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Show Page A8 '5Itmgg-(3Jnfrpgftftg- Thursday, October 21, 2004 nt Idle Thoughts from Mt. Waas by Ollie Harris ELECTIONS AND SHEEP For several weeks I have been planning this weeks column. It was going to be a carefully and look at politics reasonably crafted, and presidential elections. But, I am not going to write it. I had planned to write that, unlike Socrates, a politician has to consider the opinion I was going to say that the of the less informed the electorate, the more a politician has to rely on glitz, packaging and image. I had planned to comment upon the frailties of leaders and that only in a theocracy could you expect perfection in the leader, except that if you follow a perfectly evil and corrupt god then you end up with perfect evil and corruption. I had even prepared my top five considerations in who gets my vote for president: (1) personal honor, dignity and integrity, (2) national security, (3) the promotion of individual freedom, (4) the economy, and (5) society and the culture. But, I cant bring myself to write about it. My problem is that I just cannot stand contention. I non-partis- non-thinker- have become so disgusted with politics that whenever I hear a political ad, I just turn a deaf ear. I dont want to hear it. Even some bumper stickers are full of ugliness and incivility. It has all become far too nasty for me. Mind you, I am going to vote. I have very deeply held convictions, and I seriously hope that my guy wins. I just want to get the whole thing over with. What I really prefer to write about involves driving up a treacherous dugway to the top of a remote mesa in hopes of photographing an elusive desert bighorn ram. Kay was driving. I, as passenger, was next to the outside edge, looking into emptiness to our right. I am the one who counseled, Move as far to the left as you can and stay there for as long as you can, not because I was fearful, but because if his right side wheels fell into the washout, we would be there still. Many Trails by Adrien F. Taylor as a Its coming down to the wire for this election season, much to most people's relief. I'll add a few more words before getting away from the sub- the candidates. We do this free of charge service to our readers. ject. Now is time for us to start standing proud and patting each other on the back. It's a great accomplishment to become the first Green Power Community in the nation. We may be small but we're still first, and nobody can ever take that away from us! The official hoopla will take place at the Moab Folk Festival on November 6, and a lot of higher-u- p 1 .The hefty voter information pamphlet (tome?) included in last week's newspaper really has a lot of information about the various candidates and issues on the ballot. It's enlightening reading. We have more copies here at The Times if yours is gone. So does the library. 2. Residents may still register to vote this Friday and next Monday, either at the courthouse or at City Market. 3. There are advertisements and letters in this week's newspaper both for and against the two recommend reading them, allocal initiatives. though admit will vote against both at this point. council seats if might have voted for all more solid information on implementation had been forthcoming. My objection to a council council as opposed to a counis mainly majority. In effect, a cil leaves decision making in the hands of only three people, just one more than when we had a county commission. 4. We were glad that no more of the type ads came in this week. They are neither fair nor productive in an election campaign.. As the candidates themselves pointed out last week, they would prefer that their supporters stick to what they have defined as the issues, and leave partial quotes and innuendo out of the local campaign. What we have to put up in the regard in the state and national campaigns is bad enough. 5. Next week's issue will be another hefty one as we'll be running the platform statements from I I I I at-lar- five-memb- er seven-memb- er five-memb- er three-memb- er mud-sling-i- -a- s. ft- Utah Power andor Pacificorp officials will be here, along with EPA representatives, and maybe even our former governor Mike Leavitt, but don't hold your breath. When we learned last week that the Moab area had made it over the top (over 3 percent wind power), everybody involved had hoped that some kind of official announcement would come from the Environmental Protection Agency this week. Things don't work that way with big federal agencies. We were told that several layers in the megabureaucracy had to sign off on any approval or press release (including Homeland Security?), and so nothing would be announced until later this week. Facts in hand, we decided to go ahead with the announcement, which you will find on page A1. Also, please offer congratulations to participating businesses, which are listed on page A4. We don't have the list of participating residents, and I'm afraid it would be way to long for our space, but a lot of credit goes to those folks who signed up for wind power at their homes, as well as the busi- American by Geneen Marie Haugen Until I traveled to Holland recently, I didnt know how irreversibly American I am, perhaps not precisely a patriot the word comes from but certainly one deeply the Latin for father identified with my native land. In Amsterdam, people eyed me with pity, suspicion or loathing as soon as I opened my mouth and spoke American English, my only fluent language. At train stations, people sneered Bush, Bush as I walked by, intending to shame me. Its a harrowing time to be a U.S. citizen afoot in the world, but there I was, headed for a Dutch retreat center to help facilitate a program based in nature. When my colleagues and I explored the retreat centers surrounding nature, I noticed that the trees, though sizable, grew in orchard-straigrows. We wandered off the wide trails periodically and found, in every direction, another path no more than 100 yards away. The vegetation seemed familiar, similar to the . . . . well-travel- by Sam Taylor Pacific Northwest where I grew up, and my imagi- turn south from Crescent Junction on toward Moab Highway 191,1 cant help but turn my eyes toward Salt Valley, stretching out on the left. Salt Valley runs from south of Crescent into Arches National Park. Geologically, it is a a valley formed between two parallel faults, dropping the center piece of ground down several hundred feet. The Salt Valley graben is one of many in Southeastern Utah, and is probably an extension of the same geologic faulting that created Paradox Valley in Colorado. A glance at a good topographic map or a raised relief map like the one on my office wall will convince you that they are part of the same system, separated when the geologically youthful La Sal Mountains poked up through the earths crust. That same upheaval diverted Dolores River to the north the westward-flowin- g around the mountain range. My first visit to Salt Valley filled me with a desire to spend some time there. went out, as a youth, with Jess Abernathy. Jess was a world-clas- s rock hound, with a lot of academic background to back him up. He led our small group across Courthouse Wash near the old Dalton Wells CCC Camp where we found acres of dinosaur bones and occasional pieces of moss agate. We climbed up on a ridge, where got my first look at Salt Valley. just sat on a rock and gazed over what lay before me. had the darndest urge to just take off on foot and explore an urge that never left me. Shortly after, went with my Dad and Arches custodian, Russ Mahan, to find Landscape Arch. Our route left U.S. 191 at Valley City (five miles south of Crescent Junction), and into Salt Valley, following a oil drilling track made by the crew of a cable-toof the the where in center the valley rig, to a point from We located. hiked there was well abandoned into Devils Garden and to the magnificent Landscape Arch. There were no roads anywhere in the vicinity at that time. Devils Garden was great, but was more interested in Salt Valley. After got my first vehicle, I rattled through the valley numerous times. remember a trip Jimmie Walker and I took. We were in my old 1950 Studebaker. Jim pointed out a small gravel knoll gra-ben- ," I I I I I ol I I I ahead and said we should drive up there and look for moss agate. Upon reaching the top of the small hill, he opened the passenger side door and stepped out, immediately doing a reverse somersault, landing in my lap. He had nearly stepped on a rattlesnake. We were spooked by rustling noises the rest of the day. We drove on to a small box canyon, where an elderly couple had homesteaded or squatted with a small trailer and some ramshackle The male member of the pair had disappeared, at some point in time, but his wife, who we called Salt Valley Sue" continued living there all by herself until she finally gave up and moved an in Moab. That little box canis now in Arches. Jim told me that a year yon before our visit, he had driven his old Model A Ford out there. When we stopped at the old camp with the radiator boiling, he said, Sues abandoned bantie chickens came racing down out of the hills catching the rusty radiator water before it hit the ground," he said. After Adrien and I were married and had chilin with old-tim- be expected, I guess. If we could expand that moment to include the next few minutes when we jumped a nice ram from beneath the rim and got a couple of fleeting photographs before he stopped about 450 yards away, and of how Kay and I conspired to get close to him and how I crept to within fifty yards and photographed the ram in his bed, and of how he got nervous and stood up on a rock so as to better see me, giving me some incredible photos as he posed there, that would give even more clues to the quality of my life. And, its far more fun to write about than politics. and proud of it ht I two-wa- Writers on the Range The way Every time twenty-year-ol- High Country News nesses that are participating. Sam Remembers it We stopped the vehicle, got out and glassed distant rims. We then hiked and scrambled to the top of the mesa. Once there, we separated to look for tracks or other sign of sheep. After hiking alone for awhile I had one of those moments that just insists I stop and examine, to ask, What does this say about my life? I was alone on a high, white rim overlooking vast canyons carved between Cedar Mesa, Elk Ridge, and the Colorado River gorge. Before me on the expansive stone ledge lay a pool of clear water accumulated from recent rains. I placed d Swarovski gently at my feet my new Nikon a binoculars, digital camrelatively y old the radio, my floppy era, cammy hat, and my glasses. I lay down upon the cool rock, softly blew away the floating dust and debris, including the transparent wing of a fly, and took a long, long, cold drink. I lay there on the cool rock, watching a couple of orange wigglers twisting on the sediment in the pool. A pastel fairy shrimp scurried toward the bottom. Building rain clouds were reflected in the water. A passing breeze teased the surface. It came as close to being a perfect moment as I am likely to have. My bones are a bit creaky and it takes a little more effort to get back to my feet than it used to, but such imperfections are to er dren, introduced her to Salt Valley. We were very interested in an old abandoned copper mine we found on a ridge about through the valfew There were drifts a mine ley. there, and a deep shaft, driven down through the sandstone to a great depth. The old rickety wooden ladder was still bolted to the side of the shaft, but would have rather taken a beating than try it out. It may still be there. We told my Mother about the outing, and she wanted to go see it. She told us that her father had worked at that old mine in the early part of the century, and she wanted to visit. We returned with picnic fixings, and she showed us all around. When she was small, she and her family spent a summer there to be with Grandpa Watts at the mine site. She showed us where their woodframed tent had been located. We found an almost perfect glass which had turned purple over the years in the desert sun. think we still have it. The weather is turning cooler and the rattlesnakes will soon be in their holes. Its time to make another visit to Salt Valley. I mid-wa- y I lemon-squeeze- r, I nation supplied the missing elements: massive rotting stumps, fallen timber nursing ferns and saplings, the tracks and whisper of animals in the shadows. But there was nothing rotting except last years leaves. No blowdown crissCTOssed the ground. In every direction there were buildr walk. ings within a Getting lost was impossible. True solitude was impossible. As one who has lived in the American West for a lifetime, I was unprepared g for the abrupt, realization that this was the state of the wild in Holland, if not in most half-hou- heart-piercin- of Europe. There were no stands of primeval forest; there were no creatures larger than deer, none fiercer than fox. Nothing of the original wild remained. Nothing. I couldnt fathom how the Netherland-er- s could bear the magnitude of this loss, but then, how could they adequately discern it? Bears and wolves existed in the terrain of fairy tales, not in recent history. All witnesses to the original wild tjied many generations ago. What firsthand stories of formidable forests, populated by captivating creatures, could a grandparent tell a grandchild? Not even the wild ancestral memory remained, vanished so long ago that its absence seems normal, not tragic. And there, amidst that placid, planted forest, in a country where people righteously, and perhaps rightfully, scorned the United States, I felt a rush of unexpected gratitude for the land of my origin tremendous, shivering gratitude to be d terutterly formed and informed by the rain of the North American continent. Despite the best efforts of industry, the momentum to preserve even restore wild American habitat has not been defeated. Where I live, in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, reintroduced gray wolves are multiplying; grizzlies are expanding their range. Trumpeter swans were resuscitated from the verge of extinction. Bison in Grand Teton National Park now number in the hundreds instead ofthe few dozen of two decades ago. Which is not to say that all these creatures, and more, are no longer imperiled. But unlike Netherlanders, millions ofAmericans take pride or refuge in wild, or nearly-wilpublic land; millions have an affinity with wild creatures that remain a living presence in the American landscape. We have the weighty privilege of bearing witness to a wildness whose very existence defies rapacious odds and ravenous human history. More than 125 years ago, Yellowstone became the worlds first national park; 40 years ago, the Wilderness Act was signed two of many extraordinary moments into law in the history of the human relationship with the wild. The damage human beings have inflicted on natural systems is, of course, incalculable, and even science-base- d management has produced disasters. But the stunning fact that Americans have reserved habitat at all is evidence of an emerging ecological vision. If the United States has a gift for the world, its not our gift for the absurd inconsumer confidence index, not vasion, not even a limping democracy. It is a dream of collaboration with Earth, rooted in tundra, tangled forests, hissing geysers,' stone deserts. It is a vision as radically wild now as it was in 1862, when Thoreau famously wrote: In wildness is the preservation of the world. Outside the United States, American has become synonymous with Bush, but even as Europeans scorned my citizenship, I could not disown my native land. On the North American continent, enough wildness remains to guide our fledgling discovery of how human purpose can be coherent with natural systems a vision no less necessary for our common future than a dream of freedom. Geneen Marie Haugen is a contributor to Writers on the Range , a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She lives in Kelly, Wyoming, and her work appeared recently in the new anthology, Going Alone: Women's Adventures in the Wild. still-wil- d, pre-empti- ve Letters to the editor policy The does not necessarily endorse the opinions published in letters to the editor and guest editorials. The T--l welcomes opinions from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to Southeastern Utah. Letters should be to the point and must include the writers name, address and telephone number. Letters may not be used to replace advertisements, or to list and thank sponsors or participants to a particular event. 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