Recently I read a story in an outdoor-sports magazine about how “superior” llamas are to horses, burros and mules for backcountry packing. It caused me to spit green grass juice. Over the last decade, I have trained, cared for and packed with burros, horses and llamas. I’ve even gone so far as to enter a […]
Recreation
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
We love our parks
Congressional hopefuls take heed: It pays to support national parks. Three-quarters of voting Americans say their representative’s record on parks is important, according to a 1996 survey conducted by Colorado State University for the nonprofit National Parks and Conservation Association. The 46-page survey, American Views on National Park Issues, found that only 4 percent of […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
A cellular call of the wild
A trip into the wilds of Yellowstone National Park just got tamer. Hikers can now toss a cellular phone into their backpacks. “What’s next, cable?” asked a grubby Los Angeles resident fresh in from a couple of nights in the forest, where he spotted one of the park’s fabled grizzly bears. Park officials say the […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Feds set “terrible precedent’ with Kolob Canyon settlement
The survivors of an outing that left two Explorer Scout leaders dead in Utah’s Kolob Canyon will get more than $2 million from an out-of-court settlement with public agencies. David Fleischer and LeRoy Kim Ellis drowned in July 1993 while descending a narrow slot canyon near Zion National Park. A surviving Scout leader, four of […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Canyon trip turns fatal
When Robin Phillips of Bountiful, Utah, planned a six-day hiking trip into the Grand Canyon for his troop of Boy Scouts last month, he knew the remote route would be waterless. But maps and guidebooks couldn’t tell him it would prove deadly. Three days into the trip, which, as it turned out, Phillips could not […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Budget crisis may doom Oregon’s state parks
LINCOLN CITY, Ore. – At first glance, Road’s End Wayside Rest Area here is simply a big asphalt parking lot, complete with a bathroom and stairs winding downhill. But the stairs lead to a huge, sandy beach, making it one of more than 60 public access points on the Oregon coast. Public beach access has […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Can the silence be unbroken?
Rocky Mountain National Park has so far been spared the headache – and earache – of commercial scenic overflights for one reason: no tour operators exist yet. Hoping to head off possible conflicts, Transportation Secretary Federico Peûa has proposed a ban on commercial overflights in the park. Peûa’s May 11 recommendation came with three alternatives: […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Ski industry masters the sneak attack
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Legislation often resembles siege warfare back in the days of the battering ram and the catapult. The attackers figure that the more stuff they throw at the walls – rocks, spears, little guys – the better the odds that something will get through. They’re right, because the defenders tend to relax after […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Canyonlands is a park in name only; in truth only highly organized chaos reigns
They put a park on it in 1964. Canyonlands National Park. People struggled to define its borders, to leave in Indian Creek, or to exclude Lavender Canyon, should the Orange Cliffs be inside or outside? A congressional hearing was held. Meanwhile rocks off the Orange Cliffs broke loose and moved from BLM land into proposed […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Wyoming climbers win equal footing
CASPER, Wyo. “There are nearly 200 separate climbing routes up the granite face of Devils Tower National Monument, and Andy Petefish will be able to guide you up any one of them this month – thanks to a ruling by a federal judge. Petefish and other climbing guides have won the first round in what […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Runaway runway advances at Jackson Hole airport
Despite overwhelming public opposition, Jackson Hole airport officials have decided to push the high-altitude airport’s runway deeper into Grand Teton National park. Airport board members characterized the decision to add 968 feet of pavement to the 6,300-foot-long runway as a compromise. “I’m looking at what is doable,” said airport board member Fred Hibberd. An earlier […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Joyriding kills
Joyriding kills Recklessness and speed apparently killed nine snowmobilers last winter in areas surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. In all of the past four years, only 10 people died. The recent deaths occurred when riders collided with other snowmobiles or with trees. “Anyone who is able to simply sit on a snowmobile and […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Open your wallet; visit a national park
It’s 1911 and your grandparents are braving mountain roads to visit the year-old Glacier National Park. The charge: $4 to cover everyone in their black Model T. Now jump ahead to 1996. You’re braving the roads to Glacier as your grandparents did before you. But though your burgundy Volvo station wagon is new, the fee […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Santa Fe residents win ski area fight
The Big Tesuque, a mountain basin above Santa Fe, N.M., may yet be saved from ski area development. Expansion of the Santa Fe Ski Area into the basin had seemed like a sure bet. Despite vocal opposition from Santa Fe locals, Santa Fe Forest Supervisor Al Defler approved the plan last December (HCN, 2/19/96). But […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Hands across the water
More than 30 Japanese volunteers who built a boardwalk and overlook at Washington’s Mount Rainier National Park are coming back this summer to revegetate trampled meadows. While Japan is not known for environmentalism, these teachers, engineers, nurses and other professionals have formed a Tokyo-based group, Japan Volunteers in Parks Association. They responded to a letter […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
A park boss goes to bat for the land
MAMMOTH, Wyo. – In late October, during the short lull between the traffic jams of summer and the snowmobile crowds of winter, the world’s oldest national park breathes a short sigh of relief. Only a few visitors climb the steaming mound of hot springs that looms above park headquarters here, and a herd of elk […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Yellowstone’s wintertime blues
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, A park boss goes to bat for the land. Summer visitors aren’t the only ones on the increase in Yellowstone: the number of tourists arriving to see Yellowstone’s ice-crusted trees, virginal snowfields and clouds of hot-spring steam are skyrocketing as well. Four winters ago, […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Utah’s Burr Trail still leads to court
A tentative cease-fire over the management of southern Utah’s Burr Trail ended abruptly Feb. 13 when a Garfield County road crew bulldozed a hillside inside Capitol Reef National Park. Garfield County officials say it was “just something that had to be done” to maintain the “county-owned” road. But Terri Martin of the National Parks and […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Yellowstone: Geysers, grizzlies and the country’s worst smog
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – Wendy Ross traveled the globe before settling into a job at Yellowstone National Park. Now she suffers from what she calls “the worst air I’ve ever breathed.” She and her co-workers at the park’s west entrance depend on air pumped into their glass booths from a port about 75 feet […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Eagle County balks at fourth mega-resort
EAGLE, Colo. – Thirteen years ago, Fred Kummer’s dream of building a mega-ski resort outside this quiet Colorado town seemed like money in the bank. The wealthy developer had won the approval of Eagle County and the Forest Service, despite the opposition of a pesky group of locals. The construction industry was poised to throw […]