Tag: Wilderness

  • The Colorado experience.

    I was not prepared for this Colorado experience. I came through the southeast corner in the evening and passed a mile of concrete feed bunks with a cowboy on a horse in full regalia- the hat, the snap shirt, everything- trotting back and forth, waving an American flag over the heads of hundreds of gorging…

  • The value of wilderness.

    The value of wilderness.

    When we think of western wilderness, we think big. Big landscapes, big game, mountains and buttes and brawling rivers, broad meadows with elk and moose and bear. We think less often of smaller things, of native fish like Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Each subspecies of cutthroat trout is typically restricted to a few major watersheds, each…

  • Last Best Streams: #759 (&#760).

    Last Best Streams: #759 (&#760).

    Forty miles down a gravel road is enough to give one the smug sense of satisfaction that they’re seeing somewhere even natives rarely visit.  Out past the prairie, past the Front Range, past the trucks and trailers and campers  and ATVS, shiny new Jeeps, anglers, kayakers, rafters, photographers, Influencers®, hikers, climbers, birdwatchers, yoga enthusiasts…out past…

  • Last best streams: #496.

    Last best streams: #496.

    A couple bags of stale hot dog buns, a couple yellow plastic bottles of mustard, I spot a lonely bottle of orange juice in a nearly empty refrigerator and take it to the bar where a couple dirt farmers are starting the day off right.  The bar, the attached gas station, ten acres with a…