Essay by Rob Pudim
Outdoors – December 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
“I thought we’d go for a hike,” I told the boy I’m mentoring. “You know, look at stuff.”
“How about we go to a movie?” he parried. “Or we could play electronic poker.”
He’s not an unusual kid. There has been a major swing in his generation away from all things outdoors. The National Academy of Sciences said, “All major lines of evidence point to an ongoing and fundamental shift away from nature-based activity.”
Review by Ed Quillen
Outdoors – October 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Hiking Colorado’s Roadless Trails
by Penelope Purdy
Published in 2008
by the Colorado Mountain Club Press
ISBN 978-0-97605250-79
Brief by Allen Best
Outdoors – January 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Yet another hiker got lost while descending 14,005-foot Mount of the Holy Cross in Eagle County. It happens at least once a year, often several, but so far without fatality — a miracle.
Among those miracle cases was that of a retired music teacher who in 1997 was on the thin border of life after spending eight days huddled among rocks above timberline.
Review by Ed Quillen
Outdoors – November 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Colorado Wild – An Intimate Portrait of the Centennial State
by Grant Collier
Published in 2007 by Collier Publishing
ISBN 0976921847
Column by Hal Walter
Outdoors – October 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
IN THE YEARS B.C (before child) we always made a point of getting out for a pack trip with our burros at least once each summer. Usually we chose the cloudless days of late August or September to avoid the monsoon season and certain associated discomforts — like wet socks and lightning strikes.
Brief by Allen Best
Outdoors – October 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Even in mountain towns, where at times it seems you could reach out and grab a few stars, the sky is not nearly the same glittering wealth of stars that Galileo saw. The Milky Way is fast disappearing.
There are, in ski towns and elsewhere, people who feel aggrieved by this diminished night sky. The New Yorker explains that a ranking of dark skies, called the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, has been created.
Column by John Mattingly
Outdoors – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Close Encounters With Other Species
DURING THE LATE SUMMER of 1973 — the year the Endangered Species Act (ESA) passed and became a contentious topic in our local coffee shop — a prolonged rainy spell shut down haying operations in our area long enough for me to read Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda. The book was a gift from a neighbor, a dairyman named Ross whose son had given it to him, claiming (hoping) it would “blow his mind.”
Brief by Allen Best
Outdoors – December 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
It’s an old saw that those caught in avalanches should attempt to swim, in order to stay afloat. But The Denver Post reports that an emerging body of evidence suggests that’s wrong.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – May 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Many things that are “good for you” involve a certain amount of displeasure, but trails usually offer pleasant experiences, while improving your health.
Thus the slogan of “Take the path for a healthier you” for this year’s National Trails Day on June 4.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dogs, perhaps by their nature, seldom leave a place cleaner than they found it – a trait confirmed by all those “Pick up your dog’s doo” signs along popular walking trails.
But there’s one pooch who’s an exception – a five-year-old retriever mix named Timber.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
If a few days of hard labor for a good cause sounds like a good way to take a break this summer, the Colorado Trail Foundation wants to hear from you. The foundation is looking for volunteers to join both week-long and weekend trail crews.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
With the transfer of the Baca Ranch to the federal government as part of the process in making Great Sand Dunes National Park, 14,165-foot Kit Carson Peak has apparently moved from private to public lands.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – January 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
When subdivisions sprout in the back-country, traditional back- country activities have to give way. Or at least, that’s what has happened in Park County, where the U.S. Forest Service has banned recreational shooting in an area near Bailey known as Slaughterhouse Gulch.
Residents of the KZ Ranch and Royal Ranch subdivisions complained to the county government and the Forest Service last fall, pointing out that they feared to take walks or even sit outdoors on account of the gunfire, and that some residents found shotgun pellets on their roofs.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Colorado Trail, which runs about 425 miles from Durango to Denver, will celebrate its 30th birthday with a spaghetti dinner at 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25, at St. Rose of Lima Church parish hall in Buena Vista. (And no, the trail will not be attending.)
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Hunters still coming, even if it doesn’t look that way
When we moved to Salida in 1978, a friend who grew up in Cañon City told us that, in his recollection, “The busiest day of the year in Salida is the day before elk season starts.”
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
It’s official now: Great Sand Dunes National Monument is now Great Sand Dunes National Park. The transition occurred on Sept. 13, when Interior Secretary Gale Norton visited the Dunes and made the proclamation.
She was in the company of two Colorado politicians: Sen. Ben Campbell and Rep. Scott McInnis, who pushed legislation through several years ago to change the area’s status.
Essay by Ben Long
Outdoors – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
LIKE MOST GUN OWNERS OF America, I do not belong to the National Rifle Association. Sometimes, I am grateful for their work. But it seems ever more often, I find myself embarrassed by this consummate beltway lobby group — a group that seems to be more intent on settling political scores than solving real problems.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Got a favorite alpine wildflower? If you do, the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative wants your opinion.
The group co-ordinates volunteers with public and private entities to reduce the wear-and-tear on Colorado’s highest peaks, and it’s looking for “one of the 250 species of Fourteener wildflowers that best symbolizes the beauty and fragile nature of the alpine” environment.
Letter from Dick Scar
Outdoors – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Gail Binkly is one lucky girl to have survived camping for nearly 20 years in a $19.95 tent [September, 2003, edition]. She joins countless others having copious amounts of good luck who climb to the summits of the 14,000-foot mountains around us wearing shorts and a T-shirt and without raingear, maps, compass or any emergency gear. I am amazed after every summer season that the mountain trails are not littered with the bodies of some people I see on the trail.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
The traditional campfire is fading away, even when there are no drought-inspired bans.
For instance, there were the Camp Fire Girls, now known as Camp Fire USA. The girls used to be encouraged to “sing around the campfire.”
Essay by Gail Binkly
Outdoors – September 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHEN I READ that the Outdoor Industry Association threatened to move its biannual gear show out of Salt Lake City as a protest against Utah’s wilderness policies, I was taken aback. Not by the announcement, but by the reported magnitude of the show: 15,000 visitors spending $24 million in the region to pore over high-tech gear.
When, I wondered, did we decide that going outdoors takes so much money?
Column by Hal Walter
Outdoors – August 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
FOLLOWING THE MARKETING STRATEGY pioneered by today’s mainstream conservative media and other highly successful public-relations schemes, my friends at Bear Basin Pack Trips recently approached me with an idea. Perhaps buying some journalism about their new Sand Dunes pack trips would be more effective than advertising.
Review by Jeanne Englert
Outdoors – May 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Secret Knowledge of Water
By Craig Childs
Published in 2001 by Little, Brown and Company
ISBN 1-57061-159-9
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – May 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
We’ve all seen those “adopt a highway” signs, and now there’s an opportunity to “adopt a 14er,” thanks to the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, a volunteer organization which works to restore Colorado’s highest mountains.
Groups are being asked to host annual work projects on the mountains. At least eight people would be involved for two days a year, and the adoption would include maintenance along the standard route, repair of structures, and monitoring new impacts (like “social trails” through fragile meadows).
Review by Ken Wright
Outdoors – April 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Cedar Mesa: A place where spirits dwell
By David Petersen, with photographs by Branson Reynolds
Published in 2002 by University of Arizona Press
ISBN 0-8165-2234-0
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – April 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
If your idea of a good time is doing heavy work at high altitudes, then you might want to get in touch with the Continental Divide Trail Association.
The trail, still under construction, will extend from Mexico to Canada in the general area of the Divide. Along much of Central Colorado, it follows the same route as the Colorado Trail.
The Association has scheduled about 50 projects for this summer, and as you might have guessed, some of those projects are in our neck of the woods:
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – August 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
If you’re wandering around the Camp Hale area, it’s probably not a good idea to pick things up — they could explode.
Camp Hale, on the west side of Tennessee Pass above Minturn, was established in 1943 as a training center for the U.S. Army’s famous Tenth Mountain Division. It remained in use into the 1960s for, among other things, training expatriate Tibetans to fight China for their homeland.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – March 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
A back-country avalanche killed three Western State College students on February 6 near Cumberland Pass.
The three — Andrew P. Vork, Casey James McKenny, and Matthew Allen Noddin — were part of a party of six people on an outing that combined skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobiling.
Review by Betsy Marston
Outdoors – February 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Doing of the Thing: The Brief Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom
by Vince Welch, Brad Dimock and Curt Conley.
Published in 1998 by Fretwater Press
ISBN 1-89232-746-5
Review by Ken Wright
Outdoors – September 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
River Odyssey: A Story of the Colorado Plateau
by Gerald N. Callahan
Published in 1998 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 0-87081-469-9
Essay by Mark Matthews
Outdoors – June 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
I used to haunt the backcountry other people avoided. Places like the Grand Gulch in Utah’s canyonlands and the Charles Russell Wildlife Refuge in Montana’s Missouri River Breaks. I sought these lonely spaces, not because I was anti-social, but because I was poor.
Essay by Paul Larmer
Outdoors – May 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
I FINALLY LEARNED how to ski this winter. It took the prodding of a friend and the skills of an instructor who specializes in helping people with disabilities, but now, at 37, I have experienced the joy of swishing down a dazzling white slope in the Rocky Mountains.
Essay by Mark Matthews
Outdoors – April 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
I COULDN’T SLEEP LAST NIGHT. I spent the day writing about avalanches. In bed, bad memories returned of the ten minutes I once spent buried under snow. As I put my head to my pillow I again experienced the hysteria of claustrophobia. I felt as if I couldn’t suck enough air into my lungs.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – March 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
If you don’t want to strain local treasuries in the event that you venture outdoors and require search or rescue, the state has a deal for you.
It’s the “Colorado Hiking Certificate,” and it costs only $1 at Division of Wildlife offices and most license outlets. Of that dollar, 75¢ goes to the Non-Game and Endangered Wildlife Fund, and 25¢ to a search-and-rescue fund used to reimburse rural sheriff’s departments for those expenses.
Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – September 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine
Just how much does trail-based recreation affect wildlife on public lands?
Good question, and the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project is looking for some answers.
Roz McClellan, who works for the project, says the main concerns at the moment are motorized and bicycle travelers in the woods, since those are the fastest-growing uses of public lands in Colorado.
Review by Hal Walter
Outdoors – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Flyfishing the High Country
By John Gierach
Published in 1984 by Pruett
ISBN: 0-87108-662-X
Essay by Jane Koerner
Outdoors – August 1994 – Colorado Central Magazin
I’ve been in a flood and three tornadoes. I nearly drowned in a lake when I was six, and I crashed my Dad’s car onto the front page of the Kansas City Star in college. Since moving to Colorado so I could be closer to the mountains I love to climb, I’ve bounced 40 feet down gravel and collided with a tree. I’ve turned upside down on a rappel off a mountaintop and contemplated destiny 2,000 feet beneath my bare head. But nothing terrified me half as much as car camping.