Passengers who fly into the tiny Jackson Hole, Wyo., airport may not realize it, but they’re landing inside a national park. Airline representatives have argued for years that the Jackson runway should be lengthened for easier access. But Grand Teton National Park officials and environmentalists have steadfastly opposed the idea, saying an expansion would further […]
Recreation
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Guidebook with attitude
After traipsing around Washington state’s wildlands for the past 50 years, Ira Spring and Harvey Manning have put together an eccentric and entertaining guidebook, 100 Classic Hikes in Washington, covering the North Cascades, Olympics, Mount Rainier and South Cascades, Alpine Lakes and Glacier Peak. Unlike other guidebooks, in which environmentalism goes unmentioned, 100 Classic Hikes […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Yellowstone’s wandering bison
The interagency team developing a plan for managing Yellowstone’s wandering bison (HCN, 9/28/98) is extending the deadline for public comments on its draft environmental impact statement to Nov. 2. For a copy of the draft EIS, or to comment on the plan, write Bison Management Plan EIS Team, National Park Service, Sarah Bransom, DSC-RP, P.O. […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A bridge to disaster?
There’s a traffic jam in West Yellowstone, Mont., and the Gallatin National Forest wants to do something about it. Snowmobilers who buzz across Cougar Creek on a crowded highway bridge need an alternative route, says the agency, because they’re creating a safety problem for themselves and other drivers. But environmentalists contend that an agency plan […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Seeing parks with 20/20 vision
Some fast-moving congressional legislation is aiming to change how the National Park Service does business. The bill would make visitors continue to “pay to play” and also would require Hollywood to cough up some cash before filming scenic park vistas. But critics say private park concessionaires would continue to take the Park Service for a […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Is park station a boondoggle?
When user fees went into effect two years ago in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming’s Teton County residents thought the money would go toward improving existing facilities. Then the Park Service proposed to spend that money to build a $1.4 million welcome center along a remote dirt road in the park’s southwest corner. Local opposition, […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Critics slam bison plan
-I’ve got two words for this plan: it stinks,” said Page McNeill, chair of the Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club, at a recent public meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Criticism of the draft management plan for the Yellowstone National Park bison herd (HCN, 7/6/98) came fast and furious at the Aug. 10 meeting, where […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Glacier takes a stand
A draft plan for managing Glacier National Park in Montana for the next 20 years would avoid problems plaguing other national parks by proposing bold moves: banning personal watercraft use and barring commercial air tours. The proposal would also protect historic lodges, gradually improve Going-to-the-Sun Road, increase services for visitors during the winter season, and […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
In place of a bigger park, Tucson gets houses
TUCSON, Ariz. – Five years ago, federal officials saw a perfect spot in the Tucson Mountains foothills for a park expansion. Covered by lush stands of palo verdes, saguaros and ocotillos, the site included several washes that provided shelter for wildlife. It also contained one of the few perennial water sources in the mountains, attracting […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
Snowmobilers see red
Reacting to a ten-fold increase in snowmobile use since the early 1990s, Lolo National Forest wants to ban snowmobiles on 140,000 roadless acres of the Bitterroot Crest straddling the Idaho-Montana border. Applauding the move is John Gatchell, director of the Montana Wilderness Association. He says supervisor Chuck Wildes is finally moving to end a longstanding […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
National parks pull the plug on jet skis
The National Park Service will ban personal watercraft by mid-September on all of its waterways except 11 national recreation areas and two national seashores. The prohibition follows bans by individual parks, including the Everglades in Florida, Canyonlands in Utah, and most recently Olympic National Park in Washington, where Lake Crescent will see its last jet […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
Only Grand Teton knows
Who was first to reach the top of 13,770-foot Grand Teton in Wyoming? Was it Yellowstone National Park’s first superintendent, Nathaniel Langford, who said he did it in 1872? Or a group of climbers who documented their ascent later, in 1898? No one will ever know for sure, but the Park Service did not take […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
How the Canyon Became Grand
Stephen Pyne, who is best known as an historian of fire, has written an audacious book which shows how, for a few wonderful decades in the 19th century, the Grand Canyon stood near the center of the intellectual development of the Western world. During those years, the Canyon was, all in one, the Hubble Telescope, […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Grand planning at the canyon
Some major environmental groups are taking the Forest Service to task for not thinking bigger and greener when it comes to planning a new town just outside Grand Canyon. In July, the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona released a supplement to its 1997 draft Tusayan Growth Environmental Impact Statement with a preferred alternative: 900 lodging […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Blasting through a cathedral
When Congress established Petroglyph National Monument in 1990, on the edge of Albuquerque, N.M., its rationale was straightforward: “to protect the cultural and natural resources of the area from urbanization and vandalism.” Just a few years later another threat to the monument emerged. To accommodate the desire of developers, the New Mexico delegation backed a […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Blind Descent
I don’t even like it when the elevator door closes, but I like the feisty and fictional Anna Pigeon so much that I gritted my teeth and followed her down into Lechuguilla Cave. Nevada Barr’s newest mystery, Blind Descent, takes park ranger Anna Pigeon a thousand feet under southern New Mexico, into the deepest and, […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Extinct volcano is up for grabs
From space, northern New Mexico’s Valles Caldera, also known as the Baca Ranch, looks vaguely like the cast of a bear paw print. Small lava-formed mountains rise like inverted claw marks in front of massive Redondo Peak, all nestled within the rim of the world’s largest extinct volcano. From the ground, what most impresses visitors […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Congress drags its feet on Baca Ranch deal
If there is one property that ought to be bought and preserved as public land for all Americans, say Forest Service officials, it’s the 95,000-acre Baca Ranch – most of the Valles Caldera – a place almost completely surrounded by the Santa Fe National Forest. So this summer, Forest Service staffer Denise McCaig has been […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
In the footsteps of Muir
Would John Muir recognize the Yosemite of today? What would he think of his beloved “hospitable, Godful wilderness,” where he roamed freely, built campfires anywhere he pleased and traveled with his unleashed dog, Carlo? To explore questions like that, writer Geraldine Vale and geographer Thomas Vale retraced the route that Muir described over a century […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Whitewater boating groups
Whitewater boating groups are invited to eddy out in July and apply for a $500 to $2,500 grant to promote river access or conservation projects. Nonprofit groups within the Rocky Mountain region may apply by July 15. Contact the Colorado Whitewater Association Grant Committee, c/o Jay P.K. Kenney, 1675 Larimer St., Suite 725, Denver, CO […]