Mouthful of Feathers Essay

We have come to refer to rivers and forests, trout and elk as “resources.” They have become units that inhabit still other units. We now frequently hear the act of hunting referred to as “harvesting” or “collection,” or other, similarly clinical terminology. We have abstracted and reduced one of the most real, visceral experiences we have left in this modern world to the language of the bureaucrat and the commercial extractor.

There has, of course, been necessity to this. In order to converse with the bureaucrat and the extractor, to be taken seriously and to have a seat at the table, it’s become necessary to adopt their language, for this is the language that gets things done in our time. But in this linguistic shift, I believe something at the heart of this whole thing is lost, stripped of greater significance, reduced to the soulless level normally reserved for inanimate product or commodity.

NEW WEST FEATURE

A bipartisan team of legislators is putting forward a bill intended to make it easier for ski resorts to get permission for non-ski activities on Forest Service land.

Touted as a job-boosting measure and a way to improve year-round economies at ski resorts, the legislation is aimed particularly at summertime activities. On-mountain activities slow down in the summer, but ski areas are increasingly looking to summer recreation, like hiking, mountain biking and mountain boarding, to bring visitors during warm-weather months.

“You know that the last snowflake doesn’t signal the end of outdoor recreation,” said Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., the lead sponsor of the legislation. “Our ski areas shouldn’t have to close shop once the snow stops either.”

Mouthful of Feathers Essay

Three hundred lots. A handful of open space tracts. Bull-dozed new ponds. Jogging trails along the streams where the new residents can enjoy wildlife watching.

But for now, a half section of farm ground in old wheat, a smattering of snowberry along the cricks, gone-awry tansy and thistle. Cover.

You walk this ground as you did last year. It’s good for one hunt a year, maybe two. You take only one dog. One dog, the old one, who stays close and hunts pheasants better than the others, more thoroughly, less ram-charger-hell-bent-go-daddy.

This place is close to town. Closer to the blade. They came here as your kind has come for centuries: lured by word of mouth, tantalized by brochures, urged by magazine articles that rated your town as a “Top Ten.” You came then, too, so you are well-aware of the dark crow of hypocrisy perched on your shoulder.

Farm ground went under the blade. Tracts surveyed. Nail guns spit. Places to live and raise your children and clean air to breathe and those amazing mountains on all sides. Good country.

But soil as black as an Angus turned over for the last time, covered in asphalt, concrete.

Then it all fell out.

Mouthful of Feathers Essay

It wasn’t a conscious decision; we had merely started moving in slightly different trajectories, and in this sort of country that means that before long we were almost a mile, and a deep gorge, away from each other. I look across the rim at the small figures, the even smaller brown and white dots that represented the dogs. Even at this distance, it is obvious that they are covering 10 times the amount of ground the humans are.

I find reasonably stable footing amidst the slippery skateboards of sandstone talus piled atop each other and look over the rim. Even in February, the creek flows assertively. Yes, people would have lived here, and probably would have done pretty well at it, considering the harshness that lay to the horizon beyond.

NEW WEST FILM

Tom Shadyac was a fabulously successful filmmaker whose movies like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar and The Nutty Professor were blockbuster hits. But after a mountain bike accident nearly took his life, Shadyac set out to make a different kind of film, asking two basic questions: what is wrong with the world and how can we fix it? A frequent visitor to Telluride, Shadyac premiered his independent documentary I AM at Telluride MountainFilm last summer to audience acclaim. After three Colorado screenings this week, it begins a wider national release in February.

Look for I AM Tuesday at the University of Denver, Wednesday at Colorado State University and Thursday at Pine Creek High School in Colorado Springs.

New West Column

In logic akin to being caught in the act of shoplifting a television and then arguing that the shoplifter should be allowed to keep the TV until found guilty by a jury, Rammell has maintained that IDF&G had no right to confiscate the elk, since he has not yet been proven guilty (though he admits to having the elk in his possession and to not being properly licensed).

To date, Rammell has taken no personal responsibility for the incident, and he entered a not guilty plea to the charges at the end of December. He places the blame instead on the employee at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Idaho Falls who sold him the tag. Rammell claims the employee told him he was purchasing an elk tag that would allow him to hunt in any zone in the state that he wished. It is worth noting that no such elk tag exists – when hunters purchase elk tags in the state of Idaho, they must specify the zone they plan to hunt in, and are limited to that zone. This is not a recent change in the regulations, and the employee who sold Rammell the tag has been a licensing agent at the store for 10 years.

Snowblog

Ah, the time-honored winter tradition of the West: the ski road trip. Ever since the veterans of the 10th Mountain Division brought the modern ski industry to our country, winter sports types have made an annual ritual of loading the car and pointing it to our region’s alpine areas. Some, like Warren Miller, even made a livelihood from the ski road trip’s mystique. 

As time passed, however, skiing’s development has reached a fork in the road, between a wholesome family activity and a playground for the rich and pampered. The recent decline in resort real estate sales has exposed the Achilles’ heel of operating a ski area: It’s really, really tough to run a ski resort solely with revenue from ticket sales.

As such, high-end resorts are scrambling to attract premium customers (thus real estate sales) with amenities, and smaller ski areas are competing by getting back to basics with a focus on quality of experience for the price.

Along the way, this distinction has opened the door to some interesting potential road-trip themes. A bargain hunter can seek out deals on a road trip of resorts in bankruptcy or foreclosure, finding luxury bargains geared toward increasing cash flow as reorganization proceeds at places like Moonlight Basin, Snowmass and Tamarack. 

Skiing and Snowboarding

On a powder day, there are no friends. That saying is probably as old as the first ski lift, but it’s a dangerous wisdom — as was demonstrated at Montana’s Whitefish Mountain Resort during recent weeks.

Two snow riders – one on skis, the other a snowboard – both plunged head first into the wells surrounding trees at the resort. Hung upside down by their boards, choked by the collapsing snow and wedged by the tree and branches, they could barely move. Or so the evidence suggested.

The first victim 16-year-old Niclas Waeschle, an exchange student from Germany, was unconscious but still alive when he was fished out of a tree well. Several days later he was removed from life support. Then, in early January, Scott Allen Meyer, a 29-year-old probation and parole officer, was found dead after he failed to reunite with friends at day’s end.

The particulars of these separate tragedies broadly parallel a statistical profile of victims of what is clinically called non-avalanche related snow immersion deaths, or NARSIDs. About one-third of victims die with no tree near. But whether in tree-wells or out, nearly all victims are young, male and were riding the snow alone during or shortly after a big storm.

“It doesn’t happen every place every year, and it doesn’t necessarily happen every year,” says Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, a trade group. Prodded by his group, ski areas have become more aware of the potential peril in recent years and have taken increasing steps to remind customers of dangers.

Hunting

A hunter near Craig, Colo., who hunted a 703-pound black bear to his den and killed it there prompted a revision in wildlife rules in the state.

The Colorado Wildlife Commission has directed the Division of Wildlife to draft a regulation that would prohibit the hunting of bears in their dens.

Commissioners, appointed by the governor to help set wildlife policy for Colorado, were asked to consider adopting a regulation following an incident in the fall in which a hunter near Craig said he tracked a large black bear to a cave, entered the cave and killed the bear. Colorado hunting regulations currently do not prohibit hunting a bear in a den.

Regulations manager Brett Ackerman told the Commission Wednesday that den-hunting is not common among bear hunters. The recent kill, which happened in November and was subject of a lengthy feature article in the Craig Daily Press, provoked significant negative public feedback.

Ackerman said numerous other states have banned den-hunting on the grounds that it does not meet public expectations of fair chase.

Guest Column

On a recent episode, Palin and special guest Kate Gosselin (of ”Kate Plus Eight” fame) decide to take their families camping. In preparing for the camping trip, Palin takes Gosselin to a training course to learn how to deal with bears in the wild. 

Palin’s advice? Grab yer gun!

“If you are unarmed and you’re out in the wilderness, and perhaps you’re with children camping, well you’re putting yourself and your family in danger if you are not armed, if you are not prepared for a predator,” says Palin, before heading off to the shooting range for target practice.

As a bear aware educator in Missoula, I spend a lot of time fighting against fears and misconceptions about bears. Bears are big creatures that can be scary, which is part of the reason grizzlies had been wiped out in the lower 48 by the beginning of the 20th century. So I could only watch in horror as Palin perpetuated one of the biggest whoppers of them all.