Up here at altitude, we have again been enmeshed in the controversy between the rights of property owners and the desires of environmentalists as they battle over the future of alpine tundra.
In San Juan County, 86 to 88 percent of land is public land, leaving only 12 to 14 percent to be owned privately. And of that 12 to 14 percent, only a portion is above tree line, and of that portion, an even smaller percentage is suitable for building due to hazardous terrain. So in overall percentages, the actual physical impact of above-tree-line construction is relatively negligible.
But the bigger questions are not about property owners’ rights or planning commission policies. The question is why humans feel the need to disrupt wild areas where we plan to live only a month or two of the year. What makes us feel the need to claim, to leave our mark, build our trophy, instead of simply respecting something as we found it.
In 1986, I hiked for the first time in Rocky Mountain National Park. I remember being immersed in deep pine forests feeling lost from the world, when I took another switchback and stepped into a clearing where just over the rise sat a large home with soaring windows. I still remember that house and the disappointment I felt. When I happened on to a ranger further along the trail, she explained the house sat at the border of the park and was perfectly legal, regardless of the aesthetic impact it left on the natural setting.
I spent time in the RMNP region every year from ’86 to the early ’90s, before I started traveling elsewhere on my vacations, so it wasn’t until 1998 that I returned to the park for the last time. Development of the once open foothills as well as areas closer to the wilderness was saddening and I opted to not return, finding somewhere else to spend my time. Except now the same mentality is encroaching on this wilderness as well.
At a September meeting, the San Juan County Planning Commission listened to public comments from local property owners, environmentalists, and Front Range hopefuls who want to build a 2,000-square-foot cabin in the wilderness. A size, no less, that far exceeds many homes of year-round Silverton residents. Comments ranged from no building, to limited building, to screening, to environmental impacts of sewage on watershed areas. On Feb. 22, in an attempt to balance property owner rights with environmental concerns, the county commissioners voted to continue allowing regulated construction on claims around San Juan County so that those who love the mountains can own their private bit of paradise.
But these compromises do not come without a price. One hiker explained to me that in the past she has found trash, small propane tanks, and various types of debris littering the side of a mountain below where earlier cabins have been built. She gathers what she can and carries it off the mountain.
Our county is a poor county; our wealth rests in our wild lands. As one longtime Silverton resident stated, “We need to realize that what we have above timberline is a natural resource, and it’s a very fragile natural resource. Anything we do to it puts it at risk and diminishes it.”
And tourists do not spend precious vacation dollars to see mountain subdivisions littered with debris. The Front Range hopefuls who attended the September meeting attempted to capitalize on the county’s financial peril claiming their project would bring jobs to the town. But for what length of time? And how does that compare to years of revenue from tourism?
And, most important, when is it time to stop selling our natural resources for vanity ownership?
Everyone says they love the wilderness, but perhaps those who truly do are the ones who can love it for what it truly is: unclaimed and wild.
Shawna Bethell is a teacher and freelance writer in Durango.
