Letters
By you, the readerYou Look so Smart But Where’s your Soul?
Peter Kray asks in the Intro of #139: “What’s new?” about MG.
Answer: You had a successful facelift and a failed heart transplant?
MG, you sure look good and colorful. Just like New York or Hollywood would like you to look. But why did you lose your heart and spirit?
You’re just not fun anymore. You don’t tickle my funny bone. You don’t provoke a grin or cause me to ponder a thought. Where is your spunk? You have become bland just like most other mainstream American magazines.
I will fondly remember you as you were: spunky, off-beat and funner than fun.
Although we may not connect anymore, I will visit you in the future and try to remember you as you were, not what you have become. RIP
Gerry Bartush
Crested Butte, CO
Well-Armed Enviros Claim Bullets Better than Bikes
I read MG because its naïve, urban perspective is often very funny. John Fayhee’s rant about tobacco-chewing, hillbilly hunters camped in make-shift shanty towns at popular trailheads was hilarious (Smoke Signals, #140, “Ready, aim, duck!”).?Anybody who’s been out in the hills during hunting season would more likely see well-funded wannabe hunters driving expensive motorhomes, pulling flatbed trailers full of shiny new ATVs. These are the shitheads that are ruining my hunting experience and the people who should be the target of any nature lover’s outrage, but that’s another story.
John concluded his character assassination on a more tolerant note, but I really don’t need his endorsement.? Hunters, even the cretins, have done more to protect the environment in the past century than all of the Green groups combined.?Hunters and anglers have raised literally BILLIONS of dollars for conservation efforts through the sale of licenses and a surcharge we long ago placed on guns, ammunition and fishing tackle.?Do mountain bikers, backpackers and kayakers tax themselves for environmental causes??Of course they don’t.?Conservation groups like The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Trout Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited have worked to protect and acquire wild landscapes for decades.
I realize that hunting is often found distasteful to people like you and your readers.?Personally, I find mountain biking distasteful. I feel like I’m on some silly suburban bike path whenever I encounter those witless, techie goofballs hauling ass through the backcountry. However, I believe that if someone wants to experience nature on such a shallow level or views our mountain country as nothing more than a really cool gymnasium, well, that’s their business.
So, to all you New West/outdoor-recreation/environmentalists, as John put it, if you want to bash a particular subculture, try your own.?Down here in SW Colorado, the Durango mountain bike community has been the most obnoxiously, vocal opponent of the proposed creation of the West Hermosa Creek Wilderness.?We hunters are not surprised.? ???
Tom Sykes
Cortez, CO
‘Oh, God. Oh, God. Yes!’ Snow’s Spiritual Satisfier
Ahhh, the Mountain Gazette. It is some kind of connector to the mountain world where my heart will always dwell and hopefully one day my body will return.
I was sure glad to get my hands on The Deep Winter Issue.?I especially enjoyed Jenn Weede’s story, The Spiritual Path of Snow. From the first line, “Oh, God, oh, God” (that was exactly how I felt!) to finding a spiritual path and the frustrations of it, especially while living in the very yang environment of a mountain town. Yet, what really got me was the bit about the physics of water and its ability to carry energy. That the cold, soft yin of snow can bring the peace needed to grow in one’s spiritual journey. To ski consciously, with love, forgiveness, blessings, that the act of being in snow allows these feelings to grow and spread energetically. While we know it or not, I believe this is what keeps most of us continuing to live and strive in our Mountain towns — this chance to follow our spiritual paths in the way we know best — setting skin tracks, skate-skiing across frozen fields, snowshoeing in the parks. The vitality of mountain towns is probably due to just this. Jenn was able to put into words something that we have all experienced, but maybe were not enlightened enough to know. ?
Shannon Walton
Seattle, WA
Heart to brain transplant underway. Photo by Peter Kray.
Breaking Into Magazines Starts with the Letters
As I walk through the magazine sections of bookstores, I have always been proud to sniff contemptuously at Backpacker and Outside and National Geographic Adventure magazines. They are the soulless corporate sellouts that like to publish articles entitled “The Last Unknown Places” and “Top 10 Undiscovered Mountain towns.”
The Mountain Gazette has always been a haven for those of us weary of huge resorts and lines up Mt. Elbert. Yet somehow, after years of flawless journalism, my favorite mountain periodical has fallen far short of par. The best thing about the MG over the years has been its dedication to backwoods contemplation and the way it just oozed love for the wilderness. Until now, this love was shown in part by rarely mentioning actual places, as per the terms of the submission guidelines on the website (quote, “We do not do destination articles”). But the last issue (#139) broke that code of preservation by featuring not one but TWO destination articles. I was embarrassed to have a copy in my house. Just recently, I submitted an article to be considered for publication and although said article was returned to me with suggestions for improvement, I was honored that the editors of such a great magazine would take time to help me in my writing. Now that I’ve seen the new low that the Mountain Gazette has sunk to, that critique is far less valuable. I have always loved reading the Mountain Gazette. Please don’t turn into Backpacker Magazine.
Thank you, Dakota Jones
Last Rag to Reality Stay this way Forever
In reference to all the letters in the last issue about the changes going on at Mountain Gazette: I love the Gazette and like many of its readers, I’m a tad too protective. Maybe I’m a tad edgy too. I’m watching my neighborhood come down around my ears, the funky local shops forced out to make room for a tastefully bland shopping mall. My state legislature is more concerned about passing Ronald Reagan Day and reaffirming the words “One Nation Under God” in the pledge than they are about our toxic air. Even my community radio station is restructuring, replacing its volunteer staff and quirky block format with paid DJs and a regulated play-list. I need the Gazette more than ever.
I found the last issue in my mailbox and tore into it and while I didn’t love everything about the changes the magazine has gone through, I will keep reading. I promise to continue to pour over the words and images, giving the new staff a chance to keep me entertained, inspired, provoked and enraged. So long as you guys promise to keep the Fayhee, Sibley, and Sojourner pieces coming, I’ll keep on subscribing and reading. But don’t mess with anything else, please!
Dave Bastian
Flexi Fan Says Harpole is the Sled-Belly Master
I applaud Tom Harpole’s article on sledding (“A sled, a cow, the future,” MG #139). Growing up in the suburbs on the East Coast, we relished sledding. My friends and I knew that the time to sled was between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when conditions were best for a Flexi-Flyer: ICEY.
After one particular odd snowstorm that dumped 2 feet, then a day’s worth of ice, the farmland existing North of Greenbelt Maryland was prime. Many an hour was spent sledding from late night into dawn patrol, with many injuries almost occurring.
That article made me pull the sled out of the basement (Vintage Flexi-Flyer, proved fastest in PG County MD in 1991, ’92, ’93 and ’94) and put away the skis.
Bryant Liggett
KDUR Program Director
Durango CO
