It's 50 degrees right now in Vail, but that doesn't mean you should put away your skis. A storm is heading for Colorado. Vail, Beaver Creek, Aspen and points west and south are in the storm warning area that predicts 8 to 16 inches starting tonight and continuing through Thursday night. Some mountain passes may receive as much as two feet of new snow along with high winds.
When your first question about an upcoming marathon is this one, you know it's remote:
For hikers, the news in March was good: The Colorado State Legislature passed a bill that exempts high-altitude landowners from liability. Trails on several of the fourteeners in the state cross private land, and the owners had increasing concerns about theft, trespassing, liability and vandalism issues.
The Canada lynx population of Colorado will increase by four Saturday. That's the day the Colorado Division of Wildlife will release four lynx from the Yukon Territory and British Columbia. The program to reestablish the lynx in Colorado was started in 1999. Since then, wildlife biologists have released 218 of the big-footed cats in Colorado, mostly north of the town of South Fork and in an area bordered by Leadville, Buena Vista and Vail.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to people who love trees: A series of studies at the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has shown that trees actually enhance our lives. Researchers there look at the impact of the physical environment in the inner city on people.
Warning to moose: The Colorado Division of Wildlife won't tolerate bad behavior. Warning to people: Watch out for moose.
The waiting list for people who want to raft the Colorado River is legendary, with some people waiting as long as 10 years for the chance to put their raft into the water. That could change with a plan just approved that allows more people to float through the Grand Canyon each year, but spreads out the trips over more months and in smaller groups.
It's spring, and the snow is leaving the foothills. Soon, it will be gone from the mountains. As a fond farewell to a memorable winter, I offer up this excerpt from one of naturalist and Rocky Mountain National Park advocate Enos Mills' essays called "In a Mountain Blizzard". In this essay, Mills, who frequently sought out the barren summits of peaks along the Continental Divide, tells about a battle he and his dog Scotch waged to survive a blizzard:
Fort Carson buffer zone a Boon to region
By CHARLES E. BEDFORD THE NATURE
CONSERVANCY OF COLORADO
The Army’s recent allocation of an
additional $7 million to conserve buffer zone lands around Fort Carson will
protect not only our country’s military preparedness, but also our state’s natural heritage. The leadership and vision exhibited by U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, Rep. Joel Hefley and the Army have begun a stream of financial and community support to an effort that ultimately will safeguard the open space and beauty of this region. Rapid urban development and loss of natural areas around military bases across the country pose a growing challenge to both military training needs and the conservation of significant wildlife habitat. As housing and other human development creep closer to military base borders, restrictions are often imposed on military activities, which can undercut the realism and effectiveness of training. This rapid development also poses an obvious threat to the relatively undeveloped lands surrounding Fort Carson, including land that is critical for four rare plant species that are found nowhere else in the world. In addition, species of concern such as the
mountain plover rely on the area for habitat. Mexican spotted owls, ferruginous hawks and herds of elk and pronghorn also depend on these lands. Fort Carson is in the bullseye of development pressures. In the last decade, the population of Colorado Springs has grown 30 percent,
topping a half-million and making Forbes Magazine’s list of “Steroid Cities.” As Colorado Springs continues to invest in its growth, we must also invest in preserving the open spaces and diverse wildlife that make Colorado such wonderful place to live. Under the Department of Defense
buffer program, the military, state and local governments, conservation groups, and landowners are all working together to protect training, quality of life, traditional lifestyles and natural resources. Activities involving private land are undertaken with the full endorsement of willing landowners.
In these days of fiscal constraints and increasing conflicts over land use, a policy that accomplishes multiple public benefits with one action and that is based on cooperation and collaboration rather than conflict deserves everyone’s support — and certainly has ours. While Allard’s and Hefley’s leadership has allowed us to make great progress, there is more work to be done. Only about half of the land in the buffer zone around Fort Carson is now protected under this voluntary collaborative partnership. We’re at the 50-yard line with a long way to go. But with the leadership of our legislators and the Army, and the support of willing landowners seeking to preserve their way of life and of the local community, we know we can go the distance. Building on this momentum, The Nature Conservancy of Colorado has launched the Peak-to-Prairie Project in partnership with Colorado Open Lands and the local ranching community to protect a landscape stretching east from Cheyenne Mountain to the Chico Basin and Bohart ranches, knitting together a series of protected lands and preserving open spaces between Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Neighboring ranchers are a critical part of the buffer effort. The shortgrass prairie ecosystem needs large, unbroken landscapes to thrive, and ranches provide some of the best remaining large
examples of this system. Sustaining wildlife and our agricultural heritage go hand-in-hand. Ranchers, military staff, public agencies and local people are coming together in an unprecedented way to make this a very exciting, crucial time for the region. What we do today will determine what this
landscape will be 10 years from now. Here, now, there is the chance to protect huge parcels of land owned by just a few people. In a very real sense, the team effort will define the future of this community. It’s no wonder Fort Carson is becoming a model throughout the country for how to use buffer zones to enhance wildlife and quality of life while preserving traditional lifestyles and military needs. The Nature Conservancy stands with so many others in the Colorado community to say thank you to Allard and Hefley and to the Army leadership at Fort Carson and in the Pentagon for their stamina and wisdom in protecting the community values embodied in this special place. Bedford is state director of The Nature Conservancy of Colorado former director of the
Colorado State Land Board.
You love 'em or you hate 'em. We're talking prairie dogs. North of here, in the Boulder/Broomfield counties area, folks just can't agree about the little critters. So they're compromising by putting up a fence, according to an Associated Press story that moved this weekend. The 2,400-foot fence is supposed to keep the 'dogs on the Boulder side, where they are protected, and keep them away from the Broomfield side, where they are despised. Volunteers erected the fence out of chicken wire and pegs that they hope will keep the prairie dogs on the side where they are welcomed. Will it work? Boulder County wildlife biologist Mark Brennan explains that prairie dogs will walk until they reach a vertical barrier and then try to dig under it. A two-foot apron of wire is designed to stop them, but Brennan says the persistent animals will eventually find a way over, around or under the fence.
I was on a backcountry ski in Summit County Saturday when this current storm-system first moved in. A friend and I had skied to the top of 11,400-foot Georgia Pass. Just as we reached the top, the front of the storm hit. And even though it was snowing, we heard a sure sign of spring in the form of thunder grumbling up in the clouds. We didn't see any lightning. But the thunder cracked and echoed off the hills. It sounded like summer.
