A California promoter of “Eco-Challenge: The Adventure Race” hopes to send up to 50 five-person teams running, biking, rafting, canoeing and riding horses through 300 miles of southeastern Utah’s deserts next spring. MTV cameras and other media would document the 12-day race, which features environmental consciousness as its theme. State economic developers love the idea, […]
Recreation
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Park Service trying to evict cave cafe
Thanks to the presence of a huge subterranean cafeteria, the 2 million visitors to Carlsbad Caverns National Park each year can gawk at stalagmites and stalactites while nursing a cold sandwich and soda. But the crumbs may not fall where they have been. The National Park Service and conservationists are going against a chamber of […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
They set out on a bold hike that was meant to build character. Their hike will end as a case number in some climate-controlled courtroom, with lawyers arguing technicalities and trying to cross-examine the dead. Survivors and the two women widowed by the expedition through Kolob canyon, Utah, have inventoried the hell they went through, […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Where have all the tourists gone?
After all the worry and publicity about overcrowding at the Grand Canyon, the Park Service reported that visitation this summer has dropped by nearly 12 percent from last year. Not everyone is relieved; local businesses banking on a record-breaking flood of tourists are hurting. Theories about the decline range from the hot weather to foreign […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Life after Barbee
Fresh from a stint as superintendent of Yosemite National Park in California, Michael Finley will take over the helm at Yellowstone in early fall. When Finley, 47, replaces Robert Barbee, who has been in charge for 11 years, he will inherit a wide range of management controversies including the proposed Noranda gold mine adjacent to […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
No one happy in Hells
The first Forest Service proposal in 12 years to restrict jetboats in Hells Canyon may sink. Both conservationists and jetboat advocates have blasted the preferred alternative, which restricts jetboats three days of the week, from July 4 through Labor Day, on 17 miles of the Snake River, which straddles the Oregon-Idaho border. Ric Bailey, floatboat […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Strangelove Park
Strangelove park Tourists on South Dakota’s Interstate 90 may soon visit more than just Mount Rushmore, Prairie Dog Town and the world’s largest drugstore, Wall Drug. Some of the nation’s 1,000 Minuteman missile silos are ripe for historic preservation, says the National Park Service, which is looking at two launch sites adjacent to Badlands National […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Outdoor groups fight camping limits
Faced with ever-increasing hordes of visitors, Canyonlands National Park recently issued a bold management proposal to protect its still-pristine backcountry. The plan calls for closing some jeep roads, reducing horse numbers, and restricting where and how hikers travel. Park officials say they weren’t surprised at the stack of angry comments from commercial outfitters, but they […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Not for the birds
A grizzly bear that found the seeds in a bird feeder to his liking was recently moved to the southwestern area of Yellowstone National Park. The two-and-one-half-year-old male bear was trapped by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks on private land near Big Sky, Mont., reports AP. The bear was the first trapped […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Grand traffic problems
Vacationers bound for Grand Canyon National Park may want to take the train this summer. Park superintendent Boyd Evison says 3,800 cars are currently arriving each day, and 6,400 vehicles will pack the park during the peak months of July and August. With only 1,600 parking spaces in the South Rim Village, that means drivers […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Roads are the enemies
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says he will halt all construction of new roads, hotels and entertainment facilities in national parks and monuments. “Roads are the enemies of national parks: They disrupt, divide and fragment,” Babbitt said in a speech to Park Service employees on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. “Our task is to […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Could a treaty block a mine?
Although international treaties are best known for settling wars, a treaty could affect an underground gold mine proposed just outside Yellowstone National Park. Under a 1972 international treaty known as the World Heritage Convention, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1973, Yellowstone was deemed a “world heritage site.” The 136 nations that approved the treaty […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
International park draws fire
Supporters of an international park said, “Nature knows no borders,” but protesters at a recent Seattle conference didn’t agree. Two hundred park demonstrators marched and chanted, “What do we want? No park!” while United States and Canadian park representatives talked about joining recreation areas and parks in the 11 million-acre North Cascades ecosystem. Protesters fear […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Is “natural regulation’ leading to unnatural results?
Karl Hess Jr., in Rocky Times in Rocky Mountain National Park – An Unnatural History, raises ethical questions about the future of Rocky Mountain National Park, “a unique, irreplaceable wonder, a shimmering blue strip of hope on the prairie horizon.” Combining eloquence and detailed research, Hess calls for drastic changes to ensure that good stewardship […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Scientist says Yellowstone Park is being destroyed
The Yellowstone northern elk herd, allowed to persist at high densities by the national park’s “natural-regulation” policy, is destroying the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the northern-range ecosystem. Park publicity denies this and misleads the public by proclaiming that all is well in Yellowstone. There are only two possible interpretations of this behavior. One is […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
National Park Service is put on a starvation diet
During the week of May 22, America is to celebrate “National Parks Week,” ” a creation of new Park Service Director Roger Kennedy. But some Park Service employees may not be in the mood to join the celebration. The new director is driving the agency headlong into a sweeping reorganization that may include job cuts […]
Posted inMay 2, 1994: A struggle for the last grass
At Glacier: Keep off the grass, or else
GLACIER PARK, Mont. – Another bit of the Old West became history last month when Glacier National Park’s 12 law enforcement rangers hung up their six-shooters and strapped on semiautomatic handguns. The new handguns hold more bullets than the six-shooters, and with more and more criminals packing automatic weapons, rangers don’t want to be outgunned. […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
Fly-by tourism may be throttled at Grand Canyon
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau? Although Congress passed legislation in 1987 limiting where tourist-toting planes and helicopters could go over Grand Canyon National Park, the number of flights has nearly doubled. The National Park Service says noise pervades almost every nook and cranny […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
New policy pits seasonals against parks
ZION NATIONAL PARK, Utah – Michael Parshall wondered how much longer he’d be able to build trails for the National Park Service. His problem wasn’t with his job at Zion National Park, but with an advanced and crippling case of colitis. “I knew that I was getting sick in 1989, but I didn’t go to […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Hammering out “ecosystem management’
Lynx, grizzly bear and salmon could be the winners in a new plan to link the current patchwork of parks, national forests and recreation areas in Washington’s North Cascades. Along with the National Park Service, groups like The Wilderness Society, the National Parks and Conservation Association and the Canadian Earthcare Society will host a three-day […]