Doug:

You are correct, the mountains will outlast us all. What they will look like in 60 years is what is at stake.

The frontier as we know it is being swallowed up in the name of development. THe screech of an eagle soaring over the forest is being replaced with the nosy exhaust of a chainsaw. The night stars and northern lights are being washed out by the glow of the towns that become cities. The sound of a woodpecker tapping on a tree is being replaced by the sound of hammers building a house. The quiet sound of water flowing down the river is being drowned out by the sound of lawn sprinkers in the subdivisions on the mountain side. The sightings of moose and other widlife are being replaced by yet another cattle herd chewing up the grasslands.

When this frontier is gone, where do we go to find our place of peace and solitude?


“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”

Henry David Thoreau