The words in the Wilderness Act provide the clearest description of their vision: Conservationists, equipped with incredible foresight, recognized that great expanses of roadless areas, mostly in the West, should be preserved. In 1964, 50 years ago, federal legislation passed that allowed the establishment of wilderness areas. This year we are celebrating these wild places. No mountain bikes, no four-wheelers, no motorcycles, nothing mechanized, and with any luck, no cellphone service. I reveled in the reality that, in wilderness, all travel is by foot or on horseback. I whispered a short homage, thanking those responsible for working to set aside land in America as wilderness. This short episode illustrates just one of the reasons that I and thousands of other people venture to places like this. But here, at the headwaters of the Pine River, 25 miles from the trailhead, I sat with the deluge, felt the rushing air, absorbed the sounds and inhaled the aftermath. Had I been near home as the storm approached, I would have rushed inside to avoid the onslaught. A couple of hawks circled nearby, a half-dozen deer browsed in the meadow below camp, birds and frogs called, a light wind rustled the tall grass. Remnant clouds were colored gold, pink and silver. Trailing raindrops caught by the rays of the sun transformed into a sparkling prism, producing a rainbow across the valley.
#DURANGO WILD LANDS ANKYLOSAURUS ART CRACK#
I flinched at a sudden flash, followed by the piercing crack of thunder.įor 20 minutes the storm covered the area, and then in about 15 minutes it melted down the valley. I’d watched and listened to the storm move in for an hour – the low rumble of distant thunder growing louder by the minute, the clouds building high and white and then dropping menacingly to low and black, obscuring the surrounding peaks. Pushed by a 20-mile-an-hour wind, the droplets pelted my primitive campsite and the temperature dropped by 15 degrees in just a few minutes. I pulled up the hood of my jacket and braced myself against the flashes of lightning that drove a hard rain from gray rolling clouds. On a late summer afternoon I sat at my campsite in the middle of the Weminuche Wilderness.