Woe is us. Yes, the millions of people in the Great American West who depend on the snowpack for 80% of our water. This year has shaken us to the bone. Apparently, there was a warmer and drier year, winter 1980, that we are competing with. Oddly, more prominent in people’s memory was the terrible […]
John Armstrong
Posted inColumns
CVEPA Views: McClure lore and the road to power
At a town hall-style meeting in late 1971, the White River National Forest (USFS) presented its vision to designate the Chair Mountain-McClure Pass area as “primitive.” The area was basically untouched save for a horse and foot trail starting at the top of the 8,755-foot pass and an annual sheep grazing permit. There was, however, […]
Posted inOpinion
CVEPA Views: You can’t get there from here
How long does it take to get to Marble? Gus Darien told me that when he was a young man he could hop on the train to Carbondale. The train stopped at his Marble ranch to take on water or maybe coal from Camp Genter Mine and cabbages and raspberries from Clotan Moore’s place above […]
Posted inColumns
CVEPA Views: Herald Filoha
What cause to rejoice! The long overdue end to the illegal closure of a Pitkin County right of way and road has come to a settlement. The Rock Creek Wagon Road between Redstone and Filoha Meadows Nature Preserve, colloquially known as Dorais Way, will reopen in time for the Preserve’s summer season. This dirt road […]
Posted inColumns
CVEPA Views: An eye to the past, an eye to the future
There was a moment when I discovered something truly magnificent — when a great light struck me, when something new, different and special opened up for me. I may have been still in grammar school when my friend Julius took me on a hike above his neighborhood. We passed a small pond on the edge […]
Posted inColumns
CVEPA Views: Treachery at the highest level
It has been a long, slow evolution in the United States to achieve the environmental standards and protections that the American people have come to benefit from. We stand stunned at the short period of time that these achievements have unraveled. Clean air and water… are they not inalienable rights? Greed, an unquenchable thirst for […]
Posted inOpinion
CVEPA Views: A smell conspicuous in its absence
This latest cold snap was reminiscent of years gone-by. This is cold that pinches your nose and robs your breath as the snow crunches beneath your feet. It was common fare in Carbondale. With the cold came an odor so ubiquitous, if not pervasive, that it was part of our everyday life. The pungent smell […]
Posted inColumns
Farewell, Ranger
I was deeply saddened by the loss of yet another Crystal Valley icon, a man who spent his career defending wildlife and an ally for the quality of life we all cherish here. The passing of John Seidel last week brings a tear and evokes many precious memories of our dear friend. John worked as […]
Posted inOpinion
CVEPA Views: The River of No Return
My beautiful summer of moderate temps, ample moisture and smoke-free skies got spicier with a phone call from a friend. Their rafting permit on the Main Salmon River in Western Idaho was canceled last year due to a large forest fire. Their permit was honored this summer, and one party could not make the trip […]
Posted inOpinion
CVEPA Views: Who was Nikos Patsantaros?
Graffiti on public buildings, carving into soft desert sandstone and covering signs with insipid stickers all seem endemic these days. Is there a point when vandalism becomes artifact? Reflecting back on my high country meanders, I treasure the shepherd’s tree carvings the most. Throughout the boreal forest on Colorado’s Western Slope one can still find […]