Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dave Simon, who is based in Albuquerque, is the Southwest regional director for the nonprofit National Parks and Conservation Association. Simon helped draft the bill that established the monument. Dave Simon: “Given current circumstances, turning over total control of the monument to the National […]
Recreation
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Dudes on the dunes
-We struggled to scramble up near-vertical walls of loose sand,” writes Mark North in the online magazine Explore. “Still, the weight of the tent, beer, snowboard and snowboard boots on my backpack didn’t topple me over … At the summit, we’d swap snowshoes for snowboards … spray on a coat of Pledge to increase glide, […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Resort may crowd Mount Rainier
Ashford, Wash., a rural town of about 1,500 people that is only a stone’s toss from the western gate of Mount Rainier National Park, may soon have a big, new neighbor. Earlier this month, Pierce County endorsed plans for a $70 million, 400-acre resort that would more than double the number of housing units in […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
A gem of a park
Great Basin National Park is a modest gem. Set in Nevada, within a stone’s throw of Utah, deep in the stillness of the Great Basin, the park was formed out of other public land in 1986. Like many parks, it was the child of compromise: Cattle were permitted to continue to graze the alpine meadows […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
A Lewis and Clark revival hits the Northwest
While tracing the steps of Lewis and Clark, Judy Anderson has stopped off at two dozen places where the explorers walked nearly 200 years ago. Among these, Pompey’s Pillar, a lonely landmark on the plains of southeastern Montana, remains fixed in her memory. There, immortalized behind Plexiglas, she saw William Clark’s signature carved into soft […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Fur and loafing
Cartoonist Phil Frank, creator of the San Francisco Chronicle’s cartoon strip, “Farley,” has devoted a lot of ink since 1986 to the political travails of Yosemite National Park in California. This is a park so loved – and so roaded – it is visited by more than 3 million people each year. In hilarious fashion, […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Continental Divide Trail
People who like to work hard in high places are needed to help maintain the Continental Divide Trail. Winding for 3,100 miles from Montana to New Mexico, the trail traces the rugged backbone of the Rocky Mountains. Volunteers, who will monitor and maintain 3- to 25-mile segments, can contact the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, P.O. […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Tempers flare over winter plan
Gardiner, Mont., is a sleepy town in the winter. Yellowstone National Park’s northern gateway community virtually closes down when the park’s roads do. The local fly shop rents cross-country skis, and a handful of cafés serve burgers for lunch. A few sight-seers drive into the park at dawn and dusk in search of the park’s […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Second tram heads for Moab
The redrock desert around the tourist town of Moab, Utah, has been colonized by motels and mountain bikers for over a decade. Still, some locals never thought they’d have to worry about ski lifts. Now, less than six months after a controversial chairlift opened for business on the west side of Moab, the county planning […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Horses shy from competition
Connie Berto was walking her horse down a wide fire lane in Marin County, Calif., when a mountain biker, traveling at high speed, missed her by inches. It’s not an uncommon experience on the West’s public trails. Pressed by other trail users, horses and their riders are finding themselves less welcome on some trails. “Equestrians […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Grand Canyon development sparks debate
The Forest Service says a new 272-acre development near the south entrance of the Grand Canyon can control growth near the park. Critics, including some environmentalists, are not convinced. “They’re creating mass development … ext to one of our crown jewels,” says Sharon Galbreath of the Sierra Club’s southwest office. Canyon Forest Village, which got […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Politicians talk tough
In mid-July, a billboard suddenly appeared on the boundary of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument, advertising three 40-acre lots at the lip of the 2,000-foot-deep canyon (see page 16). The price? $190,000 each. It’s the latest attempt by real estate developer Tom Chapman to cash in on private land inside protected federal […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
DDT doesn’t just fade away
A half century after the National Park Service dumped DDT on the northern part of Yellowstone National Park, traces of the deadly pesticide remain in the ecosystem. Scientists studying cutthroat trout last summer tested fatty tissues of the fish and found DDT – even though it has been banned in this country since 1972, a […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Protests proceed at Vail
The White River National Forest near Vail, Colo., was a busy place on the morning of July 1. After a springtime break for the elk calving season, work was scheduled to begin anew on the controversial expansion of the Vail ski area, which will increase the size of North America’s largest ski area by 25 […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Tom Chapman: A small-town boy who made good
PAONIA, Colo. – Many Westerners see Tom Chapman as a scourge who extracts millions from taxpayers by threatening to develop private land within national parks and wilderness areas. To me, he is just a local Paonia boy who made good. Starting in the 1980s with nothing more than a real estate broker’s license, an ability […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Give me a home where the engines roar
A recent editorial in the weekly Bitterroot Star of Stevensville, Mont., likened a racetrack proposed for the Bitterroot Valley to “a smelly dog, running from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of a home.” Promoters first went to the Ravalli County Commission, asking to build a racetrack at the county fairgrounds in Hamilton, Mont. The commissioners […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
An Olympic eyesore?
The Utah Sports Authority is etching out a 120-meter ski jump on a mountainside near Park City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, but the project isn’t inspiring Olympic fever. Instead, it’s raising the ire of local critics, who lament the ugliness of the scarred slope. “There was no environmental input whatsoever, and consequently we’re going […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Happy campers we shall always be
Every summer, my husband and I head for the woods, flushed with optimism and giddy with anticipation. The maps are crisp, the fuel cans are full and the road is open. And every summer, I forget that the reality of camping is different than that pictured in Dodge Dakota commercials and my mind. I imagine […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Black Canyon National Park?
If Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., gets his way, he will leave behind a legacy. A bill moving rapidly through the U.S. Senate would redesignate the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument as a national park and expand its current 20,766 acres to 30,000. Campbell, the bill’s sponsor, has been pursuing this legislation for […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
Star parties
Exploding stars, colliding galaxies and random nebulae are the new attractions at Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park. There’s even the possibility of seeing the Mir Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope or the occasional spy satellite. “So we can look up at what’s looking down on us,” says Patrick Wiggins, the demonstration specialist at the […]