Month: June 2003

Seeking shelter from the windstorm in Taos

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Column by Hal Walter

Travel – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT’S IMPORTANT this time of year when leaving for a holiday from the Wet Mountains to take note of certain things.

For instance, before leaving for a mini-vacation to Taos, New Mexico, in early May, I noted that despite six feet of snow in March, the stock pond on the adjacent property was bone dry. The huge salamanders that had appeared in a nearby seasonal stream after the snow melted had disappeared, possibly into the bellies of mallards. Blades of green grass had just begun to sprout. The wind had been blowing a gale for days and despite the oldtimers’ mantra that this time of year it would blow and blow until it snows, the only storm cloud looming on the horizon was the haze of topsoil roiling over the Sangres from the San Luis Valley.

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A message for the CO GOP

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Letter from T. L. Livermore

Politics – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors,

I thought you might be interested in this message, which I recently sent to Colorado’s Republicans:

I am dismayed to read and hear about the congressional redistricting passed by our legislature in early May, during the last three days of the session. Colorado’s Republicans have subverted (or do I want perverted?) the political process as it was intended, simply in an effort to garner yourselves more votes. Are you all so insecure as to believe you can’t win on issues alone?

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Asking the right questions

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Letter from Slim Wolfe

Democracy – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Snickety strikes again….

And what strikes me is a general inability to ask the right questions. Let’s not be put on the defensive by an 18-year-old marine who thinks there’s no right to ask questions, rather let’s ask if any service person has the right to obey orders contrary to international law and convention or if they can claim the excuse of being ignorant as brainwashed by TV. Why wonder whether Bush is bright enough to be the next Hitler when all either one of them had to do was play the part, read the script, seem sincere, and appeal to the simple?

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Wearing out the welcome

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Letter from Orville Wright

American life – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Mr. Quillen:

Enjoyed the follow-up piece about the Klan on page 6 [of the May edition]. It appears that my mother worked in the “Dragon’s Den,” so to speak.

My Grandmother Wright attended the First Christian Church. I knew the minister as Mr. George. He kept a large number of bee hives and sold honey as a rather lucrative sideline during the war when sugar was rationed.

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Good intentions made good

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Letter from Ray Schoch

Xeriscaping – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed, Martha and Colorado Central readers:

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions…” or so a Baptist minister once told me.

If he’s correct, I’m doomed. One of the things I’ve always disliked about many plant and gardening articles and books is the tendency of the writers to always use the Latin name(s) for the plant(s) they’re describing.

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Reading the Environment

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Column by George Sibley

Environment – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

“Environment” was a word I don’t remember hearing when I was growing up and going to school in the 1950s. It’s a lot different today; our young people are immersed in information about “the environment” from grade school on. This is a commendable change, in my opinion, but there’s a further step I’d like to see in this new awareness, and that is to begin raising awareness of the true nature of the “environment” we live in.

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The West loses an unsentimental guide

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Essay by John Krist

David Lavender – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

HISTORIAN DAVID LAVENDER was the best sort of guide a traveler in the West could have: A quiet man with a wry sense of humor, he was passionate about this region, refused to romanticize it and was happy to share his knowledge if asked.

He was never sentimental about the West, writing about cowboys: “Although they were slaves to a particularly stupid and unattractive animal, they became symbols of the West’s vaunted freedom.”

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Some books in Brief

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Review by Ed Quillen

History and horses – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazin

Pike’s Peak Backcountry – The Historic Saga of the Peak’s Western Slope
by Celinda Reynolds Kaelin
Second Edition, published in 1999 by Caxton Press
ISBN 0-87004-391-9

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The Sonheims: Carla’s faces, Steve’s techniques

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Article by Sue Snively

Local Artists – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

ON FIRST GLANCE, it was like looking into the unknown, perhaps into a scene far removed from the face of this place we call earth. The lighting and shadow in this photograph aroused trepidation — and curiosity. It was a stunning piece.

Steve Sonheim of Salida is the artist, and this photograph, as with most of Steve’s work, was not meant to be conceptual or symbolic, but to go past expressionism and into the world of abstraction.

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Colorado resources should benefit all of Colorado

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Essay by Jim Dyer

Water – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION, I’m not a water lawyer and have not spent the kind of time that employees at the Department of Natural Resources or some of the other water agencies have spent getting educated about water policy, so when it comes to technical questions about the jurisdictional differences between federal and state agencies, I am not qualified to comment.

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Fry-Ark started as Gun-Ark in 1948

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Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Water – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE CONTROVERSY over the use of the upper Gunnison River would have ended a long time ago, if the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had been able to go ahead with a 1948 proposal. There would be nothing to argue about, because every potential drop would be diverted to the Eastern Slope in the “Gunnison-Arkansas Project,” an ancestor of the current Fryingpan-Arkansas Project which serves the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District.

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Learning more about the Gunnison

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Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Water – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Further Reading:

The history of the Colorado-Big Thompson project is covered in The Last Water Hole in the West, by Daniel Tyler, published in 1992 by University Press of Colorado. Tyler says it’s not an authorized history, but it sure reads like one.

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Why the Water Buffaloes look toward Gunnison

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Essay by Ed Quillen

Water – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

EARLY IN APRIL, the state and federal governments announced that they had come to an agreement concerning river flows through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The feds would settle for less than they might have been able to claim under state law. That could mean that water in the upper Gunnison basin has become available for diversion to the Eastern Slope and Front Range. Or it could mean nothing of the sort.

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What’s up with the Creede line?

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Brief by Marcia Darnell

Railroads – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

It’s been a couple of years since the brouhaha over the railway from South Fork to Creede has been in the news. Despite the pending lawsuit, Don Shank, the owner of the 21.6-mile line, says it’ll be operational by Memorial Day 2005.

“Darn near every day someone’s working on the line,” he said recently. His group is rehabilitating the track and bringing in additional equipment. He says he has a 44-ton locomotive in Loveland being worked on and a 3,000-hp road locomotive in South Fork.

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C&TS is vital to Antonito’s economy

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Sidebar by Marcia Darnell

Railroads – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

How important is the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad to Antonito? Judging by the numbers, it’s critical.

Those numbers have fluctuated in the last couple of years, due to the train’s trouble with the economy and fire restrictions. According to Richard Gomez, executive director of the C&TRR Commission, the operation put $45 million into Rio Arriba (New Mexico) and Conejos (Colorado) counties in 2001, the last time the train had a full season.

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Cumbres & Toltec will steam on this summer

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Article by Mark H. Hunter

Railroads – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE LITTLE TRAIN that “could” still can and will operate again this summer after a winter of discontent that nearly derailed it for good.

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, a historic, coal-fired tourist train that winds through the southern Rocky Mountains from Antonito, Colorado, to Chama, New Mexico, will begin operations on Saturday, June 14 and continue until October 19. The popular narrow-gauge line, which pumps millions of dollars into the economies of both small towns, usually begins operations on Memorial Day weekend, but mechanical problems with its steam-powered locomotives delayed full operations, according to officials.

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Old BV depot finds a new home, but not by the tracks

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Brief by Clint Driscoll

Railroad history – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

It is still true that no good deed goes unpunished. The initial plans for moving the 1880 Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad depot in Buena Vista have derailed.

Originally the depot — which served as a private residence until October, 2002 when a fire damaged it — was supposed to be moved to a space on the right-of-way of the Union Pacific tracks which run through town.

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Around the Region

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Brief by Martha Quillen

Regional News – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Thorny Problems

A recent newspaper insert put out by the Upper Arkansas Regional Weed Management Cooperative gives a clue as to why noxious weeds persist in our region. Apparently Chaffee and Lake Counties have “Weed Supervisors” and Pueblo County has a “Weed Coordinator” to implement local “weed management” programs.

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Sending money to the right places

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Brief by Central Staff

Media – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Sending money to the right places

With a name like “Colorado Public Radio,” you’d think it was an outfit which serves the whole state. But it’s not — it’s essentially a station based in Denver with repeaters in various parts of the state.

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Mining the nostalgia vein

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Brief by Central Staff

Media – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Mining the Nostalgia Vein

The motto of Paydirt Magazine is “A voice for mining since 1938,” but they might want to change it to “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

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A hard year for Salida booklovers

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Brief by Central Staff

Books – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

We’re fond of bookstores, so 2003 has been a bad year, with Salida losing two shops.

Adventure Media closed at the start of the year; owner Connie De Luca said the last straw came last fall when Amazon.com, the big internet book retailer, started offering free shipping on orders over $25.

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Briefs from the San Luis Valley

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Brief by Marcia Darnell

San Luis Valley – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Off the Critical List

The good news is the snowpack, and therefore the water supply, is better than last year. The bad news is this year’s snowpack is only mediocre, according to Pat McDermott with the Division of Water Resources.

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A real work-out for travelers

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Brief by Central Staff

Tourism – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Salida was named one of “the 48 Best Multi-Sport Towns You Can Drive To” in the June edition of Hooked on the Outdoors, “The Original Backyard Travel & Gear Magazine.”

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The Gerrymander Strikes

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Brief by Central Staff

Politics – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

We weren’t happy when Chaffee and Lake counties were put into the Fifth Congressional District (Colorado Springs) when the lines were redrawn after the 2000 Census. Now we’re back in the Third (Western Slope and San Luis Valley), where we were before and where we fit better. But we’re not entirely thrilled about that, either.

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Deep in the Temple of Catch-and-Release

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Essay by Alan Kesselheim

Fishing – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

NOT LONG AGO, a friend told me a fishing story. He and his son were paddling the Big Hole River, one of Montana’s renowned trout fisheries. Along the way they decided to catch some dinner. They cast over those legendary waters until they had three trout, which they bonked on the head and stowed. Then they quit.

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Western Water Report: June 2, 2003

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HYDROLOGY

Record breaking high temperatures have persisted over Colorado in the latter part of May. This very warm weather has resulted in substantial late May snowmelt and runoff. Some streamflow gages are recording record high flows for this time of year. Even though river flows are quite high in the basin right now, drought conditions continue in the Colorado River Basin. River flows will likely drop dramatically in mid-June. Total unregulated inflow to Lake Powell for water year 2003 will likely be about 60 percent of average, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.

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