WILDERNESS FIVE-O the 50Th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act Is a Cause for Celebration!
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protecting wild places and wildlife, for their sake – and ours Summer 2014 Fielder John WILDERNESS FIVE-O The 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act is a cause for celebration! t’s never a bad idea to stop our region’s role in the wilderness Iand smell the roses. So once movement. In the two decades in 50 years, at least, we owe it to that followed, local citizens’ cam- ourselves to make a point of cel- paigns secured seven other wil- ebrating the wilderness – and the derness areas on the White River idea of wilderness – that makes National Forest, and more than our country great. doubled the size of the original This year marks the 50th an- Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilder- niversary of the Wilderness Act. ness – permanently protecting Signed into law by President more than 750,000 acres, nearly Lyndon Johnson on Sept. 3, 1964, a third of the Forest. Meredith Ogilby Meredith the Wilderness Act established the Members of the Aspen Wilder- National Wilderness Preservation ness Workshop (as it was then Top: The Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness was System, and got the ball rolling by called), led by Connie Harvey, established with the passage of the Wilderness Act designating the first 54 wilderness Joy Caudill and Dottie Fox, were in 1964. The original area comprised only the core areas. These were the first-round the boots on the ground for these of the Elk Range; it took 16 more years for the As- draft picks – the very paragons efforts in the Roaring Fork water- pen Wilderness Workshop, led by “Maroon Belles” of wilderness – and among that shed. Folks like Bill Mounsey and Connie Harvey, Dottie Fox and Joy Caudill (above), number was our own Maroon Chuck Ogilby played a similar to get Congress to expand its boundaries to include places like American and Cathedral Lakes and Bells-Snowmass. Mount Sopris. That was just the beginning of CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE Wilderness 50 Events Pg. 5 • Hike/projects Schedule Pg. 7 WILDERNESS FIVE-0 FROM PAGE 1 role in the Eagle Valley. Thanks to that “greatest generation,” we and our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy these magnifi- cent areas in their natural state in perpetuity. Is that a cause for celebration or what? This summer and fall, the Wilder- ness Workshop is spearheading a series of events to commemorate John Fielder the big Five-O; highlights are a The appropriately named Raggeds Wilderness was part of a massive wave of areas gigantic Maroon Bells Birthday Bash designated by the Colorado Wilderness Act of 1980. at the base of Aspen Highlands on Aug. 2, and a wilderness sympo- Humility and restraint than contempt, we must leave them sium at the Aspen Institute’s Paepcke a glimpse of the world as it was in The Wilderness Act has been Auditorium on Sept. 10. Be sure to the beginning, not just after we got called “the most beautiful piece of mark your calendar – see the sched- through with it.” legislation ever written.” In soar- ule on page 5. It was, and remains, an historic ing language that was hammered gesture of humility and restraint out over eight years and dozens toward the natural world. of drafts, it speaks of the need “to Challenging the view that the secure for the American people of value of land is measurable only in present and future generations the board-feet of lumber or tons of ore, benefits of an enduring resource of the Act asserts that wilderness itself wilderness.” In its most memorable is a resource – and one that grows passage, it defines wilderness as “an more valuable in a time of increas- area where the earth and its commu- ing population and modernization. nity of life are untrammeled by man, The landmark legislation laid down where man himself is a visitor who a philosophical foundation that has does not remain.” permanently shaped our national In signing the Act, President John- consciousness. son contributed a bit of homespun It establishes, as a matter of law commentary that’s just as worth and policy, that it’s in the national recalling: “If future generations are interest to set aside some places to remember us with gratitude rather to remain in their natural state. It In the 1960s, the Colorado Department of Transportation wanted to route I-70 through a tunnel under the Gore Range-Eagles Nest Primitive Area to shave 11 miles off the Vail Pass route. Eagle Valley citizens rallied to block the plan, and then cam- paigned to protect the area as the Eagles Nest Wilderness in 1976. John Fielder 2 Wild Works | SummerJUNE 2012 2014 doesn’t go into much detail about trailhead and go at the pace that our why; its framers were savvy enough feet (or a horse) will take us. to know not to limit the Act’s force Wilderness is the slow food of by enumeration. recreation – it’s a country road com- But 50 years later, the value of pared to the interstate of our daily wilderness becomes ever clearer. lives. There are benefits in taking the Even as we alter our planet at an slow road, both for the traveler and ever-accelerating pace, we’re bet- for the land. ter understanding the extent of our impacts on ecosystems. More than Leading horses to water ever, we need large “untrammeled” Establishing a first batch of wil- places where wildlife can find derness areas and defining how they refuge, where natural processes can would be protected was only the continue to play out, and yes, where beginning of the Wilderness Act’s we humans can find solitude and genius. What makes it worth cel- recreation. ebrating now, 50 years later, is that The Wilderness Act didn’t just pro- it provided for the designation of tect certain places; it also stipulated additional wilderness areas through how we humans should behave in further acts of Congress. them, and this too has proved to be It’s that enabling function that has prescient. leveraged the original 54 wilderness The Act prohibits not only roads areas into more than 700, expand- John Fielder and structures, but also mechanized ing the National Wilderness Pres- You could say the idea of wilderness was born in what travel. While some bemoan this as ervation System from just 9 million is now the Flat Tops Wilderness. In 1919, a young For- discrimination against bikes and acres in 1964 to nearly 110 million est Service engineer named Arthur Carhart was sent other machines, in effect it’s a speed acres today. to Trappers Lake to plot planned vacation home sites. limit. As our machines become faster While only Congress can des- Upon his return, Carhart boldly advised his superiors and more powerful, they enable us ignate wilderness, citizens play that the best use of the area was wilderness recreation; to go places we previously didn’t an essential role in leading those his action inspired fellow conservationist Aldo Leopold go, and to cover more ground and political horses to water. One of the to champion the creation of the first Wilderness Reserve impose more impacts. In wilderness, first groups to seize the opportunity (what is now New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness), and later led to the protection of the Flat Tops as a Primitive we must leave our wheels at the CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE Area. Conservationists led by the Aspen Wilderness Workshop spent much of the 1960s and ’70s saving the Hunter Creek Valley, first from residential development and then from a massive water diversion project. Prevailing on both fights, they went on to secure designation of the Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness in 1978. Max Lyons Jared Polis, represents a hopeful WILDERNESS FIVE-0 FROM PREVIOUS PAGE return to the golden era of big, bold wilderness bills of the 1970s and ’80s. Udall’s proposal has passed offered by the Wilderness Act was Peaks were low-hanging fruit, ripe through every conceivable screen Aspen’s own Wilderness Workshop. for wilderness designation. Even and has successfully addressed virtu- Connie, Joy, Dottie and their crew then, it took more than a decade ally all the concerns of myriad user correctly perceived that wilderness of campaigning, with much of that groups and special interests, and is was a constituent issue that lent itself time spent parrying threats like water ready for introduction in Congress. well to grassroots organizing. By diversions and interstate highways. (Rep. Polis’s bill has already been pioneering the use of on-the-ground When victory came, it came in a introduced, and is poised for reintro- inventorying, mapping, petitions, rush: two bills, in 1978 and 1980, duction this summer.) public events and the like, they established most of the wilderness In the old days, this would have helped pioneer the model of the acreage on the White River National been more than half the battle. Now, modern citizens’ wilderness cam- Forest. it takes a lot more to get Congress to paign. These days, building consensus take action on such matters. Public Theirs was a simpler, less partisan around new wilderness is a complex lands bills are pawns in the wider and less recreationally intense time. process. Sen. Mark Udall’s Central ideological war; they may advance, Big blank spots on the map like the Mountains proposal, together with Hunter-Fryingpan and Collegiate a related bill in the House by Rep. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Left: While the bulk of the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness lies in the Arkansas River drainage, it also includes part of the upper Roaring Fork watershed south of Highway 82.