SPEAKOUT: Browns Canyon ideal wilderness candidate

By David A. Lien

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Over Memorial Day weekend I spent two days camping and hiking in the Browns Canyon area north of Salida. Sen. Ken Salazar recently introduced legislation to designate the 20,000-acre Browns Canyon Wilderness there ("Browns Canyon hopes second verse better than the first," Sports, May 28).

As a former Air Force officer and co-chair of the Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Memorial Day is more than just another day off to me, and public lands are more than just playgrounds and resources for industry. I believe - like military veteran and famed hunter-conservationist Teddy Roosevelt - that, "Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendents than it is for us."

Like TR, I served in the military to defend the democratic rights and freedoms we enjoy as citizens of this country. And like Roosevelt, who founded the hunter-conservation group the Boone and Crockett Club, I joined the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (www.backcountryhunters.org) to ensure there's something worth defending, places like Browns Canyon.

Salazar's Browns Canyon legislation is virtually identical to the bill introduced by former U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley and Sen. Wayne Allard in the 109th Congress.

The bill was supported by the entire Colorado congressional delegation. It also had (and still has) overwhelming support from local citizens, businesses, hunters (including local hunting National Rifle Association members), anglers, and county commissioners, among others. However, at the last minute a local all-terrain vehicle user (ideologically opposed to any wilderness anywhere) and a misguided NRA member convinced NRA chieftains to oppose the bill because it would shorten motorized use on Forest Road 184 (i.e., the "Turret Trail") by a mere 3.5 miles.

During this Memorial Day weekend I hiked the entire Turret Trail in the proposed wilderness area without encountering a single person (or off-highway vehicle), probably because the trail is a dead-end route that's not maintained and rarely used. In addition, on public lands (U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management) within 100 miles of Browns Canyon there are more than 6,000 miles of officially designated roads and motorized trails open to ATV use.

In fact, the only fresh sign I saw in Browns Canyon was that of elk and mule deer, and lots of it. I couldn't walk 10 feet without seeing evidence of their comings and goings. This isn't surprising, because the areas to the north, east and south of Browns are now dominated by motorized recreationists, making it one of the only intact low-elevation big game habitats left on public lands in the region.

If the NRA were truly concerned about the future of hunting on public lands, its leaders would realize that we need to take the advice of Theodore Roosevelt and "preserve large tracts of wilderness . . . for the exercise of the skill of the hunter, whether or not he is a man of means."

Although I deeply appreciate and respect the NRA's ongoing work to protect our Second Amendment rights, to their leaders in Washington, D.C., I say: We need guns and places to hunt. I've owned guns since I was 12 and have never had one taken away, yet I've lost more hunting spots than I can count. The greater threat is clear. Conservation, the NRA's leaders seem to have forgotten, derives from the Latin conservare, meaning "to keep guard," something Teddy Roosevelt did admirably.

Today we have the opportunity to honor his legacy by protecting Browns Canyon as wilderness.

David A. Lien is the co-chair of Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. He is a resident of Colorado Springs.

• June 2, 2008

  11:07 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Buff4Life writes:

  Gene,

  What do Obama and the Polar Bear have to do with Browns Canyon? Your focus seems severely misplaced.

• June 2, 2008

  4:26 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  RainbowWarrior writes:

  No Gene, it's more like pup-tent conservatives putting words in other people's mouths.

  Well said Mr. Lien, if only we could get more people out of town to appriciate what little un-spoiled wild lands we have left! And the obvious fact that we need to protect what hasn't been leased to the oil and gas industry.

  I am surprised Gene wasn't wanting to drill, drill, drill...

• June 2, 2008

  5:05 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Davem writes:

  Oh Lord thank you David! As a traditional hunter/angler myself-- that is I use my muscles to get where I'm going in the woods-- I couldn't agree more with you.

  About time somebody started standing up for old time sportsmen values.

• June 3, 2008

  6:08 a.m.

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  soccermom writes:

  Sounds like a beautiful place, thank you for supporting it with this excellent column!