Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
before a bridge over the river $15.95). A free Forest Service ness on the Arizona/New
and the Colorado border. map (see Contact) for the Blue Range, Mexico border—hiking from the
Trails: For a 16-mile point-
to-point hike, take the well-
wilderness provides plenty of
detail for those sticking to the
Arizona 9,000-foot-high aspen and fir-
forested peaks soggy with snow-
maintained Encampment River trail. Hike out where the melt down to the oak-covered
Trail north from the Colorado Walk Softly: Always give foothills and cactus-studded
border (Commissary Park) to bighorn sheep a wide berth. wolves still howl. canyon bottoms—I thought I
the Encampment River Camp- Contact: Medicine Bow By Annette McGivney knew these mountains. But
ground 2 miles south of the National Forest, 307/327-5481; I had no idea how much the
town of Encampment. Snow www.fs.fed.us/r2/mbr. had a different kind of
melts off the lower portion I campsite in mind for endangered Mexican gray wolf
(reintroduced in 1998) had
of the river’s canyon well tonight, one smack in the mid- reclaimed this land.
before it leaves the higher Too Close dle of a sunny alpine meadow, If Aldo Leopold were here
parts, allowing early-season encircled by golden-leafed today, he’d be pleased to see
in-and-out trips from the for Comfort aspen, bustling with elk in rut how well the 30-plus wolves
north. A stone’s throw south and within earshot of the howl- are doing and how “primitive”
Don’t feed or pet wildlife—getting
of Commissary Park, a net- ing wolves that roam these the Blue Range Primitive Area
too close can be just as dangerous mountains. There are plenty of
work of 150 miles of trail (a wilderness he helped estab-
(including the Continental for you as it is for animals. If an ani- places like that here in lish) remains. In 1908, while
Divide Trail) in the Mt. mal points its ears toward you, gets Arizona’s Blue Range. Instead, patrolling the Blue Range dur-
Zirkel Wilderness begins. visibly nervous, stamps its feet, or I find myself setting down my ing the early years of his Forest
Dayhike: The Hog Park acts aggressively, back off. Scientists pack in a dark, forested bone- Service career, Leopold had a
Creek and Purgatory Gulch have found that animals tend to flee yard at the bottom of Grant wolf encounter that planted the
Trails offer short (2 miles Creek Canyon, the only flat seed for a conservation ethic
when humans get within a certain
each) alternatives at either spot for miles. All manner of that helped inspire our nation’s
distance. Use these numbers as gnawed ungulate body parts
end of the main trail. environmental movement.
Elevation: The Encamp- a guide. from at least half a dozen elk In Leopold’s famous environ-
ment River Trail drops from • Mountain sheep 165 feet or deer are strewn about. Not mental treatise, A Sand County
8,400 feet at Commissary only am I within likely earshot Almanac, he recalls the day
• American kestrel 250 feet of wolves, it appears I am also
Park to 7,200 feet at its when he and his coworkers
northern end. • Great blue heron 330 feet in the middle of their mess hall. were sitting on a canyon bluff
Can’t Miss: The spectacular (I would find out later that the and spotted a pack of wolves.
• Prairie falcon 525 feet boneyard was a “rendezvous
upper gorge with its truck- Exterminating wolves, grizzly,
size midstream boulders. • Mule deer 630 feet site” for the Cienega pack last and other “vermin” was part of
Crowd Control: The spring. The alpha male and their job, so they proceeded to
• Elk 650 feet
Encampment River is a blue- female dragged fresh kills to pull out their rifles and fill the
ribbon trout stream, and the • Rough-legged hawk 690 feet this spot to feed their pups.) pack with lead. Leopold shot
lower portion sees some use • Bald eagle 820 feet Even though most hikers the alpha female.
from dayhiking anglers. head to the picture-postcard- “We reached the old wolf in
Traffic on the trail is light. • Golden eagle 985 feet perfect White Mountains next time to watch a fierce green
Guides: Hiking Wyoming door, I have always been fire dying in her eyes,” he
by Bill Hunger (Falcon Pub- drawn to the Blue Range. After wrote. “I realized then, and
lishing, 800/582-2665; www. nearly a decade of backpacking have known ever since, that
backpacker.com/bookstore; trips in the 174,000-acre wilder- there was something new to