Wilderness News

A low carpet of greens and browns helps soften the landscape, the erosion that's carved steep wedges leading to gravel-filled creeks, where chalky waters flow like a melted vanilla malt.

Above the ever-present rush of the wind, nature resonates.

A bumblebee stumbles into the air from a butter-colored prickly pear blossom. A lone black-tailed prairie dog chatters away at interlopers. A prairie chicken bursts from its cover in a manic frenzy of squawk and feathers.

From a low branch on a lone cottonwood, a Western meadowlark sings.

I have hiked more than 6,000 miles on Idaho trails. I continue to hike with my husband, Wayne, with friends and with our five children and seven grandchildren.

A bill that would protect some of Colorado's most picturesque mountains cleared committee this summer and will head for a full vote of the House soon.

The San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act introduced by Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, proposes to permanently protect 60,000 acres in Southwest Colorado, designating half of them as wilderness. The area includes the slopes of Mount Sneffels and Wilson Peak, two of the state's "fourteeners."

Sen. Jon Tester reported progress on his Forest Jobs and Recreation bill, affirmed support for Secure Rural Schools, and again tried to quash the rumor about a federal land lockup in Montana. 

He made the remarks during his monthly teleconference with Montana newspaper reporters on Thursday morning. 

Photo by F. Andrew Taylor

Sunrise resident Terri Robertson stood on a hill at the end of miles of dirt road with the sort of broad grin that can't be faked. Below her a trail led to bright orange rocks that hid little canyons with petroglyphs and fields of tiny flowers that covered the harsh flinty surface with a brightly colored living carpet.

"This," she said, "is my favorite place in the world."

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said he is willing to meet with ranchers to discuss their concerns about their grazing activities on federal grasslands that would be part of a 48,000 wilderness area near the Badlands National Park.

Congress is closer than ever to passing a wilderness bill that would protect one of Idaho's greatest assets forever. As a native of Idaho, a teacher and student of science, a mountain biker, fisherman, backcountry skier and river runner, I am very pleased with the proposed Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness bill. Some concerns have been raised about the loss of recreational opportunities. Thirty-five miles of trails would be closed to motorcycles and one good mountain bike ride would be sacrificed as a trade-off for more than 330,000 acres of wilderness that will long outlive us.

Dear Editor:

I drove two hours from Aspen to Edwards via Cottonwood Pass in Eagle County, probably part of your district, to speak strongly on behalf of the proposed Hidden Gems. Though I have flown over a large part of the proposed Hidden Gems with Bruce Gordon of Ecoflight, I was able on the ground to see all of the north side of Basalt Mountain and much of Red Mountain, all part of the proposed Hidden Gems plan.

This summer, as part of an ongoing project to document and preserve wilderness, the Forest Service is sending staff, scientists, and volunteers into the field to collect data.

In the first of a two-part series, KCAW's Lily Mihalik 
accompanied one such crew into the West Chicagof-Yakobi Wilderness.

The farthest you can get from a road in the continental U.S. is 22 miles, in a deep corner of Yellowstone National Park. In the Southeast, the farthest is around five miles-in places like Tennessee's Upper River Bald Wilderness Study Area.