Colorado Central Articles From — February 2002

Column by Hal Walter

Food – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

COOKING, IF YOU REALLY LOVE FOOD, is almost certain to take on a regional flavor. In Central Colorado, this brand of culinary snobbishness is known as cuisine opportunisme, which roughly translated means “eat well when you have the opportunity.” It has occurred to me to do as dead comedian Sam Kinneson suggested and “live where the food is,” but then I realize that there are better restaurants in Salida than there are in Pueblo, a town 15 times the size. Incidentally, nobody in Pueblo can muster a cup of coffee that compares to anything Bongo Billy’s brews up either. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Local Media – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Canyon Country Zephyr, P.O. Box 327, Moab UT 84532. 435-259-7773. $15 per year. www.canyoncountryzephyr.com

Chaffee County Times, P.O. Box 2048, Buena Vista CO 81211. 719-395-8621. $29 per year out of county. www.chaffeecountytimes.com

Colorado Central Magazine, P.O. Box 946, Salida CO 81201. 719-539-5345. $20 per year. www.cozine.com Read the rest of this article

Essay by Ed Quillen

Local media – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

SURE, I ENJOY READING BOOKS — most of them, anyway. But I actually spend more time reading newspapers and magazines, so when Martha asked for the annual “List of Favorites,” I decided to write about periodicals.

Daily Newspapers

I read three; just how thoroughly depends on what else I have to do that day, but they all get at least a skimming. Read the rest of this article

Review by Lynda La Rocca

Literature – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

For most of the past year, I was on a fantasy fiction kick. Unfortunately, the books I randomly selected were, for the most part, formulaic and forgettable, neither enchanting nor transporting me to fantastic realms filled with magic and wonder.

Finally, I decided to revisit the master, so I plunged again into J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy which, along with Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, may be the finest collection of fantasy fiction ever written. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]048625254X[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

History – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike
Edited by Elliott Coues
Originally published in 1895
Reprinted in 1987 by Dover Publications
Paper, Two Volumes
Volume 1: ISBN: 0-486-25254-X
Volume 2: ISBN: 0-486-25255-8 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]061821920X[/amazon-product]Review by Ali Macalady

Women in West – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Woven on the Wind: Women Write about Friendship in the Sagebrush West
Linda Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier, Nancy Curtis
Published in 2001 by Houghton Mifflin
ISBN 061821920X Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0803218109[/amazon-product]Review by Martha Quillen

Mountain Life – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Sunshine Preferred
by Anne Ellis
Originally published in 1934
First Bison Book printing 1984
University of Nebraska Press
ISBN 0-8032-1810-9
Read the rest of this article

Article by Clint Driscoll

Local artist – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to walk past a Fay Golson work without stopping to look. Whether the piece is a highly textured, colorful painting of humans at work, or a photograph of an abandoned shack in a blizzard, or a photogram featuring the demon form of Kali among everyday objects, the work requires examination and a reaction. That phenomenon has established the reputation of this Chaffee County artist as a painter, maker of mixed-media pieces, and a very creative photographer. Read the rest of this article

Column by George Sibley

Resort economy – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

“What is a culture if it is not a consensus?”

That’s a question I encountered in an essay, “The World in Pieces,” by anthropologist Clifford Geertz. It’s a question that eventually occurs to anyone who is experiencing the phenomenon of “multiculturalism” today — “cultural diversity” is something that one might like to celebrate, if one could only figure out how. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen

Modern Times – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

ONE OF MY PET PEEVES revolves around how sure people sound in polls. The nightly news will put one of their quixotic multiple choice polls on, and half the time I think, “Boy, I don’t know.” But inevitably less than 10% of people actually answer, “I don’t know.”

Of course, that may be because news stations rudely classify the “I don’t knows” as “no opinion,” which is not the same thing. I have opinions; I just don’t pretend to know everything. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Allen Best

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Canada lynx are similar in appearance to bobcats, which remain common although rarely seen in Colorado. They weigh 18 to 44 pounds, or two to three times the size of a house cat. They measure three or four feet long, not counting their tails.

Lynx differ from bobcats in two key ways. First, clumps of dark hair, called tufts, extend Mr. Spock-like from their ears. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Allen Best

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Lynx seem never to have been abundant in the Southern Rockies, an area of high country that sprawls beyond Colorado into bordering areas of Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah. This is the southern edge of range for the lynx, who are more common in areas near the Canadian border. Read the rest of this article

Article by Allen Best

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

NEARLY THREE YEARS since the first of 96 Canada lynx were transplanted into Colorado, survival of the species here remains in doubt.

It’s not for lack of food. Unlike February 1999, when four of the first five lynx released into the San Juan Mountains died of starvation, wildlife researchers are confident that lynx have found enough to eat. Some have even been caching kills, to eat later. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Ken Stitzel

Geography – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

That was an interesting article about the triple divide at Headwaters Hill, “A Letter from the Editors: Playing the Name Game (and enjoying it)” in the September issue. However, if you are extolling the Closed Basin as part of the triple divide, there would seem to be three triple divides defining the corners of the basin. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Marianne Dugan

Terrorism – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Editors:

RE: “Wallah!” And here I thought it was for humor. You know, as in, “real Westerners don’t use French.”

RE: The USPS. For the last two years my November issue of Colorado Central hasn’t arrived until mid-December (15th and 13th respectively), so your Maine subscribers probably receive November and December together. I don’t know why the postal service finds November so difficult, but suspect the catalogue overload is involved. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Water Politics – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

In recent years, there have been only two water conservancy districts which have held elections, and both are in Central Colorado.

Elections were held in 1999 and 2000 in the Upper Gunnison River WCD (basically, the river basin above Blue Mesa Dam). In 2001, there was an election in the Upper Arkansas WCD (Chaffee, Custer, and western Frémont counties). Read the rest of this article

Article by Jeanne Englert

Water Politics – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

THOUGH IT WAS a lot of work, citizens groups in Chaffee and Gunnison counties have succeeded in getting elected representation on the Upper Arkansas and Upper Gunnison water conservancy district boards, which have historically been appointed by judges.

And they plan to do it again. Both Citizens for Water Integrity (Chaffee County) and High Country Citizens Alliance (Gunnison County) have already begun circulating petitions for director districts in which the incumbents’ terms will expire this year. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Rivers ought to have water in them, but Colorado’s water laws often produce dry streambeds that hurt both the economy and the environment. Thus some changes are necessary, according to a report issued in January by Trout Unlimited. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Public Lands – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

User fees to visit National Forests are not popular in some areas (see the January 2002 edition), but they seem to be working in the Aspen area.

The fees are charged to almost all visitors to the Maroon Valley, the place that offers that spectacular view of the Maroon Bells which just might be the most photographed image in Colorado. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Telecommunications – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Those of us who frequently call government offices occasionally exchange tales of Voice Mail From Hell. While there are some state offices in Denver that are fairly talented at producing frustration and annoyance for citizens, the local consensus has given first prize to the Park County government offices in Fairplay. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Trout are again thriving downstream from the Summitville Mine Superfund site, but the real test will come with this spring’s runoff.

Terrace Reservoir sits on the Alamosa River about 20 miles below the mine. It had once been a popular fishing spot, but about a decade ago, the mine began to leak. Its owner declared bankruptcy and the Environmental Protection Agency took over. The state and federal governments have since spent about $235 million. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Enron scandal – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Although some of us like to think that the mountains are a good place to hide from Wall Street, that is at best a pleasant fantasy: railroad mergers and multinational mining companies, to give two examples, have major effects on our part of the world. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Marcia Darnell

San Luis Valley – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Generations of Good

The Coleman family, which has been ranching in Saguache County for over 100 years, was named Conservationists of the Year for Ranching for 2001 by the state association of soil conservation districts. The family owns 11,000 acres near Saguache. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Arkansas River – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

We know of ancient Egyptians from the inscriptions on masonry along the Nile, and now the Arkansas River Trust is offering a similar form of immortality: engraved brick pavers on a river walk from the Steam Plant through Riverside Park. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local Events – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Olympic Torch will come through Central Colorado on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Games.

The torch began its trip on Dec. 4 in Atlanta, site of the 1996 Summer Games, and it wanders through 46 of the 50 states, with Colorado the penultimate. Read the rest of this article

Comic Strip written by Clint Driscoll and illustrated by Judie Moorhead

Mountain Life – February 2002 – Colorado Central Read the rest of this article

Essay by Dan Dagget

Agriculture – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

SOME FIGHTS can’t be settled with words. That, I believe, is the case with the battle over whether grazing should be removed from public lands in the American West.

Anti-grazers have been trying to get cows off these lands for more than a hundred years, and for just as long ranchers and their allies have been battling them to a standstill. As taxpayers, we have poured billions of dollars into this standoff, funding legislation, regulation, lawsuits and range improvements, and all we’ve got for our money is a century of ill-will and divisiveness. Read the rest of this article

HYDROLOGY

Snowpack in Colorado is at 58% of average, down from 65% last month. Reservoir storage is at 85%. The Upper Colorado River Basin is in the best shape at 69% while the Gunnison Basin is at 63%. The driest basin in the state is the Rio Grande at 48%. Read the rest of this article