Forty bison mill about on the football field at the school in Gardiner, Mont. One of the shaggy beasts rubs her head vigorously against the goalpost. A light snow is falling. I walk over and sit on a nearby boulder. I feel that it is the least I can do — just sit in the […]
Recreation
Posted inWotr
Grand Canyon and motorboats don’t mix
Last fall, standing on the traditional scouting point high above Grand Canyon’s legendary rapid, Lava Falls, we debated our course. Low water relieved us of the agony of choice: The left run, a maze of boulders, was too treacherous; we resigned ourselves to paddling the right-hand run through Lava’s thundering mayhem. Thirty years of river- […]
Posted inWotr
Motorized rafts bring the public to enjoy Grand Canyon’s wonders
The National Park Service is now designing a new plan for managing whitewater river trips through the Grand Canyon. But in pursuit of a no-compromise agenda, a small group of wilderness advocates would like the clean, quiet, low-powered and environmentally friendly motors used on these trips banned. They’d like most of the park, including 240 […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Backcountry adventure in the comfort of your living room
Armchair horseback riders can hit the trail with Don West’s Have Saddle, Will Travel: Low-Impact Trail Riding and Horse Camping. The book features West’s personal stories, poems and “Don’s Daily Dozen,” 13 of the author’s favorite exercises to keep riders in top form. As readers relive West’s wilderness adventures — which include chasing down frightened […]
Posted inWotr
Snowmobilers need to police their bad apples
A recent story in my local newspaper, headlined “Snowmobiler says riders endure hate” made me sit up straight. The article quoted Clark Collins of the Idaho-based BlueRibbon Coalition, who said that snowmobilers have become victims of a campaign “akin to any other hate campaign against ethnic or religious groups.” Mr. Collins’ comments interest me because […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Get off and walk – wilderness is for wildlife
Like many mountain bikers, I’m happiest when I’m charging up and down hills through the West’s spectacular public lands. I live in Durango, Colo., arguably the mountain bike capital of the world, and I ride every day. While I’ve spent most of my cycling years on roads, in the last five years I’ve been spending […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Let bikers in, and we’ll stand behind wilderness
I’m a mountain bicyclist. The pleasure of my life is pedaling through wild places, experiencing the views, the changing colors and textures of the plant life, the occasional animal sightings. On the trail, I’m renewed, and my commitment to public-land preservation is strengthened. I think that’s the way most mountain bikers feel, and historically, we’ve […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Off-roaders torpedo a wilderness alternative
When it comes to protecting land, Utah knows only deadlock
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Born to be winter wild
For years, the only national organization representing winter recreation required members to embrace the two-stroke engine. But two years ago, a group of backcountry winter-recreation groups in California, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada united to create the Winter Wildlands Alliance to work for “human-powered” winter recreation on public lands. Today, the Boise, Idaho-based Alliance serves as […]
Posted inWotr
Yellowstone should keep out polluting and intrusive snowmobiles
In 2003, Yellowstone will celebrate a centennial. It’s been 100 years since President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated the famous stone archway at the north entrance of the world’s first national park. The Park Service plans to commemorate the event. I wonder what Roosevelt would say if he could attend. I picture him pounding his fist and […]
Posted inWotr
Snowmobiles are the people’s choice for Yellowstone
The Bush administration’s decision to upset the ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park has been met, as expected, with howls of outrage from both environmentalists and a lot of the media. After the millions of grant dollars spent lobbying and litigating to ban snowmobiles, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other environmental groups should be […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2002: In search of the Glory Days
The canyon between us
We set out in his truck on the day after Christmas, the man I loved and I, winding our way west from Colorado into Utah. We took the highway to Gateway, then the road to Paradox. The road took us through canyons where nobody else seemed to be awake, the occasional ranch as empty and […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Feds bail on snowmobile ban
WYOMING/MONTANA After nearly two years of pressure from the Bush administration, on Nov. 12 the National Park Service finally abandoned its plan to ban snowmobiles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Instead, beginning in the winter of 2003-04, the number of snowmobiles will be capped, and the winter after that, all snowmobiles must have […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Clinton-era monuments weather court challenge
A federal court has ruled that former President Clinton did, in fact, have the authority to create national monuments in four Western states. The Blue Ribbon Coalition, an off-road vehicle users group, and the Mountain States Legal Foundation had opposed the designation of six monuments in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. National monument designation limits […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
New ski resort goes big
IDAHO Construction has begun 90 miles north of Boise on the first new ski resort in North America in two decades (HCN, 12/20/99: An upscale development divides a town). Developer WestRock Resort envisions a year-round operation with a 3,600-acre ski hill, 2,000 luxury housing and hotel units, and an 18-hole golf course near tiny Donnelly, […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
How to make your own Yellowstone, Mexican style
A corporate behemoth races to restore a Coahuilan gem
Posted inWotr
On the road in the New West of Wyoming
The hitchhiker looked a little wild-eyed, or maybe shocked, when I stopped on the highway shoulder. “Where are you going?” I shouted. “Cody, Wyoming,” he said, staring through thick glasses at the canoe on my roof rack. He had no pack, no bag, nothing that identified him as either a local or an ordinary traveler. […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2002: Shadow Creatures
Yellowstone goes retro
Yellowstone is not only our first national park; in 1922, it was also the nation’s second-largest bus company (right behind Greyhound), operating a fleet of 400 yellow convertible buses for visitors who traveled to the park by rail. But by the 1960s, as automobiles became the preferred transportation to the park, the yellow buses were […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2002: Shadow Creatures
Jet Ski riders circle the wagons
Starting Nov. 6, watercraft will be banned from Lake Powell
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Peer pressure
Violence against National Park Service law enforcement employees – including shootings and assaults – increased 940 percent in 2001. And just this past August, Mexican fugitives killed a park ranger in Organ Pipe National Monument in Arizona. These alarming statistics are included in a report released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a private nonprofit […]