The rocky, 14,060-foot summit of Mount Bierstadt is easy enough that it attracts crowds of day-hikers. (Denver Post file)
Re: “Losing the wild in wilderness,” Aug. 30 guest commentary.
I am glad your recent guest columnist wants to keep Colorado’s wilderness areas healthy. His simplistic and shortsighted solution to wildlands overuse, however, is wrong at numerous levels.
Telling wilderness enthusiasts to “stay home” misses the point of wildlands’ popularity, and ultimately would increase their neglect and damage.
The popularity of wilderness and other natural landscapes is something to celebrate. The benefits of time spent outdoors are numerous. Only by going to wildlands can people truly appreciate them — and learn to support them.
Fewer people visiting and enjoying wilderness would undermine the value placed on these wonderful places. That would ultimately diminish the push for keeping them healthy.
If some wildlands in Colorado are overrun, supply-and-demand principles indicate that more protected areas are needed.
Don’t stay home. Go to the wild, and get its glad tidings. Then speak up for more wilderness.
Steve Smith, Glenwood Springs
This letter was published in the Sept. 6 edition.K.R. Spooner made many valid points in his column about the current state of wilderness in Colorado. His solution, “stay home,” strikes me as weak in the extreme.
Just a few observations about how things stand up in the high alpine these days:
The main problems are hype and access. This obsession with fourteeners has to go. There are probably 10 times as many “thirteeners” in Colorado, all equally challenging and scenic. But for some reason everybody obsesses about getting to the top of one of highest peaks. Also, most people don’t own a real four-wheel-drive vehicle, so they gravitate toward trailheads accessible by regular car. So usage is concentrated in certain areas (think Guanella Pass-Mount Beirstadt or Brainard Lake).
We need to distribute use of the wilderness more, and permit and control access to the most scenic and overused areas of our mountains.
Jim Pinamont, Denver
This letter was published in the Sept. 6 edition.
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