Story and photos by Mike Rosso

No, it’s not a camouflaged gang of South American rebels celebrating their latest victory against the imperialist dogs. That joke is as well worn as a hundred-year-old dance floor. What is known about contra dancing is that is upbeat, easy and fun for folks of all ages. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

Two of the raps against snowmobiles are smell and noise. Both problems are eliminated with a new electric-powered prototype that has been tested in Greenland. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – November 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Instead of wielding sticks, the U.S. Forest Service is offering carrots to motorized users who use the San Juan National Forest. The proof of this carrot pudding will be whether motorized users self-police themselves. If not, says the Durango Telegraph, the federal agency may get out the stick. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – September 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

You know what’s wrong with Yosemite and a lot of other national parks? They don’t have enough five-star hotel rooms.

So says The Economist magazine from its perch overseeing world affairs in London. The magazine notes that visitation to Yosemite during the last 13 years has dropped 9 percent. This is despite population growth of 17 percent in California, much of it inland, closer to the Sierra Nevada, where Yosemite and other parks are located. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – June 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Colorado Trail, which extends for more than 450 miles from the Denver suburbs to Durango, is looking for volunteers to work on trail crews this summer.

The Colorado Trail Foundation, based in Golden, schedules the work sessions, which can be an entire week or just a weekend. The trail is open for foot and horseback travel, as well as pack stock like burros and llamas, and some segments are also open to cyclists. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – April 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

The wilderness portions of Great Sand dunes National Park are now closed to dogs, but leashed pets are still allowed in the parts of the park where most visitors go.

Leashed dogs are allowed in the main dunes area near the parking lot, and upstream along Medano Creek to Castle Creek, as well as in campgrounds, parking lots, Medano Pass, and the Old Liberty Road Corridor. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

In 1987, four young men died in an avalanche adjacent to the Breckenridge ski area. After that, Summit County Sheriff Delbert Ewoldt announced a new policy, one limiting access to the backcountry from ski areas. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]1933392665[/amazon-product]Review by Martha Quillen

Recreation – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Thrillcraft – The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation
Edited by George Wuerthner
Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in 2007
ISBN: 1933392665 Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ski and other manufacturers and retailers are exploring how they can make their products and operations more “green,” reports the Summit Daily News.

In a program that in some ways mirrors Sustainable Slopes, the program sponsored by the National Ski Areas Association, the retailers and manufacturers are working on such things as recycling old skis and snowboards. David Ingemie, president of the Snowsports Industries of America, told the newspaper it’s not as easy as recycling newspapers. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Mountain bikers are disturbed by a recommendation from the U.S. Forest Service to create a new wilderness area between Durango and Silverton that would close 20 miles of the Colorado Trail to wheels.

The recommendation, if adopted by Congress, would also make at least six other trails off-limits to biking, reports the Durango Telegraph. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Helmets were supposed to make skiing and snowboarding safer. In fact there has been no significant reduction in ski area fatalities in the last nine seasons, even though the use of helmets has increased to more than 33 percent.

However, helmets have reduced the number of head injuries, according to a study cited by the National Ski Areas Association. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – December 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Few people would expect to ever need to know what to do if caught in an avalanche. But in Jackson Hole, where avalanche deaths among backcountry skiers and sledders are a staple of winter news in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, it’s no academic subject. Read the rest of this article

Article by Jennifer Dempsey

Recreation – August 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN I DROPPED OUT of Queen’s University to join the Belfast Community Circus, I wasn’t being rebellious, I was accepting a different assignment. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – August 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Deadly summer on the river

Did the Grim Reaper hire on as a guide on the Arkansas River this summer? The statistics point that way, with a record number of fatalities well before the main rafting season ends on Aug. 15. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Mike Beagle

Recreation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Flashing red and blue lights sent me a strong message: I was busted. I’d just passed a truck as I drove into a small, southwestern Oregon town and neglected to slow down to 30 mph. I got a ticket. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – April 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

When nature calls and you’re out in nature, how should you respond? The Colorado Fourteener Initiative, which works to minimize human impacts on our popular highest mountains, offered some advice in a recent newsletter.

We’ll be tasteful here and start with solid matter. Below timberline, dig a “cathole” about four to six inches deep in organic soil, rather than sandy or mineral soil. After you’re done, refill the hole with soil and debris, and your deposit will break down. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – April 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Colorado Trail hereabouts will see a lot of work this summer as it gets a new route in the Clear Creek drainage.

This isn’t the better-known Clear Creek that flows through Idaho Springs and Golden, but a shorter Clear Creek which originates between 14,000-foot peaks in Chaffee County and joins the Arkansas River above Granite. This one boasts two ghost towns, Vicksburg and Winfield, and near its mouth is a reservoir that helps supply Pueblo with water. Read the rest of this article

Article by Columbine Quillen

Recreation – September 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

“I take lemons and make them into lemonade,” replied Monty Holmes when asked what made him think of the idea to open a zip line park on an old mining claim east of Salida.

And sweet it is that he was able to make a desert box canyon that was not producing any gold into a modern- day adventure gold mine that houses five different zip lines, plus caverns, and lime kilns. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Patty Lataille

Recreation – July 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

I’M A LITTLE TIRED of being quiet — particularly in regard to my need for silence and tranquility when I’m in the woods. I go to the forest and hike in the mountains when I’m seeking the silence and solace of nature. It calms me. Soothes my jangled nerves. Keeps me sane. It’s why I came to live in Colorado in the first place. New York City/Long Island was just a little too busy. It was too crowded with people and full of non-stop noise. I head for the hills when I need to get away — even from the rural life here in the San Luis Valley. Face it, I didn’t move to a town of 80 people to become a socialite. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]9780967060446[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

Recreation – July 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Wildflower Day Hikes – Chaffee County Colorado
by Ruth Runge-Barnes and Ann Ewing
Published in 2006 by the U.S. Forest Service and the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association
ISBN 978-0-9670604-4-6 Read the rest of this article

Essay by John Krist

Recreation – July 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

AS A RULE, it is not a good idea to smack a fellow river rafter with a paddle or to push him out of the boat in the middle of a rapid.

Not only do such actions constitute a breach of wilderness etiquette, they can cause hard feelings which might result in unpleasantness later in camp. And there’s also the possibility of drowning, which would no doubt lead to complications involving the authorities. But there were times during a recent trip down the Selway River in Idaho when I was tempted to bludgeon one of my fellow rafters. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – May 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

If your idea of a vacation is a few days of hard work at high altitude, you have plenty of opportunities to enjoy yourself in the mountains this summer.

The Colorado Trail runs for about 470 miles from Denver to Durango, and it always needs work that ranges from maintenance to rerouting with new construction. The work is done by volunteers, who must be at least 16 years old and in good physical condition. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Stephen Glover

Recreation – April 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed:

There have been many references made over the years in Colorado Central regarding the differences between rural/mountain living and urban living. Having spent some time living both in the Phoenix area and in Nathrop, I can tell you the differences run deep. Apologies to the urban Southwest; the Arkansas Valley is a far saner place to be. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0974881414[/amazon-product]Review by Columbine Quillen

Recreation – February 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Skinny Skis and Snowshoes: Guide to Winter Trails in Colorado’s Upper Arkansas Valley
by Nate Porter and Nathan Ward
Published in 2005
ISBN 0- 9748814- 1- 4 Read the rest of this article

Essay by John Mattingly

Recreation – January 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

I DON’T ADMIT THIS AT John Deere dinners, but I went to the law school in Boulder for a while. I did not graduate, perhaps to my credit. When people learned I was a farmer looking for a retirement career in the law, they invariably grimaced, asking “Why?” I never came up with a good answer. Read the rest of this article

Article by Tim Kregel

Recreation – January 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN about March of 1974, when the buds and I decided it was high time to have a new ‘hinterland adventure.’ Not that we hadn’t had sufficient adventures that winter, living in and around Garfield. We had adventures that winter, all right — we’d even said permanent goodbyes to a couple of the buds who’d gotten more adventure than they had bargained for. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – January 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Who do you think has the highest risk for getting injured when skiing and snowboarding? Would you say old people, which a newspaper in Vail once called skeezers. Or how about testosterone-driven young guys? Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – December 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Avalanche forecasting in Colorado should improve this year, thanks to a new remote weather reporting station at the top of 12,126-foot Cottonwood Pass west of Buena Vista.

Previously, there were no reporting stations in the 75 or so miles between Tennessee and Monarch passes, making the Sawatch Range something of a “black hole” for avalanche forecasts. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Plans for a major development on Wolf Creek Pass are now on hold, thanks to a ruling by District Judge O. John Kuenhold in a case brought against Mineral County and the developer by Colorado Wild and the Wolf Creek Ski Area. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

For years the mom-and-pop ski areas were closing. Now, stories are telling of small ski areas being opened. The latest such story comes from Custer County, where Terry Cook is erecting a single chairlift at the Aspen Country Mountain Park, a couple of miles from Bishop’s Castle. The chairlift and a Snocat groomer were purchased from Idaho’s Bogus Basin Ski Area. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Jim Stiles

Recreation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN CHIEF RANGER Jerry Epperson hired me to be a seasonal ranger at Arches National Park in Utah so many years ago, I wasn’t sure what my duties were supposed to be. So it seemed like a good idea to ask.

Epperson smiled wryly and said, “A ranger should range.” Read the rest of this article

Letter from Roger Williams

Recreation – September 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Democrat, Lincoln and Bross in the Mosquito Range closed by private land? (Aug. 2005, p. 9, “DO NOT ENTER”). That’s news to me. When I climbed them, plus nearby Buckskin Mt., a few years ago, the only signs I saw were on some old mines by the road up the valley posted “No Trespassing.” They obviously applied to the mine properties, not the road. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Allen Best

Recreation – September 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

In the Telluride area, a landowner threatens to block use of his land that is commonly used to reach three fourteeners (Wilson Peak, Mt. Wilson, and El Diente) while he seeks a land trade with the U.S. Forest Service. Read the rest of this article

Article by Allen Best

Recreation – September 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

MAURY REIBER can claim a distinction like no other in Colorado. He owns the highest of Colorado’s privately owned high-end real estate, the summit of Mt. Lincoln. At 14,291 feet, it’s Colorado eighth-highest mountain.

But even if very few people own a mountain summit, Mr. Reiber remains in rarified company in another way. He is Colorado as it used to be – a person who values Colorado real estate as much for what can be grubbed from it as for its scenery. He is, at heart, a miner. Read the rest of this article

Article by Brad Goettemoeller

Recreation – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

ON THE ARKANSAS RIVER, you see rafts bouncing downstream with a well-trained guide at the helm. But have you ever thought about how someone becomes a guide? In theory, a guide is trained by mature, responsible and highly skilled instructors in a controlled and safe environment that is conducive to learning. However, my experience was quite the opposite. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The usual routes up some of Colorado’s easier 14ers go across private property – old mining claims that have been patented in Park County west of Alma. And this summer, the U.S. Forest Service, which administers the land around the claims, has started telling hikers to stay off those mountains unless they have written permission from the dozens of property owners. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – July 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

It was a good but not great year for Colorado ski areas. On one hand, the ski areas collectively posted 11.81 million skier days, the third biggest year on record. The record year was set 7 years before.

Also promising was the return of lucrative out-of-state destination visitors, whose ranks swelled by 7%. Notable was the 28% increase in international visitors. Colorado Ski Country USA, the trade group, said that the United Kingdom, the largest international market, produced 31% more skiers this past winter, while visits from Australia grew 25% and those from Latin America grew 16%. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – July 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

A lodge at one of Colorado’s first ski areas is no more. As ordered by the Forest Service, the 30,000-square-foot building at Berthoud Pass was reduced to rubble recently.

The ski area, one of Colorado’s oldest, opened in 1937, but has only operated sporadically since the mid-1980s and not at all since 2001. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazines.

Near the old railroad town of Minturn, across Tennessee Pass from Leadville, is a place called Meadow Mountain. It once was a downhill ski area, but the Forest Service got the property in a land exchange. And so locals used it for several decades as a sledding hill, with parents taking their small children to the hill on weekends for cheap, outdoor entertainment. Read the rest of this article

Article by Marcia Darnell

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

It’s not easy morphing. The Great Sand Dunes National Park has gone from being a national monument, to a park and preserve, to a national park in the last five years. Composed of park, refuge, and private holding, it’s become an amalgam of land, water, sand, flora and fauna, under three management entities — the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and The Nature Conservancy. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Adam Krom

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Confirmed sighting of a mountain unicyclist

Editors:

I read with interest your short feature on mountain unicycles in the December 2004 issue. I instantly remembered the first time I came across one in its habitat. My wife and I were in Colorado Springs for a get-together with friends and family when we stole away for an afternoon in Fox Run Park, which is tucked into the Black Forest north of the city. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Near the old railroad town of Minturn, across Tennessee Pass from Leadville, is a place called Meadow Mountain. It once was a downhill ski area, but the Forest Service got the property in a land exchange. And so locals used it for several decades as a sledding hill, with parents taking their small children to the hill on weekends for cheap, outdoor entertainment. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The American ski industry has been flat for the past two decades, averaging about 54 million visits a year after it grew rapidly in the 1960s and ’70s, thanks to Baby Boomers taking up the sport. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – December 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

We’ve been around long enough to remember our surprise the first time we saw a bicycle on a back-country trail; today, of course, mountain-biking is a popular pursuit and the single-track trails of Central Colorado are a significant tourist attraction. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – November 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Colorado Trail, which extends for about 470 miles between Durango and Denver, celebrated its 30th anniversary on Sept. 25 with a spaghetti supper in Buena Vista.

The trail was the idea of Bill Lucas, then regional director of the U.S. Forest Service, and Gudy Gaskill, who chaired the Trails and Huts Committee of the Colorado Mountain Club. They laid out a tentative route which connected existing trails (such as the old Main Range Trail on the east flank of the Sawatch Range), and volunteers went to work on the ground. Read the rest of this article