Ed Abbey: 25 years gone

And yet he's somehow still around, eh?

25 years ago today, Ed Abbey moved on to the next great wilderness awaiting us all ... meaning, he died. But he sure had fun when he was here -- as shown in this 10-minute "video essay" he did for a national TV news show that aired in 1986, in which he revisits the places in Arches NP made famous in Desert Solitaire. Pretty funny -- and fun. Of course! As Abbey would say: Carry on, comrades!

Edward Abbey revisits Arches National Park in 1985 [Vimeo link]

Then, have a beer and sing along with Tom Russell's "Ballad of Edward Abbey."

A brief history of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers

It was a cocktail-fuel conversation lamenting that "few hunters' groups show any interest whatsoever
conserving the wildlife resource that is the pie they covet" that birthed a group that filled that gaping hole in the country's sportsmen's group options, writes David Petersen -- the Elk Hunting Bard of the San Juans --  today in the Huffington Post.

That conversation eventually led to the creation of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a member-based, volunteer-run, Aldo Leopold-style conservation group comprised of hunters and fishermen (of both genders) who also love the land and rivers that make their wild country pursuits posisble. David Petersen is today vice-chair of the BCHA Colorado Chapter.

This is a great group doing much needed work on the proverbial shoestring budget most groups doing Good Work must endure. Read Petersen's lively nutshell history and overview of the group at the Huffington Post Blog.

Ice Age artists of the San Juan River

Okay, this is crazy stuff: 13,000-year-old (at least) pictographs of woolly mammoths found near Bluff, Utah, along the San Juan River. That is just ... so ... damn ... cool.

You can listen to and read the story from Arizona Public Radio here.

Not much has changed ...

A little internet gem: A mini-documentary from 1958, "Magic Rails to Yesterday," which includes a 8-or-so-minute look at the ride from Durango to Silverton on the DSNGRR, starting at 07:30.

Warming to the chilly San Juan River

This might be the only river trip that we come back from the river with more ice than we left with.

I thought that on Saturday morning, after I awoke to a curtain of steam over the river, a furry coat of rime frost on all metallic objects, and a crust of ice in the water jugs.

But, at least it wasn't raining any longer. Or lightninging. Yet, anyway ...

A little travelin' to New Mexico

I hit the road recently. It wasn't much of a journey -- down to Grants, New Mexico (La Frontera!), to see

the parents for an evening and morning. Three and a half hours down, and the same back, across the blank landscape of north-central New Mexico.

Well, not so blank.

See, it may not have been much of a journey, but it was a little bit of traveling nonetheless. And when it comes to traveling, a little goes a long way. Even just sitting on my arse in a car at 65 mph with my dog snoozing on the back seat and trip hop on the stereo. That's all it takes to get me out of valley -- both physically and figuratively -- I've been feeling holed up in (okay, a pretty nice valley, but still), and get me back out -- out there -- and reweaving myself into the Home Landscape ...

Hunting for ... something

Well, another hunting season passes, and another winter with an empty freezer approaches.

See, this hunting thing is my longest on-going life futility. I have been carrying my own weapon in the woods most years since I was fifteen, and I have yet to leave those woods hauling anything but my rifle or bow and a headful of lovely autumn scenery (so it's not an entirely fruitless enterprise).

After the Party

Well, it's been quite a summer for our little piece of Heaven, eh? Fire. Drought. Blazing heat. A murder or two. These kept Durango and southwestern Colorado in the spotlight here and there. But, of course, there were other things that drew the heavy eye of the media upon the region. And a few of the bigger of those this year had to do with cycling.

Changing of the guard

We push off -- four families disbursed across five boats and a few duckies -- and out onto the low-water mid-summer San Juan River.

And already it's day four.

Remembering fire

The Lightner Creek Fire from downtown Durango on June 27
(photo by Matt Kenna)

It's only early July, but already this is a fire year to remember.

We started this summer remembering ten years ago, when the Missionary Ridge and Valley fires ripped a path from the Animas Valley to Vallecito and beyond. I remember standing on the campus of the Fort, watching the fire advancing under a great volcanic plume, flames cresting the southern flank of Missionary Ridge and presenting the beast a clear line to town, while helicopters and slurry bombers gave it all they had. I remember the ash started to fall on us then. All the scene needed was The Doors singing "The End."

The Mountain View

The view from here is sweet. No doubt about it.

From my yard, I can watch the sun rise behind a long earthy arm, hairy with pinion and juniper and scrub oak. And it sets -- a view best taken in from our front porch -- behind a sweeping range of bluffs, bristling with ponderosa, bulging behind the far side of town. Every day these views flirt with me, distracting me, drawing my gaze, demanding my attention. Every night I feel it, out there, everywhere, unseen even as its presence permeates my home, my living room, my bedroom, my awareness.

Grandview Ridge

It's been on my local bucket list for a long time. Finally got up the highest point -- that big overhanging wave of white stone -- for a look around.

Cast away

Before the shipwreck

It wasn't how I'd intended to launch the river season. But somehow it was the perfect way to go into it: fully immersed.

Radio Free Durango

DJ G has no idea who I am. But he changed my life.

That's what can happen to you if, say, like I was, you were up in the wee hours of a late night, drinking your x-teenth cup of coffee, scribbling bleary wisdom upon each page in a interminable stack of term papers, while listening to KDUR through a pair of those enormous deejay-style headphones that blot out all of existence outside the sound force-fed into your head. And on that night, the sound being force-fed into my head was DJ G's "Beats & Rhymes, Etc." show.

Spring Training

It takes skill, this following baseball. I mean following a single game, in progress. It takes practice. It takes training. So while February at long-blessedly-last fades into the rebirth and reawakening that we call March, my favorite teams are at last in spring training -- The Red Sox in Fort Myers, Fla., the Rockies in Scottsdale, and Cubs in Mesa, Arizona. And that means that while they're in spring training, so am I.

Career man

Insight can come in strange places. Like, for example, during a make-believe game show about your life being played by a dozen and a half or so friends on your birthday, while you watch from a lawn-chair-of-honor on the sideline so you can occasionally arbitrate disputed answers.

Well, that was when this particular insight came to me, anyway.

New Millennium resolution

I know it's mid-January, but I'm still wondering what to resolve for this new year. At my age, I've made all the easy changes to my habits, and tried most of the hard ones. The bad practices I have now, I've come to accept, will color the palette of my personality for the duration.

But, of course, this year it may not matter what, or if, I resolve. As I'm sure you've heard, a pile of prophesiers foreshadow something special about 2012 -- particularly the upcoming winter solstice -- that may forever alter the nature of our tenancy here on Earth. A sort of Y2.012K.

Counting blessings

I am truly blessed this holiday season: I’ll be passing it in a cabin in the woods.

The Big Game

Autumn in the high country. And for me, that means some long, full days of fall-gorgeous, super-slow, well-outfitted, and heavily-armed walks in the woods.

And another year of leaving those woods with less meat in the cooler than I went in with.

Lava Lessons

I started worrying about Lava three years ago. That's when the Park Service reshuffled its Grand Canyon river permit system, and we were able to move our launch date from "someday maybe" to Summer 2011. A good time: my son would be graduating from Durango High School a month before we put on, and head off to college a month after we took off. A perfect rite of family passage for a family raised in large part on the river.

Lake Nighthorse recreation plan dooms Ridges Basin

Game over.

And the game has been over for a long time, I came to realize once I saw the Lake Nighthorse draft recreation plan. It was just that a lot of us hadn't realized it. But any illusions to the contrary -- that the game might still be on, that there might still really be a chance to keep what was left of the precious undeveloped, quiet, wildlife-filled rarity that is Ridges Basin -- were fully put to rest at the public meeting on Monday, April 11.

Old ski bums don't die ...

... they just get on YouTube! 

A four-minute doc about 70-somethings keeping the bumming alive in the Kootenays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYM8tLJLryU&feature=player_embedded

Lake Nighthorse recreation planning process continues this week

Click pic to enlarge

A reminder: This week are two workshops on the Lake Nighthorse recreation plan:

Shared Solutions to Water & Shoreline Recreation
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
4:00-8:00 pm
Durango Community Recreation Center


Developing Shared Solutions to Land-Based Recreation
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
4:00-8:00 pm
Durango Community Recreation Center

Everyone is welcome -- and needed. Come!

And so ... in preparation, I've offer ...


my reasons why I'm in favor of an engine-free and undeveloped Campbell Reservoir and Ridges Basin

Non-motorized and undeveloped wildlife habitat and quiet open space are the basin's best use ... 

Ecologically because of its location -- low elevation habitat linking the high country and the chaparral to the south, and historically heavily used migration and wintering area. Its still relatively undeveloped condition, despite its flooding and the new county road, make it both a rare (and growing rarer) and vital piece of our region's wildlife habitat.

Economically also because of its location and undeveloped condition. As well as protecting wildlife, and thereby supporting our tourism and hunting economies, an engine-free and development-free area expands the marketable recreation options in the area. Engine-free, Ridges Basin and Campbell Reservoir are excellent and unique nearby commodities -- offering quiet water and water-side open-space experiences, feeling very remote yet very close to downtown Durango.

Aside from mere convenience, as an industrialized and motorized recreation area, though, Ridges Basin would be only mediocre among the several other, much bigger and better nearby motorized reservoir areas. And then it would always be just mediocre open space and wildlife habitat, as well. So while gas stations in town might pump some more fuel, Ridges Basin would be just a lower-level option for powerboating tourists, while it could be a top-notch unique lure for those seeking a close-to-town quiet and wildlife-rich human-powered lake experience.

Realistically because the reality is, the area is too small to serve as both: The size and amphitheatre-like natural configuration of Ridges Basin means the noise of engines precludes and diminishes the area's other values as wildlife habitat and quiet open space.

Ethically Ridges Basin should remain motorless and undeveloped because those above qualities and values of Ridges Basin were why the area was public land and a DCDOW Wildlife Area before the reservoir site was condemned and appropriated by the Bureau of Reclamation, bypassing legal challenges and dodging public input. Given that history and circumstances, there is an obligation to honor this land's historic use and the original intentions of the land: Wildlife and open space.

Morally, this is a unique opportunity to step back from visions of immediate fun and gain and think, what is the best thing to leave our kids, and our kids' kids? The ecologically healthy, economically valuable, and historically significant place readily accessible from town that a quiet and engine-free Ridges Basin would be? Or yet another motorized, industrialized, and commercialized landscape?

Looking ahead, what will our kids need more?

Bonus reason!

Quagga mussels and water quality, which threaten the intention of the Animas-La Plata Project and primary purpose of the reservoir, would be a certainty with powerboating on Campbell Reservoir.

Learn more about the Lake Nighthorse planning process here.

Find helpful information about Lake Nighthorse here.

Report from Lake Nighthorse public meeting

Some of my notes from the Campbell Reservoir public meeting on Tuesday, 11/16. Feel free to pass around any additions, clarifications, corrections, etc. 

Highlight of the night: 

Ron and Randy Bodo, the grandsons of Mike Bodo, who homesteaded the basin at the turn of the last century, we present. Roy spoke, and spoke in favor of keeping the lake engine-less (or, at a minimum, a no-wake lake). "We feel the lake is too small for motorboats," Ron Bodo said. He also said they were in favor of keeping the area for day-use only, and that they'd like to see hiking and biking trails.

"We did not want to see this area developed," he said. "We were (when they transferred the land to the CDOW via the Nature Conservancy in 1974) insuring the legacy of good stewardship would carry on."

Key issues:

Park Service representative Joy Lujan explained that a "successful" plan coming from this recreation planning process will have to meet four criteria:

- Publicly acceptable 

- Economically viable 

- Environmentally acceptable 

- Technically feasible

She also noted that depending upon what the management plan ends up allowing, there may need to be a supplemental EIS.

It was re-affirmed by Lujan and BuRec people that whatever plan comes out of this process will be binding to whatever agency or group ends up managing the Lake Nighthorse and surrounding BuRec land.

It was again asserted that the boat ramp funding requires and assures engines on the lake. [But: This is increasingly looking like it's just not so (despite the long-time claims of Jim Isgar, sponsor of the move the got the boat ramp built. (Soon to be named the Isgar National Boat Ramp?)) More will be forthcoming on this issue ... ]

Other interesting tidbits:

A BuRec official said that, even before any withdrawals are made from the reservoir, water levels will fluctuate about five feet per year just from evaporation loss alone. Well, with a surface area of 1,500 feet, that's 7,500 acre-feet of water per year lost to evaporation alone (never mind groudwater seepage). That is enough water for 30,000 people (and heavy water-using people at that).

Access for ATVs, motorcyles, and snowmobiles

are issues that are still on the table.

A representative of the Animas La Plata Association, which manages the water-pumping and control facilities for ALP, stated flatly that "a safe and reliable water supply" is the reservoir's first priority. He said that quaggua mussels are a major threat to those missions, and that the reservoir is prime mussel habitat. He also said gas, oil, and parking lot drainage are a major threat to the reservoir's water quality.

A Coast Guard reservist who works at area reservoirs noted that, bottom line, Lake Nighthorse is too small to safely, or even enjoyably, use speedboats or jet skis. "This is where you can bring your kids and grandkids and not get run over by a powerboat," he said.

The reservoir has already been stocked with 50,000 trout.

Learn more about Lake Nighthorse at the official Lake Nighthorse site, and the (very!) unofficial Silent Nighthorse Wiki. 

Reminder: Public forum on Lake Nighthorse & Ridges Basin on Tuesday night!

Click to embiggen.

Remember: Tuesday night is the public forum for the Lake Nighthorse (more properly referred to as Campbell Reservoir) recreation management planning process.

5 - 8 p.m. at Needham Elementary School, in Durango. (Click to see a map.)

Here's what the agenda is planned to look like:

The first 30 minutes will include a fact-based presentation by the design team, an explanation of the meeting process and stage setting by Joy Lujan from the National Park Service, brief comments from Bruce Whitehead from ALPWCD, a statement from the Bureau of Reclamation, and a statement from Randy Bodo.

From about 5:30 to 7:30, will be input from the public. People will tell the gathered officials and the audience what their interests, issues, ideas and concerns are by making a statement from a microphone at the front of the room. Visual aids are welcome. 

The final half hour will be an exercise to explore people's interests further. People will be be asked and answers tabulated to general questions like what kinds of recreational uses people engage in now, what their concerns about recreation at the lake, what kinds of recreational uses they might like to see at the lake, etc.

The entire meeting will be video taped.

Learn more about the Lake Nighthorse planning process here.

Find helpful information about Lake Nighthorse here.

See you there!