Letter to the editor

Dear HCN: I read Elizabeth Manning’s “Motorheads’ story (HCN, 12/9/96) with fatalistic mirth: I figure if people won’t let me enjoy the outdoors quietly, I might as well make some noise. It seems we live in a society driven by those who take up the most space and make the biggest mess. All the while […]

Dear HCN, ORV groups (HCN, 12/9/96) succeed mainly because they are funded by an industry that profits from increased ORV use, and because they have a one-issue focus of striving to keep and increase access to public lands. There are no one-issue groups focused on fighting them. Environmental groups all have other battles to fight. […]

Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ article on the Teaming with Wildlife initiative (HCN, 12/23/96) was ironic, coming as it did on the heels of the previous issue on the increasing political power that motorized vehicle users have developed in the West. As Margolis points out, this seems to be a benign plan, only opposed by “left-of-center” […]

Dear HCN, While we take no exception with the New Mexico State Land Department in awarding the lease for several tracts of state-owned lands to the Forest Guardians and Southwest Environmental Center (in compliance with state law), we are concerned by some of the statements made by John Horning (HCN, 11/25/96). Mr. Horning characterizes the […]

Dear HCN, Local environmental groups aren’t very well organized and the Idaho Conservation League is an example of this, said Greg Brothers in a letter to you Dec. 23. The same day High Country News arrived in our mailboxes, our office manager called Mr. Brothers to find out what had happened. No one in our […]

FOUR REASONS WHY ENVIRONMENTALISTS FAIL Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ column on voting trends in the West (HCN, 11/25/96) should be stapled to the forehead of every environmental activist in the Northern Rockies. The fact is, he’s right: People around here do tend to respond more positively to environmental issues than they do to the environmentalists […]

Dear HCN, I have a great deal of respect for Susan Zakin as a writer and, for the most part, I was quite interested in her article, “Shake-up: Greens inside the Beltway” (HCN, 11/11/96). However, I was concerned by her disparaging comments about William Cronon, and the way she frames his book, Uncommon Ground, as […]

Dear HCN, In his opinion piece on the demise of the New World Mine outside Yellowstone (HCN, 9/2/96), Rocky Barker writes: “Just as important was the fact that the grass roots led the fight. If national environmental groups had taken the lead as they did in the Northwest’s ancient forest campaign, my guess is that […]

Dear HCN, The tentative agreement that would forever end the prospect of mining gold adjacent to Yellowstone National Park will turn out to be a good deal for the West and the nation. Details of the agreement, which includes a $22.5 million company cleanup at the site and swapping $65 million in federal assets for […]

Dear HCN, I love optimists, I really do. I’m one myself. I’m especially fond of the quintessential pie-in-the-sky optimists like Dyan Zaslowsky, who recommends just saying “no” to whatever hot spot is being loved to death in your neighborhood (HCN, 9/16/96). Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether someone is starry-eyed, or just loves the sound […]

Dear HCN, Writer Dyan Zaslowsky suggests that we stay home and give parks a rest (HCN, 9/16/96), which ticks me off for two reasons: If you go more than three miles on almost any trail, you are going to be alone. So the issue of parks being elbow-to-elbow with people is silly. Crowding is usually […]

Dear HCN, As a Colorado urban dweller for 21 years and a Colorado resident again in my future, I feel more than qualified to respond to Ellen Miller’s essay, “Should city slickers dictate to trappers?” (HCN, 10/28/96). I was born and raised in the hellhole of the Midwest, Muscatine, Iowa, population 23,000, but apparently I […]

Dear HCN, Your Sept. 30 issue profiling Walt Minnick was encouraging; let’s hope he prevails. But Minnick’s strategy and Stephen Stuebner’s report misses the mark. The politics of the New West are much more complex than the hope that newcomers are liberal, pro-environment, urban refugees. Between 1985 and 1991, according to Census Bureau estimates, 2 […]

Dear HCN, Jonathan Brinckman’s profile of Senate hopeful Walt Minnick is written with the arrogance that all too often portrays people of the land as part of the problem but ignores very real problems created by growth in the West (HCN, 9/30/96). Consider his thesis: Those in Idaho who care about the environment are battling […]

Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ otherwise excellent “Washington Watch” column Sept. 16 contained the following sentence: “Bill Clinton has the aesthetic sensibilities of a frog.” On behalf of the Amphibian-American community, I would like to state that this is an unfair and unkind slur against frogs. What would a moonlit evening be without the musical chorus […]

Dear HCN, There is another side to fire as a “natural tool” for achieving forest health. One problem is that we no longer have natural forests, since for the last 80 years, fire has been suppressed, giving us an unnatural condition. I have been monitoring some of the Forest Service’s controlled burns in Wallowa County […]

Dear HCN, High-powered environmentalists, stealthily working behind the scenes, have persuaded President Clinton to support a $65 million land exchange that will rescue Yellowstone National Park from the proposed New World Mine (HCN, 9/2/96). I wish I could be pleased by this news, but I am not. Like many Americans, I consider the mining proposal […]

Dear HCN, I’m a bit puzzled by your article on “Earth First! The Next Generation” (HCN, 9/2/96). It’s not the first of its kind I’ve read this year but I continue to wonder what all the fuss is about. Could it be the unexpected appearance of consistency among a group of people generally portrayed as […]

Dear HCN, I wish to thank my detractors, who have flailed away at me and my poem, Advice for visitors to Rock Springs (HCN, 9/16/96). One accused me of being full of shit. Darn it, it’s probably true, and may be the main reason I write at all. I’m glad HCN liked the poem enough […]

Dear HCN, Hal Walter is all wet. I’ve packed with llamas an average of 300 miles, 65 miles per week at elevations averaging 12,000 feet, each summer since 1985. The average weight carried per llama during the week has been 90 pounds. When my llamas want to crap or pee at a creek crossing I […]