Coloradans lead a sheltered existence. We shiver against the cold a few months of the year and shovel more than our share of snow, but in the main, we escape the major environmental tragedies that plague most of the planet.
There have been exceptions — notably the Big Thompson flood, the Limon tornado and a scattering of wildfires this decade — but rarely do acts of nature claim lives without assistance from the victims themselves. Coloradans frequently are inconvenienced by weather, but rarely destroyed by it.
In recent years, this relative beneficence extends even to creatures of the wild, which is why last week’s announcement that Western Slope deer herds are in trouble caused such a stir.
Not since the winter of 1983-84 — almost a quarter-century ago — when tens of thousands of deer died in the Gunnison Basin has there been much cause for alarm over winter mortality. Now, with snow piling past 4 feet deep over large parts of the mountain region, the Division of Wildlife this week began an extensive and expensive feeding program to avoid a repeat of that episode.
None of this begins to compare with calamitous events that strike elsewhere around the globe. Thing is, those of us from this insular shelter belt occasionally find ourselves enmeshed, economically and otherwise, in these far-off events when we schedule some exotic adventure.
As a case in point, we have last November’s jaunt by a group of Coloradans to the lower Yucatán Peninsula in search of bonefish and permit. Booked almost a year in advance, it seemed certain to be derailed when Hurricane Dean, third strongest ever to make North American landfall, struck the region head-on with 160 mph wind just 80 days before our scheduled arrival.
We knew the fishing would recover quickly, but it seemed certain the lodge and other articles of infrastructure essential to the trip would not survive. Vacations had been arranged, deposits made, airline reservations secured — not to mention the elements of human tragedy for the people of the region.
Then good news began to arrive, slowly at first, then in a rush. The storm had caused widespread destruction, but a tiny zone around the village of Xcalak, our primary destination, miraculously had escaped major damage.
“It’s as if Dean blinked,” said Kim Calkins, owner of Tierra Maya lodge (www.tierramaya.net).
This good fortune extended farther north to the flats-fishing mecca of Ascension Bay, where the storm surge deposited large volumes of sand, but otherwise caused no real harm. In fact, it can be argued this extreme weather event actually had a rejuvenating effect on the fishery, an ill wind that blew good. Permit seemed more plentiful and available after the blow; the restructuring of this shifting topography created new opportunity for exploration and discovery.
“We landed five permit the first day back on the water,” said Dick Cameron, manager of The Palometa Club (www.palometaclub.com), the premier outfitter in Punta Allen, on the north rim of the bay.
The club maintains its season through June, when the threat of hurricanes returns to the western Caribbean. But, happily, never to Colorado.
