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Show TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT By Jim Stiles Defining Wilderness The Utah wilderness debate seems to be on hold for the time being. Democrats and Republicans fought to a draw this spring and will now wait for the outcome of the presidential election in November before firing up the rhetorical cannons again. What a relief. I don't know if you were growing weary of die whole process, but I thought if I had to listen to one more politician, or (me more bureaucrat or... yes. ..even one more environmentalist rant and scream about one proposed piece of legislation or another, I was going to have my ears filled with cement and plunge my head into Hie bathtub. Of course, I'm still committed to a large wilderness bill for Utah. I'm still just as annoyed by the likes of Congressman Jim "Elmer Fudd" Hansen as I ever was. But sometimes it bothers me that the word wilderness has come to represent political and bureaucratic designations, that it rolls off the lips of some like a r word. Or even that it has become an angrily chanted battle cry for those who support wilderness. The poetry in the word has been lost or at least misplaced. Wilderness wasn't originally intended to create such contentiousness. More than boundary lines on a topographic map, wilderness is a state of mind, a feeling, an emotion. Wilderness is any place where we find silence and solitude;, or adventure and four-lette- lovely place myself The photograph would inspire others to seek it out; my absence would at least diminbh die crowd by one. --somehow I think I knew what was coming. The photographer and the calendar publisher had die sensitivity to keep the place fairly anonymous and I appreciated their efforts. I hoped that die canyon was inaccessible enough to save it. Still I worried and wondered how such a sculptured masterpiece could remain dial way. A couple of years later, I mentioned die picture to a ranger friend of mine. "Sure," he replied, "That's Antelope Canyon. I haven't been there but it's down by Lake Powell near Page; I think. Not too many people know about it "Near Pager I exclaimed. "Near Glen Canyon Dam and die power plant?" "That's it my friend sighed. And a few months later, I saw another picture of die secret canyon, thb time identified by name. Over the years, I heard of others who had gone there and I learned that the Navajo Nation had even considered building a marina on Lake Powell at die reservoir's terminus with the canyon. Though die marina has never been built, Antelope Canyon continued to gain attention I started to hear rumors that die canyon was beginning to show signs of overuse. For the first time in a million years. Antelope Canyon had a litter problem; hikers started to notice candy wrappers and film . cans. surprise. If I'm picking through the mins of an old mining cabin in the Last week I was driving past the Navajo Power Plant near Page Yellow Cat and I look up through die darkness to the exposed when a large sign caught my attention. Here's what ' Great with a to rafters and find said: it eyeball myself eyeball rotting Homed Owl who never blinks, and me, and backs me out the door, isn't that a wilderness experience? If I'm walking down the wash board road between die Bean Ean and suddenly the oak brush in front of me rustles, and a form begins to emerge from the leaves, and it turns out to be a beautiful, sleek mountain lion, whose muscles ripple in the sunlight as she walks silently in front of me for just a moment, and then vanishes tint a wilderness experience? If I sit into the ravine below-is- n't down to watch the sunset from the summit of Tithe's Nipple, or Windy Point or Nasty Flat or UFO Hill or a thousand other quiet forgotten places, and 1 sit there for hours and all I hear is the wind, die swallows, and the humming of my own brain, isn't that wilderness? What I'm struggling to say here is, wilderness is anywhere we find things wild and free and solitude that is long and unbroken. All these places deserve our respect and our reverence and our concern, or they will not survive. Not all the places I've mentioned Unbelievable. There must have been thirty cars in the lot on thb (and most of the names I invented) are considered 'wilderness' by I sometimes But criteria. the meet official don't worry hot, anyone. They windy June afternoon. Discouraged but not surprised, I took ted way, will somehow a picture and headed home. Five hours later, I readied Moab. Hot that wilderness, in a congressionally-design- a suggest to the world that the remainder of the land b unworthy of and tired and dusty, I pulled a popsicle out of the freezer and plopped down in front of the boob tube. I wasn't paying much any respect at alL We need wilderness designation because human beings have attention to the tv; in feci I was much more engrossed in shown such little concern or respect for the land in the past. As b consuming my quiescently frozen raspberry confection, but often the case (consider the civil rights movement), legblation b something caught my eye and I glanced at the flickering screen. There was that actor from die movie Cocoon, the big guy who sometimes the only way to move civilization forward. But all land b sacred. As we continue to watch dramatic was the alien being. ..Brian Somebody. He was talking about a new changes on the Colorado Plateau, the threat to all these lands acid indigestion remedy Xantac 75, 1 think. He said it was "the last continues to grow, especially as the beauty of the land' itself word" in abdominal pain relief With a voice as confident as God's, becomes the 'product' that fuels our biggest industry tourism. It's Brian assured the viewer that a Xantac pill would provide instant just not enough to be a 'recreationist.' People come here to play, but relief (and last up to eight hours). He was making his sales pitch from you guessed it the this b not a playground. I know I've said all this before, but occasionally it's worth repeating. The day we treat oil of these lands bowels of Antelope Canyon. As the sculpted sandstone walls with the reverence they deserve b the day we won't need glowed like file sunset; Brian talked about the effects of spicy foods and the miracle of his little tablets. Why the makers of thb product wilderness designation anymore. better. We'll know thought Antelope Canyon provided a perfect backdrop for a We will have evolved. stomach pill commercial b beyond me, unless they thought the The Ignominious Fate of Antelope Canyon anyon itself resembled an esophagus. But there it was. -- and there calendar in a I 70s noticed a the In late that was as it goes: from anonymity to tv add indigestion commercial in less photograph I had Nature in ever seen. It than 20 years. Amazing. surreally beautiful as anything slot bathed convoluted in an otherOne thing b certain after seeing the commercial I needed a canyon, depicted a narrow and worldly light. I had never seen anything quite like it. The caption Xantac 75. on the photograph identified it only as a "slot canyon in Northern Arizona. A Boy it His Those Poison Spider Rascals I don't ride a bike anymore. Or at least I haven't in years (Or at Good, I thought-th- as pretty vague. That should keep Slot Baggers busy for a while. In fact, I decided then and there that I least I didn't). Maybe it's just my personality or would make no attempt to leam die identity or real location of this maybe it's just because I don't like being swerved at by teenage hand-painte- d out-star- es Bike-Court- esy ist TWO |
