DENVER—The synthetic flowers, wind chimes, photos, brass placards and other private memorials to loved ones don’t belong in wilderness areas or on the slopes of Colorado’s 14,000-plus-foot peaks, forest rangers say.
U.S. Forest Service policy prohibits memorials, the scattering of ashes and burials. And while forest officials generally don’t know about private ash-scattering ceremonies, they can spot the memorials and want them removed—even long-standing homages to Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia at the Aspen ski area.
“If we allowed memorials, there would be memorials all over the mountains. That would just be unacceptable,” said John Bustos, spokesman for the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest west of Denver. “Memorials are just not part of the ecosystem.”
But many of the bereaved seek solace in the backcountry. At least half of those who go to the Denver-based HeartLight Center, a grief-support program of the Horan and McConaty funeral services, consider “doing something in the mountains” as part of their healing, director Jennifer McBride said.
Pilot Earl Haskins, owner of Denver-based Air Legacy, an aerial ash-scattering service, said customers are interested in prairie memorials.
“It’s always over the mountains,” Haskins said. “Wilderness. Being free, open, one with nature. Very few are scattered over the city, unless they are a football fan and wanted to be scattered over Invesco (Field).”
Forest rangers say leaving private memorials on public lands defeats the purpose of wilderness.
“I mean, we debate even putting signs in some areas, let alone someone putting in a memorial,” said Rich Doak, recreation-programs chief for the 600,000-acre White River National Forest.
With memorials “popping up all over,” officials say rangers have to take on the added chore of removing them, while dealing with reduced staffing, an increasing number of visitors and such problems such as beetle-infested forests.
In some national forests, rangers encourage people to memorialize someone by helping plant trees. People can donate as little as $10 in memory of a loved one that goes into a fund to buy stands of trees, Pike and San Isabel National Forest spokeswoman Barbara Timock said.
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Information from: The Denver Post,
