Daily Wilderness News Clips

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. 

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.

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."

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.

A dozen steps out of her SUV, Cheryl Warren stops to collect the view of Indian Creek valley below.

It stretches for miles to the south and west in a mix of deep-green grass and tawny humps and buttes decorated with cedar trees and flowering yucca and cactus.

"I love this," Warren says. "It just never fails to blow me away."

The Custer woman is one of many who love the view from a precipitous promontory known among frequent visitors as "Cardiac Hill," a few miles west of Scenic.

Today, Congress hears testimony on a bill that would expand wilderness protection and consolidate public lands in a pair of small areas near Albuquerque. Rep. Martin Heinrich introduced the Cibola National Forest Expansion bill last month. It would add the Crest of Montezuma to the north end of the Cibola National Forest, and expand the Manzano Wilderness area by 900 acres at the south end of the forest. 

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) yesterday introduced legislation to limit the president's authority to create new national monuments.

Under Nunes' bill, H.R. 5508, any monument created by the president would require ratification from Congress within two years of creation. If Congress does not approve the monument, the land would revert back to its previous status.

It's an idea that's been in the making for three-quarters of a century, but the creation of an international park along the U.S.-Mexico border is still nothing more than a notion.

The latest obstacle: security concerns stemming from the recent surge in violence in Mexico and the border region.

While proponents of the park say its creation would enhance security along the border, even they acknowledge that violence south of the border has made the concept of an international park a more difficult sell.