Wilderness News

A wilderness bill that would protect more than 60,000 acres here finds itself wandering a denser forest than it may protect: The 111th Congress.

Last year, mostly out of curiosity, we spent several days hiking in the proposed Rock Creek Wilderness Area. The Rock Creek Area is the largest roadless areas and one of the most primitive areas in the Big Horn National Forest outside of the Cloud Peak Wilderness. We encountered stunning canyons, parks with beautiful vistas, jagged rock spires, pristine creeks, and old-growth aspen and pine forests.

Perhaps it's a matter of not seeing the mountains for the spires, or the rock canyons for the caves.

Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) uses a more familiar phrase to describe his federal bill that would designate Pinnacles, now a national monument, as a national park.

"So often we can't see the forest for the trees," Farr says. "We live in a beautiful area, and we just accept the way things are and we don't question them."

In "New tactic in land wars: compromise" (Tribune, Aug. 26), Alta Mayor Tom Pollard said Rep. Jim Matheson's Wasatch Wilderness and Watershed Protection Act of 2010 was "kind of jammed down our throat." This couldn't be further from the truth.

Over the course of two years, Matheson and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon held more than 15 stakeholder meetings.

During the bittersweet days of September light, when a low-angled sun is unwavering in its withdrawal, I always have trouble saying goodbye. How to shutter the season? How to close the summer home with a memory to last through the dark months?

Growing up, I looked with nose pressed against a mythic window of class at those who played in their waterfront compounds at Hayden Lake in Idaho. And when I came of age, I heard about the Hamptons and Cape Cod, Aspen and the San Juan Islands, where the zip code itself was supposed to guarantee happiness.

The last great underappreciated epic river in the Lower 48, the Owyhee weaves through Idaho's southwestern sage steppes, cutting deep canyons into cliffs of volcanic rhyolite. Surrounded by an ocean of three million acres (1.2 million hectares) of sagebrush desert, the Owyhee, as locals call the whole region, is rich with songbirds and sage grouse leks, ancient archaeological sites, and ruined homesteads.

The recent brouhaha over national monuments is certainly creating a lot of attention and a lot more confusion. So much so, that national BLM director, Bob Abbey, recently accepted an invitation to come to Malta next month to help explain the situation.

We live in the midst of the world's tallest forest. Chances are we will live to see sweeping changes in how it is managed. These statements are both worth examining in detail. Is it mere bragging to say our forests are the biggest? And if it's true that the Pacific Northwest coastal forest ranks as an asset of planetary significance, will we lose all involvement in how it's managed? Will saving trees become even more of an impediment to industrial forestry?

For centuries, the American spirit of exploration and discovery has led us to experience the majesty of our Nation's wilderness.  From raging rivers to serene prairies, from mountain peaks slicing the skyline to forests teeming with life, our Nation's landscapes have provided wonder, inspiration, and strength to all Americans.  Many sites continue to hold historical, cultural, and religious significance for Indian tribes, the original stewards of this continent.  We must continue to preserve and protect these scenic places and the life that inhabits them so they may be rediscovered and

The first questioner at Sen. Jon Tester's Monday public forum in Missoula wanted to know how the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act was coming along.

"My wife and I just drove over through Lincoln, and there's crystal-clear evidence we need to manage in a different way," Tester said of the beetle-killed acres of forest. "We need to give the Forest Service some different tools to work with."