Month: August 2005

Trying to reason with wildfire season, again

by

Column by Hal Walter

Mountain Life – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN YOU GET right down to it, we’re all living in a tinderbox. To me, it’s not so surprising when a wildfire kicks up, but rather that it doesn’t happen more often.

I became aware of the “Mason Gulch Fire” while I was out on a run the same morning that fire crews were also alerted to it. I saw smoke over the top of Hardscrabble Mountain, but continued on, and actually forgot about the smoke in a haze of chores, work and a tight schedule.

Read more

Leadville Scenery Project

by

Sidebar by Sharon Chickering Moller

Tabor Opera House – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Leadville Scenery Project

In 1933, Muriel Sibell Wolle, from the University of Colorado, brought a group of students to Leadville to set up the original canvas flats and drops to document and photograph them.

Read more

Performances for 2005

by

Sidebar by Central Staff

Tabor Opera House – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Tabor Opera House Performances for 2005

July 23: The Denver Concert Band performs at 7 p.m., admission $5.

August 6: A Portrait of Molly Brown, a fast-paced portrayal of Colorado’s legendary heroine, at 7 p.m., $7 in advance, $10 at the door.

Read more

Antique facets of Leadville’s Tabor Opera House

by

Article by Sharon Chickering Moller

Local History – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

When a fellow gets to pondering,
In the twilight hours of life,
With his mind just idly wandering
Through old scenes with memories rife;
Of strange happenings that teased him
In the days of long ago;
Of the many things that pleased him,
In the changing, passing show .
(Frank Vaughn, Leadville newspaperman and poet, 1905)

THE RED BRICK WALLS of the Tabor Opera House give few hints of the tragedies and comedies that were enacted within, nor of the equally compelling scenes that played out on the muddy, manure-strewn streets of the 1870s and 80s. Today, pigeons huddle on the windowsills and fire escape of the opera house, and there is little left to indicate the wild, often violent incidents that characterized late 19th century Leadville – where anything could happen, and often did. The streets were a frenzy then, as thousands of prospective miners arrived hoping to strike it rich.

Read more

Mining and Resorts

by

Column by George Sibley

Small-Town Economies – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

ED WILL BE GLAD TO HEAR that the community of Crested Butte in the Upper Gunnison River Basin – a community which he has tended to place just outside of “Central Colorado” along with Vail and Aspen – is attempting to confront its past and possible future. Later this week, on July 8 — a few weeks before you’ll get this magazine – the Upper Gunnison’s environmental organization, the High Country Citizens Alliance (HCCA), is sponsoring a forum: “Is there room for mining in a historic mining district?”

Read more

What’s a pack-burro race?

by

Sidebar by Hal Walter

Pack-Burro Racing – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

It’s been said that a pack-burro race is a combination of a footrace, a rodeo and Teddy Roosevelt’s boys charging up San Juan Hill.

The sport, the only sport indigenous to Colorado’s mountains, is rooted in mining history, and to celebrate this competitors pack their burros with a packsaddle containing 33 pounds of gear, which must include a pick, pan and shovel.

Read more

Confessions of a pack-burro racer

by

Article by Hal Walter

Pack-Burro Racing – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

“The thin air smelled of stone and snow, the sun came through it and lay warm on her hands and face without warming the air itself. Up, up, up. There was no top to this pass.”

— Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

A COUPLE OF WEEKS before the World Championship Pack-Burro Race in Fairplay, I’ll sometimes park at a place known as “The Resurrection,” named for a mine near timberline at the base of Mosquito Pass above Leadville. From here I can cover the top sections of both the Fairplay and Leadville courses in one last, long workout before the races.

Read more

A day in the life of a raft-guide trainee

by

Article by Brad Goettemoeller

Recreation – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

ON THE ARKANSAS RIVER, you see rafts bouncing downstream with a well-trained guide at the helm. But have you ever thought about how someone becomes a guide? In theory, a guide is trained by mature, responsible and highly skilled instructors in a controlled and safe environment that is conducive to learning. However, my experience was quite the opposite.

Read more

Embarrasments of timing

by

Essay by Ed Quillen

Journalism – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

TALK ABOUT BAD TIMING. In the most recent (July) edition, which was mailed on June 21, we had a short feature that explained why there are “Bring back the railroad” posters all over Salida. I’d seen the posters last winter, and eventually got around to finding the person behind them; then I got around to interviewing him and writing the piece – which sat around for a month or two until we had a good space for it.

Read more

Self-reliance is the key

by

Letter from Slim Wolfe

Colorado Central – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Once again there wasn’t a damned item in the regional calendar relating to self-reliance or sustainability.. And once again the editorial ranted on for pages about our condition but kept shoving the blame elsewhere or nowhere. The blame is on me (and you) and self-reliance is the key. A century ago, a tiny little parcel of real estate such as the Quillen’s would have been crammed with self-reliance: vegetable plots, chicken coops, and rabbit hutches, looms, canning sheds…

Read more

Ward Churchill, the flat-out hypocrite

by

Letter from Deric Pamp

Free Speech – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

I have been struggling with my harsh opinion of Ward Churchill [who spoke in Salida on June 5]. My reaction is not just to his “little Eichmanns” comment about the 9/11 victims, but to his whole, posturing schtik: the cowboy boots and all-black outfit that makes him look like an entertainer like Johnny Cash, the raised fist in victory like Huey Newton despite his upper middle class life, his advocacy that is so thinly disguised as scholarship, and since his visit to Salida, his intellectually dishonest defense of his record. He’s a Vietnam vet, and therefore he’s my brother. He is speaking out against the ruling oligarchy, and I am a First Amendment zealot. I should like him but in fact, from top to bottom, front to back, Churchill sets my teeth on edge.

Read more

The language of lawyers

by

Letter from Laird Campbell

Modern Life – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Editors:

It is generally known that lawyers have their own specialized vocabulary. For example, if an attorney tells you that he is seeking certiorari, he is asking an upper court to review a decision adverse to his client, not looking for a new kind of pizza.

Read more

How was Mt. White named?

by

Letter from Virginia McConnell Simmons

Geography – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed and Martha,

Since your publication of my article about the names of Mts. Shavano, Tabeguache, and Antero in Colorado Central (June 2005), I have been attempting to find an explanation for the name of Mt. White, an anomaly amongst those Indian peaks.

Read more

Weed for thought

by

Letter from Margy Robertson

Agriculture – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

I read Hal Walter’s article about his garden [in the July edition], thought I’d add another notion for him. I don’t know whether purslane grows at his 8,800 ft., but it sure thrives in my garden in Monte Vista. For years I’d weed it out by the bushel. I recalled reading about it, but had exactly zero idea what to do with it even if edible, and even if the English plant it on purpose. Then my guy friend Louie told me he’d grown up on the stuff, would take it home by the armloads from potato fields, when he was a kid at Hooper. Then neighbor Julia, originally from Mexico, got all excited seeing it. Remarkably, her recipe is the same as Louie’s mom’s.

Read more

Hubbert’s Peak

by

Letter from Harvey N. Gardiner

Geology – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Editors:

In the June issue of Colorado Central George Sibley made reference to the coming “oil peak” based on an article in Rolling Stone. I want to admit, up front, that I have not read Rolling Stone since the 1960s (but I do remember reading it then).

Read more

April future’s day?

by

Essay by Allen Best

Colorado Lore – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

APRIL FOOL’S DAY spoofs can be as useful in predicting the future as more weighty prognostications. I say this from personal experience. For example, 10 to 15 years ago new golf courses were being announced at every turn along the I-70 corridor. So at a Vail-area newspaper, we eyed the Superfund site on the outskirts of Minturn and announced that a golf course would soon be built atop the consolidated tailings from an old zinc mine.

Read more

Regional Roundup

by

Brief by Martha Quillen

Local News – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Jail Sued

Moises Carranza-Reyes, 29, has brought suit against the Park County Jail. In a Fairplay Flume interview, Carranza-Reyes said the facility delivered substandard medical treatment, housed him in filthy conditions, and lacked a qualified translator, which he claims all contributed to the infection which resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee; the removal of part of a lung; 60 days in intensive care; and consequent physical therapy and permanent disability.

Read more

Some 14er trails involve trespassing

by

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The usual routes up some of Colorado’s easier 14ers go across private property – old mining claims that have been patented in Park County west of Alma. And this summer, the U.S. Forest Service, which administers the land around the claims, has started telling hikers to stay off those mountains unless they have written permission from the dozens of property owners.

Read more

Our wettest season arrives

by

Brief by Central Staff

Climate – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

We’re in the wettest time of year in Central Colorado – July and August — when we get about 30% of our annual precipitation in only 17% of our year. “Wettest” is a relative term, since most of our territory is a desert by one standard definition – we get less than 20 inches of precipitation in an average year, and that’s the division between “where normal crops will grow without irrigation” and “where you need a water right unless you like gambling on dryland farming.”

Read more

A medium rare flat iron?

by

Brief by Central Staff

Agriculture – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ordering steak could get more complicated soon. With beef prices up, the industry has come up with new labels to make more cuts of “steak.”

Traditional expensive cuts like Porterhouse and T-Bone are still on the menu and at the butcher’s counter. But you might run into something unfamiliar, like a “shoulder center ranch steak or a “flat iron steak.”

Read more

Capt. Gunnison’s photo comes to Colorado

by

Brief by Central Staff

History – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Army Captain John W. Gunnison was not born in Colorado. Nor did he die here, and he spent only a few weeks in what is now our state. But he did leave his name on a lot of Colorado territory after passing through in 1853, and an original photograph of him has come to the Colorado Historical Society.

Read more

Agua con Gato Muerto

by

Brief by Central Staff

Salida Water – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

On the evening of July 5, just as Salidans were relaxing from a busy Independence Day weekend, police cars with sirens and bullhorns were making the rounds.

We were outdoors and heard them from several blocks away. All we could make out from the announcement was something about “water,” and my first thought was “Boy, they’re really cracking down on people who water their lawns on the wrong days. Sounds like a full-bore SWAT team.”

Read more

There’s another Pike’s Peak

by

Brief by Central Staff

Geography – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Next year marks the bicentennial of Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike’s 1806-07 expedition to Colorado, which included a Christmas camp near Salida and his capture by Spanish soldiers in the San Luis Valley.

This bicentennial won’t get nearly the attention that the Lewis and Clark “Voyage of Discovery” is getting now, although news is trickling in about some likely events in 2006, including a possible visit by a Pike impersonator.

Read more

Colorado house-price increases are lagging

by

Brief by Central Staff

Real Estate – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

For the past decade or so, as long as this magazine has been in business, it has seemed to us that the price of Colorado real estate has been climbing at a good clip, well above the national average.

But it hasn’t, at least in recent years, according to figures compiled by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

Read more

Briefs from the San Luis Valley

by

Brief by Marcia Darnell

San Luis Valley – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Spuds to the Rescue!

Enviro firm Arcadis has proposed using unsellable potatoes to clean up Summitville. The runty taters would be combined with ethanol to reduce oxidation, and therefore reduce percolation of minerals in the soil around the old mine. This plan would mean building and running an ethanol plant, creating an estimated 50 -100 jobs, and would also generate a market for unwanted spuds. The company says it’s had success with the method in smaller venues.

Read more

‘Takings’ and our water law

by

Brief by Central Staff

Water Politics – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The “takings clause” of the U.S. Constitution has been in the news of late due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Kelo v. New Haven, Conn. The clause is part of the Fifth Amendment, which states in part that “neither shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

Read more

The American Dream, sans gasoline

by

Essay by Michelle Nijhuis

Travel – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

I’VE HAD IT with gasoline. Not only is it helping melt the glaciers in Glacier National Park, thaw the Alaskan permafrost, and drown low-lying Pacific islands, but it’s also emptying my wallet. So when my husband and I decided to buy a new car recently, we both wanted it to use as little gas as possible — or, better yet, no gas at all.

Read more

Western Water Report: August 1, 2005

by

ENERGY COMPANIES APPEAL COLORADO RULES ON RUNOFF WATER

Energy companies said Colorado’s new rules governing water runoff on oil and gas operations on less than 5 acres of land are premature, and that the state should have waited for the Environmental Protection Agency to complete its study on runoff water. [Gunnison County and several environmental groups have intervened to assist the state defend its decision to regulate well drilling construction. This issue has become more urgent with Congress exempting the oil and gas industry from federal regulation in the new energy bill.] Denver Post; July 6 <http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2841880>

Read more