Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dick Anderson is an environmental specialist at Death Valley National Park: “There wasn’t complete agreement with the Desert Protection Act within the park. Just because it was the law doesn’t mean it was wholeheartedly supported by the staff, not at all. Myself not included […]
Recreation
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘Humans aren’t that bad’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Macey is a resident of Keeler, California: “The park and the Sierra Club have a really dim view of human nature. They equate more humans with more doom, more impact. They say, “Let’s not let anybody do anything.” There are a lot of […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
Bureau of livestock, mining … and parks?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Al Gore joined President Clinton in 1996 in announcing the creation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, the vice president called it a “great monument to stewardship.” Yet by presidential decree the steward in this case was not the National Park […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘I’m really embarrassed’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Kathy Goss is a resident of Darwin, California: “I’m a disillusioned environmentalist. I’m disillusioned with the way environmentalists took things into their own hands and pushed something like (the Desert Protection Act) through. Congress signed off on something it had never seen; the boundaries […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
A bigger picture
Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument needs to think of itself in the context of a wider world. That’s the conclusion of Crown of the Canyons, an atlas of colored maps and data on the ecology, geology and economy of the monument and its surrounding landscape, compiled by the Wilderness Society. The monument’s 1.9 million acres […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Less climbing to the top
The Mount Hood National Forest has traditionally been a weekend haven for many Oregonians, but it might not be for long. The three wilderness areas that lie within the forest have eight times as many visitors as they did 10 years ago, and an average of 900 hikers crowd the Mount Hood Wilderness Area during […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Hoping for river magic on a trip with Dad
What do you feel when you stick your parents in the river? I have in my office an 11-by-14-inch photo of my dad and me in Lava Falls on the Colorado River. It’s a fine river photo: just heads and oar tips visible in the V-wave. It’s printed off a Polaroid. My father clutched it […]
Posted inApril 26, 1999: Visionaries or dreamers?
Star light, star bright, where are you tonight?
Growing up in Canyonlands National Park in the 1940s and ’50s, Alan Wilson often took camping trips into remote areas of Utah with his father, Bates Wilson, Canyonlands’ first superintendent. “The sky was absolutely brilliant at night,” Alan Wilson recalls. Last summer, Wilson returned to Canyonlands. Instead of finding a stark, black sky filled with […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Officials seek the “complete’ Canyonlands
A new proposal by Canyonlands National Park superintendent Walt Dabney would more than double the park’s size, from 368,000 acres to about 852,000 acres. Dabney says the proposal “completes’ Canyonlands by drawing park boundaries along natural features. He hopes it will serve as a model for future park planning. “This is in the public arena […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Secretary Babbitt meets a tough crowd
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt got an earful when he announced his plans for a new national monument on the Shivwits Plateau, or “Arizona Strip” north of the Grand Canyon. About 500 people packed a meeting March 8 in the Cline Library at Northern Arizona University to debate the proposal. Calling the plateau […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Plans for a new park in Arizona
In 1966, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall drafted a plan to turn more than 1 million square miles of desert in his home state of Arizona into a national park. But the idea for a Sonoran Desert National Park died at the hands of a lame-duck President, Lyndon Johnson. Now, the park idea has resurfaced, driven […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Where do we put the condos?
DRIGGS, Idaho – This southeast Idaho town is like a forgotten cousin to the ski mecca town of Jackson, Wyo., 40 miles away on the other side of Teton Pass. The wave of development that has descended on Jackson has mostly bypassed this part of Idaho, even though both communities share a spectacular view of […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Paddlers want onto ‘the Everest of rivers’
The Black Canyon of Yellowstone National Park seems to swallow the Yellowstone River in one gigantic gulp. From the canyon’s mouth, rapids turn the river into a powerful torrent that careens into Gardiner, Mont., the north entrance to the park. Mention the Black Canyon to many experienced boaters, and their eyes will glimmer and private […]
Posted inMarch 1, 1999: Working the land back to health
Are snowmobiles overpowering parks?
During the peak of the snowy season in Yellowstone National Park, as many as 1,000 snowmobiles a day roar over its groomed roads. Critics say the machines cause more noise and air pollution than the park should have to handle. Park rangers who sell entrance tickets complain of headaches and nausea from breathing in clouds […]
Posted inMarch 1, 1999: Working the land back to health
Yellowstone soft on safety
After five people working in Yellowstone National Park were accidentally killed in a little less than four years, a federal investigation found that the first and most famous national park had ignored hundreds of safety regulations. “Employees at almost all levels demonstrated an unwillingness to take responsibility for safety,” concluded a 1998 report by the […]
Posted inMarch 1, 1999: Working the land back to health
User fee critics contest report
New gate fees charged in national parks and other federal recreation areas raise money without turning away visitors, according to a recent General Accounting Office report. But the report was based only on the comments of people at trailheads who were willing to fill out cards; those not bothering to respond or who protested by […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
No love for Lycra in Moab
For the third time since October, someone has fired shots into the empty fee booth at the entrance to Moab’s Sand Flats Recreation Area, which includes the popular Slickrock bike trail. The Bureau of Land Management and Sand Flats are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the culprits. Investigators have no leads, but […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Snowmobilers booted from Montana forest
SUPERIOR, Mont. – About 300 snowmobilers from across the Northwest congregated here Jan. 2 for a bittersweet rally. For many, it was likely the last ride to their favorite destination – the 89,500-acre proposed Great Burn Wilderness Area that straddles the border of Montana and Idaho. Two days later, the Lolo National Forest closed 400,000 […]
Posted inFebruary 1, 1999: Saving the Platte
Oregon Caves park to grow
Oregon Caves National Monument is known for its crystal pools and delicate mineral deposits, yet at 480 acres, it’s tiny. The final version of a new management plan, however, calls for expanding the monument by seven times – to 3,400 acres – a notion first discussed in the 1930s. “It’s difficult to manage a natural […]
Posted inFebruary 1, 1999: Saving the Platte
Ski the Butte?
Since the 1960s, some locals in Klamath Falls, Ore., have eyed Pelican Butte and dreamed of outfitting its snowy, timbered slopes with chairlifts and challenging ski runs. Past attempts fell flat when financiers ran out of money. Now, a Klamath Falls-based company with deep pockets is leading the effort to build a ski resort in […]