Crawdad Canyon

The Mojave Desert in southwest Utah is desolate and dry, until Highway 18 takes you across a canyon that is overflowing with lush greenery, sheer rock walls, and gin-clear springs. Locals have known about this unique oasis—dubbed Crawdad Canyon—for many years. As long ago as 1920, travelers on the Old Spanish Trail could pay to swim and relax here, and the family of homesteader "Gramps" Cottom ran it as a low-key recreational area until 1995.

But it was only in the past decade that Crawdad Canyon acquired its unique new identity: a private climbing resort, among the first in a wave of eco-sensitive, specialty vacation destinations. [more]

FIRST AND ONLY ON NEWWEST.NET

If you've been following the Cooper Firearms story (202 comments so far), you might be wondering who was telling the truth. Did Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse cancel orders following the controversy, as I originally reported--or not, as the representatives of the mega-retailers claim.

Well, I finally tracked down Dan Cooper this morning, and we had a little chat--and the answer is: Everybody is telling the truth. [more]

NO CANCELED ORDERS

My special Wild Bill column on Monday covered the statements and campaign contributions made Dan Cooper, president and co-founder of Cooper Firearms in support of President-elect Barack Obama. As his statements caused a firestorm of criticism from his customers on gun websites and blogs, Cooper resigned from the company and said he was worried about the future of his company because two of his biggest retail accounts, Cabela's and Sportsman's Warehouse, had canceled their orders.

Which turned out to not be true. [more]

PERFECT PLACE FOR BLUE TIDE TO QUICKLY MAKE ITS MARK

On January 5, 2001, with George W. Bush's moving van parked at the back door of the White House, President Bill Clinton signed his now-infamous Roadless Rule. With a stroke of his pen and without the approval of Congress, Clinton protected almost one-third of our national forests, 58.5 million acres, from road building.

The incoming Bush administration immediately reversed the rule, but a judge rapidly reversed the reversal. Ever since, the Roadless Rule has been a tennis ball, back and forth, on and off, mired in a ridiculous succession of administrative rules and court cases, making it hard to decide who's ahead in the game. As I write this, to emphasize the folly, two judges have made opposing rulings, one spiking the Roadless Rule, one re-affirming its validity.

So I say, let's end the tennis match and make the Roadless Rule the law of the land. [more]

WILL THEY EVER FIND A CURE FOR THIS FEVER?

One of the biggest challenges any outdoor writer faces is writing an article about a fishing trip when he couldn't catch a fish. It's scary, really, especially when you're doing it on Halloween, which is precisely what I was doing last Friday. I'd already spent most of three days frantically flaying the waters of the Grande Ronde River without raising a single steelhead.

Then, it happened. [more]

FIRST AND ONLY ON NEWWEST.NET

Anybody who has been following the cyber-firestorm over pro-Obama statements and campaign contributions made by Dan Cooper, president and co-founder of Cooper Firearms of Stevensville, Montana, knows that as part of the collateral damage, life has gotten hectic at Sportsman's Warehouse.

After the story broke on October 28 in USA TODAY and became the subject of my column on NewWest.Net five days later, gun owners angry with Cooper besieged Sportsman's Warehouse's 66 superstores and corporate headquarters with threats of a boycott if the company didn't stop selling Cooper's products. Then, gun owners angry with gun rights activists calling for the boycott went into those same stores threatening their own boycott if America's Premier Outfitter didn't continue selling Cooper products.

You got to feel for Sportsman's Warehouse, obviously caught in the middle of a controversy they didn't create, so I called CEO Stuart Utgaard. He was anxious to clear it up for us. [more]

Last year I wrote a series of articles about concerns voiced by Montana hunters about Cabela's Trophy Properties, the real estate marketing division of the world's largest retailer of hunting, fishing and camping gear, Cabela's.

Facing a rapid decline in access to both private and public land, the last thing Montana hunters needed was "one of their own," Cabela's, to launch headlong into the amenity real estate business and further speed up the loss of huntable land.

Fueled by the state's largest sporting group, the 7,000-member-strong Montana Wildlife Federation, the issue became white-hot controversial. The MWF even asked its members to return their catalogs to Cabela's with letters protesting the new venture. Hundreds of them did exactly that and, suddenly, hunters had the company's big-time attention and promises to do what it could to smooth out the ruffled feathers.

But did the firestorm really change anything? Or a year later, is Cabela's Trophy Properties (CTP) doing business as usual? [more]

guest commentary

Perched like a vulture on a snag, the threat of mountain bikes in National Parks stares down on the fraying edges and core of our National Parks and the dream and vision of what National Parks can and ought to be. Over the years, mostly years in which mountain bikes were nothing but a worrisome blot poking over the horizon, the vast majority of the American people came to see and believe that National Parks could be enjoyed by walking the trails or riding the paved roads, whether on your bike or in your Chevy. Americans came to that understanding along with some parallel understanding that National Parks were mostly natural areas. Not only are they a delight to lay eyes on, but they protect what Americans vaguely understand to be ecological integrity; things like clean air, native wildlife, plants, all mixed into a largely protected landscape. [more]

Before I launch once more into the endless mountain biker vs. hiker controversy, I want to reaffirm that I'm still not a mountain biker. I commute around town on paved streets on my mountain bike, but it has never been on a trail.

Even though you could say I don't have a dog in the fight, I have to ask, why do we have so much heartburn over the proposed rule to allow mountain biking on more trails in our national parks? Is this really worth the stress it creates? [more]

SASKATCHEWAN FLY-IN FISHING LODGES

Anglers spend a nice chunk of change to go to a fly-in fishing lodge, and the primary reason is always the terrific fishing. But fly-in fishing lodges offer more than fishing. What goes on before and after--and during--the fishing also matters, which is what makes the little fishing camp on Oliver Lake so special.

Northern Saskatchewan has about 60 fly-in fishing lodges. Of those, about a half-dozen are large corporate operations with their own landing strip, planes and pilots, large marketing budgets and a sizeable staff to make it all work. Large lodges cost more, mainly because they coat the fishing with a lot of luxury. They often cater to high-net-worthers and corporate clients, even offering corporate retreats and team-building seminars with a little fishing thrown in on the side. [more]