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Show DO WE REALLY NEED WILDERNESS? It depends on your definition. By Loch Wade “There's cracks,” Del is saying, “up on the Smoky, that’re so deep, you can drop a rock down in ‘em, and you can’t hear the first bounce for ten, maybe twelve seconds. There’s smoke comin’ out of ‘em...Those coal seam’s been burnin’ for thousands of years.” We've been bouncing up the Smoky Mountain road now for about a half an hour. It’s a left turn at the Garkane shop in Escalante, and outside of town, the road enters a canyon that winds down out of the uplift that creates the Kaiparowits Plateau. “You could get rid of a body in one-a them cracks,” says Del. “Not that I’d that, but it’s funny how you can get to thinkin’ about that kinda thing way up We've come around, and-around, the road curling intestinally through landscape- down through Water Canyon, and back up across a sage bench, a lude of straight before we plunge again into the winding vastness of canyon want to do here.” the broken brief interand pinon and cedar and rock and dust...... we straddle Oil Well Bench, and down and up and around....... Del tells me, between rodeo stories, and Army stories, that we're on his grazing allotment now. We're higher, approaching 7000 feet nearly 40 miles of rough road from the nearest human habitation- it’s as close to wilder- ness as one can get in the lower 48 states. I just stand out in the dark- there’s no moon, and I take in the sound, not a coyote, a cricket- it's just me and the wind, and the of course, but not insignificant, not alone... I feel proportional I’ve taken off my seven-league boots, at least for the moment. supposed to be. © warm night. There isn’t a stars. I feel---well, small, with the rest of creation. I reckon I am where I’m The government, that is, the Forest Service, the BLM, and the Park Service, the three land management agencies that affect the lives of folks in southern Utah the most, have an interesting definition of the word “wilderness”. The definition was forced upon the various Agencies by the 1964 Wilderness Act. Written by Howard have an idealistic, noble ring to them: Zahniser, the words “A. wilderness, in contrast in elevation, an hour and a half and thirty some miles from town. There’s some feed here, where I hadn’t seen any grass at all in the lower country. life are untrammeled by man,. where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” -The Wilderness Act The language of the Actis fulsome--- a perfect encapsulation of the ethos and tenor of the “Damn _ rabbits, they’ve eaten all the feed,” Del says as the latest in an unending procession of jackrabbits dashes across our path. “And the ponds I've got _ that didn’t bust last fall in the flood are dryin’ up. We got to find them cows and get ‘em outta here before all this country burns up next month.” It’s the first week age, when the ideas of America sending a man to the moon, of defeating poverty, of being the “leader of the free world” and of protecting the “wild” places all seemed possible. It is also the language of a thoroughly civilized man. of June, and Del has brought me along for the ponds. I’m no cowboy, but I can run heavy equipment, and work on it. A few years ago, Del bought an old frontend loader to fix his Zahniser, like his compatriots in the burgeoning wilderness movement of the early 1960s, was utterly indoctrinated with the ethos of the good that could ponds, which he has scattered around the Kaiparowits, from Oil Well Bench clear down to Lake Pow- ell. He hasn’‘t used the machine for a couple of years, but last October, we had Wak has been called a 100-year flood. The flood burst the dikes that created most of his water impoundments, and he’s hired me to fix the breaches. He has at least six broken ponds, maybe more, if I can find them. _. We finally reach the line shack at the Collet-Top, and Ron, Del’s son, drags out the generator and electrical cords from a shed while I get a look at the machine I'll be using for the next several days. It’s in rough shape. The right front tire is flat, the batteries are dead, the fuel pump is nothing more than a cylinder of rust, and the filters are plugged with foul brown algae. Take the red truck, Del commands. Run back to town get what you need. Several hours later, I return. We install a new fuel pump and fuel filters, air up the tire, hook up new batteries. The machine roars to life, and I rumble down the road towards the first pond to be repaired, some six miles away. The next day, I get a couple of hours work in before another tire flattens beneath me. I am able to jack up the rig, using its own hydraulics, and remove the rim. The inner tube has disintegrated, so I’m off to town for a new one. I return, struggle to get the tire reinstalled on the machine. There goes day two. Del and Ron haven't had much luck finding the cows. What they did find they load up in the trailer and_off they go. I’m on my own now. I've got provisions- Mountain Dew and some hamburger, coffee, several boxes of instant macaroni and cheese, gasoline, diesel — fuel, a truck, tools, the line shack, a DVD Player and a collection of Western movies. The sun sets behind the mesa top. I fire up the generator, but the din gets on my nerves. I go outside and turn it off. Immediately, the stars and the silence take over. I’m “ be accomplished by rational, well-educated, Anglo-European white men. It was an ethos that began in the 19th century, with the concept of the duty of white peoples to bring the blessings of civilization to the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world wanted them or not. It is impossible to understand what Zahniser meant by a “wilderness”, “untrammeled by man” without taking into account his background. Harold Zahniser was raised in western Pennsylvania. ‘ytteny * ee ue: atk MAES TRE MOAB’S FIRST & BEST BIKE SHOP 94 WEST 100 NORTH MOAB, UT 259.5333 rimeyclery.com CALL US TOLL-FREE 888.304.8219 AL 4a aa Ve rae hy GEAR & CLOTHING MAPS & BOOKS '‘RIM-BRANDED' BS. MERCHANDISE a Methodist The wilderness, for Harold Zahniser, was a place one went to marvel at the handiwork of God, to be inspired by the non-human world, and then to return, refreshed and rejuvenated, to the realm of humanity. The wilderness was never a place to live. It was to be a sanctuary for things holy, the handiwork of the Creator, as opposed to the base works of man. It existed only as it could be contrasted with a 20th century world of atomic weapons, megalopolis, superhighways, and an industrial economy. A wild human, for whom there exists no dichotomy between his own works and those of nature, could have never written The Wilderness Act. It’s morning, and I get up, fry some eggs and some SPAM. Good to go. I walk out to the front-end loader and fire her up. It turns out to be a long day. I solder radiators, wrestle more flat tires, rig a makeshift temperature gauge. I clean, and re--clean, and clean again, the stinking algae from my only fuel filter. another fake testimonial HUB OF MOAB CYCLERY His father was minister, and Harold attended Greenville College, which was affiliated with the Free Methodist Church. There, Zahniser developed his love for literature and for the out of doors. He worked for various Federal Agencies, including the USDA Bureau of Biological Survey and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He went on to become the Director of the Wilderness Society. JOHN McCAIN Whenever I feel like doing some serious augering & crotch- for is chedud aerocks |