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This is the first in a weekly series profiling the areas proposed by the Hidden Gems campaign for federal wilderness designation. The campaign, led by Carbondale's Wilderness Workshop, calls for more than 400,000 acres to be protected as wilderness. Most of the land is in the White River and Gunnison national forests, and includes areas in Pitkin, Gunnison, Eagle and Summit counties. An act of the U.S. Congress is required to designate new wilderness.
The proposed Cathedral Rock and Horse Heaven federal wilderness areas make up for their lack of size with the uniqueness of Oregon's incomparable high desert, with its basalt cliffs and rolling hills of juniper, sagebrush and bluebunch wheatgrass. And a horizon that drifts into eternity.
I recently attended the film festival on the environment held in the Vail-Eagle Valley, and met the group Hidden Gems and found their work extremely important for all of us to support.
Reacting to both criticism and constructive advice, Sen. Jon Tester revealed a thick list of changes to his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act during a visit to Missoula on Friday.
In all, Tester proposed 21 changes to S. 1470. Many involve assurances that 10,000 acres a year of timber would be cut, with proper scientific monitoring and protection from excessive litigation.
Last month, U.S. Forest Service officials complained that the acreage might be an unsustainable amount of logging. Tester responded that the agency needs to change the way it manages timber.
There is strong evidence that elk need areas away from roads to maintain healthy populations. In the Bighorn National Forest, with its extensive road network, there are few remaining places that offer quality elk refuge. The Cloud Peak Wilderness has no roads yet the high elevation limits the suitable habitat.
The following is for all those undecided (the independents) about the ongoing controversy to designate more land as Wilderness:
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - They are pioneers of conservation in Nevada, men and women who saw the warning signs 40 years ago that Red Rock Canyon needed conservation protection. Now, they believe Gold Butte needs similar help.
Back in the 1970s, Terri Robertson, Las Vegas outreach coordinator for Friends of Gold Butte, says she had no idea Las Vegas would grow to nearly 2 million people. But even when the city's population was more like 100,000, she says it was clear that Red Rock's natural landscape and cultural sites needed to be preserved.
The push is on to formally designate of 32,557 acres of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as wilderness.
The designation request was made in bills introduced Tuesday in Congress.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, are each sponsoring legislation to make the change, something both said has strong public and National Park Service support.
The bills balance wilderness protection and provide access to the park's Lake Michigan and other beaches by both water and road.
I would like to tell you about an experience I had in Florence, Italy, 32 years ago.
I was there filming a New Age Congress. Florence was an appropriate location for the event being at the center of the European Renaissance that occurred between the 14th and 16th centuries.
It was a transition from the medieval to the modern, also the hope of the New Age thinkers of that time.
Out of dozens of amazing experiences, one still stands out in my memory.
We are local high school graduates writing in support of the Hidden Gems Wilderness proposal.
We grew up here fishing in mountain streams, stirring grouse in groves of aspen, ski touring through silent stands of conifer, climbing high peaks and glissading back down. We stalked deer and elk, tempted raging runoffs, dove into frigid alpine lakes and pondered the beauty of it all in fields of wildflowers.
The wilds were our classroom. Our field trips, mostly right out the backdoor, exposed us to natural sciences that most kids only experience on DVD.
