liberation Front’s terrorist attack on Vail’s Two Elks Lodge to protest the resort’s expansion into lynx habitat. Later, […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2003: The Gear Biz
Bill would redraw the boundaries of national monument
But some Montana ranchers want to stay where they are