DURANGO, Colo. – Juan stares at me with soulful brown eyes. We have spent six hours on high trails without seeing anyone else, descending finally to a timberline camp. Above us looms a cirque of tundra painted with the muted, water-color palette of high country autumn. Heavy trout rise just beyond casting range in this […]
Recreation
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Parks give free rides
While the Clinton administration proposes charging people more to visit national parks, the National Park Service continues to lose more than $100 million a year in fees it fails to collect. According to an Interior Department audit, the agency took in $68 million in gate and campground fees at the nation’s 367 parks, monuments and […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Pay to play
The Southwest Idaho Mountain Biking Association believes mountain bikers should pay to use trails on public lands. The group wants Idaho to enact a $10 annual fee to maintain trails, create new ones and develop trail-etiquette education. Cyclists, who would register any bike that they ride off-road, could influence how funds are spent through advisory […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
A climbing plan for Devils Tower
One hundred and one years ago, when William Rogers and Willard Ripley were the first climbers to top Wyoming’s Devils Tower, they also started a controversy. In the following decades the tower became a climbing mecca. Yet to some Native Americans it has always been a sacred place. To try to satisfy both interests, the […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
No room at the top
Climbing one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks used to be a solitary joy. These days 50,000 people top the state’s famous “fourteeners’ each year, and in one weekend on Mt. Harvard near Buena Vista, 133 signatures filled the summit register. Marketed in myriad guidebooks, the climbing craze is shattering solitude and trashing ecosystems, reports the American […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
The Park Service didn’t put my son in a coma
The lead story in High Country News Aug. 22 concerned a hiking trip gone tragically awry near Zion National Park in Utah. Two men died, and the survivors filed a $23 million lawsuit against the Park Service. This essay responds to the question the story raised: “Whose fault?” My 24-year-old son’s accident in Yosemite National […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Does Utah need an eco-challenge?
A California promoter of “Eco-Challenge: The Adventure Race” hopes to send up to 50 five-person teams running, biking, rafting, canoeing and riding horses through 300 miles of southeastern Utah’s deserts next spring. MTV cameras and other media would document the 12-day race, which features environmental consciousness as its theme. State economic developers love the idea, […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Park concessions to be corralled
A reform ending windfalls for concessionaires in national parks seems certain this fall. Only minor differences remain between House and Senate bills that passed overwhelmingly. Both bills mandate competition for contracts of more than $500,000, require that concession fees return to parks, and establish a briefer duration on contracts. The current law, passed in 1965, […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Park Service trying to evict cave cafe
Thanks to the presence of a huge subterranean cafeteria, the 2 million visitors to Carlsbad Caverns National Park each year can gawk at stalagmites and stalactites while nursing a cold sandwich and soda. But the crumbs may not fall where they have been. The National Park Service and conservationists are going against a chamber of […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
They set out on a bold hike that was meant to build character. Their hike will end as a case number in some climate-controlled courtroom, with lawyers arguing technicalities and trying to cross-examine the dead. Survivors and the two women widowed by the expedition through Kolob canyon, Utah, have inventoried the hell they went through, […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Where have all the tourists gone?
After all the worry and publicity about overcrowding at the Grand Canyon, the Park Service reported that visitation this summer has dropped by nearly 12 percent from last year. Not everyone is relieved; local businesses banking on a record-breaking flood of tourists are hurting. Theories about the decline range from the hot weather to foreign […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Life after Barbee
Fresh from a stint as superintendent of Yosemite National Park in California, Michael Finley will take over the helm at Yellowstone in early fall. When Finley, 47, replaces Robert Barbee, who has been in charge for 11 years, he will inherit a wide range of management controversies including the proposed Noranda gold mine adjacent to […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
No one happy in Hells
The first Forest Service proposal in 12 years to restrict jetboats in Hells Canyon may sink. Both conservationists and jetboat advocates have blasted the preferred alternative, which restricts jetboats three days of the week, from July 4 through Labor Day, on 17 miles of the Snake River, which straddles the Oregon-Idaho border. Ric Bailey, floatboat […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Strangelove Park
Strangelove park Tourists on South Dakota’s Interstate 90 may soon visit more than just Mount Rushmore, Prairie Dog Town and the world’s largest drugstore, Wall Drug. Some of the nation’s 1,000 Minuteman missile silos are ripe for historic preservation, says the National Park Service, which is looking at two launch sites adjacent to Badlands National […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Outdoor groups fight camping limits
Faced with ever-increasing hordes of visitors, Canyonlands National Park recently issued a bold management proposal to protect its still-pristine backcountry. The plan calls for closing some jeep roads, reducing horse numbers, and restricting where and how hikers travel. Park officials say they weren’t surprised at the stack of angry comments from commercial outfitters, but they […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Not for the birds
A grizzly bear that found the seeds in a bird feeder to his liking was recently moved to the southwestern area of Yellowstone National Park. The two-and-one-half-year-old male bear was trapped by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks on private land near Big Sky, Mont., reports AP. The bear was the first trapped […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Grand traffic problems
Vacationers bound for Grand Canyon National Park may want to take the train this summer. Park superintendent Boyd Evison says 3,800 cars are currently arriving each day, and 6,400 vehicles will pack the park during the peak months of July and August. With only 1,600 parking spaces in the South Rim Village, that means drivers […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Roads are the enemies
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says he will halt all construction of new roads, hotels and entertainment facilities in national parks and monuments. “Roads are the enemies of national parks: They disrupt, divide and fragment,” Babbitt said in a speech to Park Service employees on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. “Our task is to […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Could a treaty block a mine?
Although international treaties are best known for settling wars, a treaty could affect an underground gold mine proposed just outside Yellowstone National Park. Under a 1972 international treaty known as the World Heritage Convention, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1973, Yellowstone was deemed a “world heritage site.” The 136 nations that approved the treaty […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
International park draws fire
Supporters of an international park said, “Nature knows no borders,” but protesters at a recent Seattle conference didn’t agree. Two hundred park demonstrators marched and chanted, “What do we want? No park!” while United States and Canadian park representatives talked about joining recreation areas and parks in the 11 million-acre North Cascades ecosystem. Protesters fear […]