Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Visitors to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument along the Arizona/Mexican border experience one of the most untrammeled pieces of Sonoran Desert in the American Southwest. Nourished by two rainy seasons a year, it teems with hundreds of plant species, including towering saguaro, ocotillos and […]
Recreation
Posted inOctober 9, 2000: The hunters and the hunted
Wilder Grand Canyon proves too contentious
Lawsuit replaces talk about the fate of 94 percent of the park
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Ranchers test an agency’s image
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt boasts that the BLM is moving away from its early reputation as the “Bureau of Livestock and Mining” to a more conservation-minded agency overseeing national monuments around the West (HCN, 11/22/99). This summer, when managers ordered cows off Utah’s drought-stricken Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, that new reputation was put to the […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Yellowstone’s bison get a time limit
Yellowstone National Park’s long-awaited plan for managing its wandering bison herds hasn’t made everyone happy. The park’s final environmental impact statement, released in early September, tries to satisfy both bison advocates and the Montana Department of Livestock, which kills bison it fears could spread brucellosis to cattle. The park’s preferred alternative would allow a bigger […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
A park rediscovers a surprising asset
Springdale, Utah – Though some still question the wisdom of spending $11.8 million on 350 shuttle buses for Zion National Park (HCN, 4/10/00), practically everyone agrees that they allow an unexpected experience to emerge from the surreal canyons of Utah. Quiet strikes tourists when they step off a propane-powered bus at any of the seven […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Of bison, the French and our faux wild
There’s an inside joke in these parts that Yellowstone bison have a thing for French photographers. It’s a weird twist on dwarf tossing, this propensity of theirs to spear and fling men with names like Jacques and Pierre. Now, this is not a hard and fast rule. The most recent casualty was an elderly Australian […]
Posted inSeptember 11, 2000: Holy water
ORVs named one of top threats
Off-road vehicle use is one of the most serious threats to wild places, according to a Wilderness Society report outlining the 15 most endangered wild lands in the United States. Jerry Greenberg of The Wilderness Society says that although mining and oil drilling industries can’t be ignored, soil erosion and pollution from ORVs are fast-growing […]
Posted inSeptember 11, 2000: Holy water
What’s best for a crumbling treasure?
Plans to rescue Glacier’s hotels could be a sweetheart deal for big business in a national park
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
No recreation fees – for now
WYOMING There’s at least one way to get around the government’s recreation fee-demonstration program. Just one week before the Forest Service installed signs telling visitors that they’d have to pay to enjoy the Snake River in Wyoming, an anonymous donor offered $50,000 to keep river access free. Then the nearby Jackson, Wyo., community added its […]
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
Whirlybirds will fly over Jackson
WYOMING After months of bitter debate, the Jackson Hole Airport at the edge of Grand Teton National Park has decided to allow some helicopter flights. Vortex Aircraft CEO Gary Kauffman originally proposed scenic air tours of the Jackson Hole Valley, the Bridger-Teton National Forest and the National Elk Refuge, but not over Teton National Park. […]
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
Telluride tackles ski town sprawl
It’s big money vs. big money in Colorado development battle
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
The next great adventure: Stay home
The cover of a recent issue of National Geographic Adventure proclaims “America’s Best! The Adventure 100.” Topping the “adrenaline trip” list are the Colorado River and the White Rim Trail in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. In the “Letter from the Editor,” John Rasmus muses: “We need vacations! We all need to decompress from the rigors […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Raging river, quiet mind
Field Notes from the Grand Canyon: Raging River, Quiet Mind, by Teresa Jordan, Johnson Books, 1880 S. 57th Court, Boulder, CO 80301, 2000. Paperback: $14. “There is a Zen saying that when the student is ready, the teacher is there,” writes Teresa Jordan, who had carried her watercolors on a dozen different trips, never to […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Volunteer Stewards
The state of Colorado is looking for “volunteer stewards” to be its eyes and ears in the field. The state’s Natural Areas Program asks stewards to visit areas such as the alpine meadows surrounding Gothic, Colo., and the desert Escalante Canyon, and report back on what they find. You’ll need a good pair of hiking […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Climbing is the easy part
COLORADO To scale a “fourteener,” it helps to possess the body of a goat and the nerves of a test pilot. To climb 14,047-foot Culebra Peak in southern Colorado, you also need to join a club. Culebra Peak is part of the 77,000-acre Taylor Ranch near San Luis, Colo., which was sold last year to […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Expansion faces restrictions
COLORADO Telski, the ski resort in southern Colorado’s Telluride, is expanding onto national forest lands now that a lawsuit brought by two locals and two environmental groups has been settled (HCN, 8/4/97: A do-over in Telluride). In an out-of-court agreement, Telski owner, Telluride Ski & Golf Co., was authorized to add 733 acres, nearly doubling […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Freedom of speech shines in Arizona cave
State reinstates biologist fired for criticizing managers at Kartchner Caverns
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
A gutsy activist challenges a powerful industry
California off-roaders kiss their unregulated days good-bye
Posted inJune 19, 2000: Accidental refuge: Should we save the Salton Sea?
Babbitt’s monument tour blazes on
Al Gore announces four new national monuments, while Republicans fight back
Posted inJune 19, 2000: Accidental refuge: Should we save the Salton Sea?
The Great Sand Dunes: the next new national park?
A park proposal aims to protect water as well as land