One statistic jumped out of the morning paper and jolted my brain. The news was that America’s population will hit 300 million sometime during the third week of October. But it wasn’t that landmark figure that jarred my morning reverie. It was this: The United States population has grown from 200 million to 300 million […]
Feeling crowded around here? It is!
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
What we love will save us
In troubled political times, go to the mountains.
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Heard around the West
THE BORDER Life in southern Texas can get pretty boring if you’re a 20-something National Guardsman sent to patrol the dusty border with Mexico. Three guardsmen recently found life so dreary that they picked up their weapons, jumped in their vehicle and headed out for a joyride. They failed to find much action until they […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
A deliberate life in the Rockies
If you’re feeling assailed by civilization — its cell phones, computers and telemarketers — David Petersen has an antidote for you. But be forewarned: It’s strong medicine. It’s taken Petersen more than two decades to acquire his hard-earned lessons, and the going hasn’t always been smooth. In 1981, he and his wife, Caroline, left behind […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Dry-hiking in a desert awash with history
At 61, mountaineer and academic David Roberts can’t resist the chance to rack up another first. Comb Ridge is a jutting sandstone escarpment that runs from Kayenta, Ariz., to Blanding, Utah. One hundred miles long from end to end, the ridge was one of the few remaining hikes that no one had completed. But Roberts […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Brave ‘yellowbellies’ served the West well
During World War II, more than 250 American men — mostly Quakers and Mennonites — stood up for their pacifist beliefs, declared themselves conscientious objectors, and volunteered for a different risky service. They became pioneer smokejumpers, parachuting onto the front lines of wildfires in the Rockies. Smokejumping had only been invented in 1939, and it […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
When a gas pipeline blows, you get out fast
My family and I live in Clark, Wyo., on the Montana-Wyoming border. I used to tell people that I lived on the edge of Yellowstone country. Nowadays, though, I admit that I live in an industrial zone — the kind of place where things can get dangerous and sometimes go very wrong. Early in the […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
No wheels in wilderness
Greg Hanscom penned one of the more eloquent and poignant discourses that I have ever encountered on limiting access to mountain bikes in wilderness areas in his Sept. 18 editorial. As a fellow longtime mountain bike rider, I must say that he is not just speaking for himself on this issue. Joe Oliver Carmel Valley, […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Hikers and bikers unite!
I began mountain biking in Santa Cruz in 1984, riding in the Coast Range from Big Sur to the Bay Area. In the years that followed, I was baffled and dismayed by the rancor of the hiker/biker conflict. For me, and the friends I rode with, mountain biking was simply another way to explore the […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
A taste of your own medicine
In response to the Sept. 18 cover story, “Going Big,” just hop on your mountain bike and pedal on a well-known 4×4 outback road, where the four-wheelers exceed the speed limits, kick up dust, mud, rocks, and try to enjoy the same road with your bike. This experience is the same for any hiker in […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Bikers must police our own
Patrick Farrell’s Sept. 18 cover story, “Going Big,” presented a fairly accurate picture of the current challenges facing the mountain-bike community. As an active mountain-bike trail advocate since 1989, I have witnessed the gradual acceptance of mountain bikes as part of the trail equation by land agencies and most trail users. The upstart downhill/ freeride […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Bikers have blown it
I’d like to answer the rhetorical question on the cover of the Sept. 18 issue: “Mountain bikers, long vilified as unruly renegades, are finally winning respect — and access to more trails. But does a new generation of gonzo riders threaten all that?” My response is: I certainly hope so. Nothing pictured on the cover, […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Stop locking bikes out
Although mountain bikers are essentially silent, as well as not motorized, not polluting, muscle-powered, and most importantly, appreciative of Nature and wild places, environmentalists like HCN Editor Greg Hanscom have from the beginning thumbed their noses at us. In his Sept. 18 editorial, Hanscom says we “should stay out of wilderness politics,” because there ought […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Getting out of the office, and into hot water
NAME Jeff Mount VOCATION Geology professor AGE 52 HOME BASE Davis, California KNOWN FOR Pointing out that building houses below sea level and surrounding them with weak levees is a recipe for disaster MOST RECENT EXPLOIT On a dare from his son, giving up his raft to kayak the Grand Canyon this summer: “I saw […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Wastin’ away in New Mexico
European-based company breaks ground on uranium enrichment facility
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
On the ballot: Will Californians vote to build an off-ramp from the oil highway?
Californians will find more than a dozen initiatives on their ballot this Nov. 7, including one aimed at helping them kick the oil habit. Proposition 87 would raise $4 billion over 10 years for the California Energy Alternatives Program Authority by taxing oil produced in the state. Part of an effort to reduce oil consumption […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Clinton-era roadless rule is back… for now
Federal court ruling creates more questions than answers
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Wildland acres burned
As global temperatures rise, wildfires are starting earlier and lasting longer into the season. As of press time there were 10 large fires (over 500 acres) burning in the West. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wildland acres burned.
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Mother Nature rides an ATV
Two small cacti have put a stop to motorcycles and ATVs on one of southern Utah’s most contested pieces of public land. On Sept. 20, the BLM announced that off-highway vehicle use would be restricted in the desert surrounding Factory Butte to protect the endangered Wright fishhook and the threatened Winkler cactus. The decision closes […]