When I first visited
“Carnage Canyon” in the 1970s, it was clear to me how
it got its name. The place was a mess. It had become a racetrack
for racing bikes and motorcycles that zipped up and down the sides
of the canyon. A few years later, people dragged in old
refrigerators, cars and other junk as an alternative to taking it
all to the dump. That attracted people who came to shoot guns,
sight rifles and explode stuff, while the junk remained, collecting
bullet holes.
The next time I visited the slopes of
Carnage Canyon, it was to the site of a multiple murder of some
guys who happened to be there when an ex-con was hiding from the
police. I was making a scale model of the canyon for the district
attorney’s office in Boulder County, Colo., to show where the
criminal’s car was parked and where the bodies were found.
Carnage Canyon was a typical, accessible mountain canyon
not too far from a large city and owned by nobody, it seemed. Then
a few years ago, it became public land administered by the U.S.
Forest Service, and I started working with other people to restore
the canyon to what it was before it got named for carnage.
Most of the junk had already been removed before my group
put down erosion mats and planted grass and Ponderosa pine
seedlings, along with stopping up erosion channels and eliminating
racing routes. I did all this as a volunteer for an organization
called Wildlands Restoration Volunteers. It was hard work, and it
was fun.
Carnage Canyon was one of five volunteer
projects I worked on last summer. I also pulled weeds at Phantom
Ranch near Fort Collins and collected wildflower seeds to be
planted later in disturbed lands. This was followed by replanting
grass and trees at Mud Lake, near the mountain town of Nederland,
Colo. We put in water bars and dams there to reduce erosion and
restore logging and mining roads.
I also helped replant a
forest along the St. Vrain River. These river bosques, or
woodlands, provide a habitat for enormous numbers of animals and
plants, and when they are destroyed, invasives like tamarisks step
in and settle down. We planted native trees, sloshed around in the
water planting reeds and other water plants, and covered over an RV
parking lot that was pretty trashed.
Over the years I
have cut back on the money I have sent to various save-the-earth
organizations. Part of the reason was that there were too many of
them, each begging for my dollars for some excellent reason My
mailbox was the regular stop for saving whales, railroad
rights-of-way, farmlands, gorillas, oceans, deserts, mountains,
wetlands and countless other animals or places. All were worthy
organizations with honest hardworking supporters and staff. But I
often wondered why they couldn’t combine their efforts into
an Environmental United Way.
The other reason I shrank my
donations — beside the money drain — was that I started
thinking about the old slogan: Think globally, act locally. The
conclusion I came to: I didn’t need to go to a distant
third-world country to save children or to help environments; there
were plenty of places nearby that needed help. If we all did our
thing locally, the big picture might begin to take care of itself.
Working with Wilderness Restoration Volunteers also felt
more satisfying than sending a check. When I wrote checks, I never
saw where the money went, and I’d read warnings about
outrageous overhead and how only pennies of the dollars ended up
going to where you thought they would.
As a volunteer
with Wilderness Restoration, I could go back later and see the
results of what I had done: Roads would be gone, grass and
wildflowers would be growing, and ugly erosion channels would be
filling with dirt. I also met some nifty folks, exercised my
muscles, and got to be outside in the mountains I love. Next
summer, I’ll be a volunteer again.
Think globally,
act locally may not be for everyone. I can’t think, for the
life of me, why not.
Rob Pudim is a contributor
to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country
News (hcn.org). He draws, explores and writes in Boulder,
Colorado.
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