I moved to Hamilton, Montana, from my hometown of Riverside, California, in 1992. My first look at the Bitterroot was on my drive to town to take a reporting job at the Ravalli Republic. I like to imagine I knew even then, as I noted how the ranchette sprawl south of Darby reminded me of Southern California on a much smaller scale, the extraction paradigm of the West I’d learned from books and newspapers had already been replaced.
In truth, I didn’t figure it out until a few years later when the fight over Mitchell Slough access began in earnest.
While there were still a few folks focused on getting the last of the “big pickles” — a phrase an old logging adjacent Forest Service employee once used with me to describe the Bitterroot’s still-standing old-growth ponderosa — to the mills, even then that extraction focus was already passé.
Access is now one of the most valuable scarce resources in the West and the wealthy have taken notice. Mitchell Slough. The Ruby River. The Crazies. Wyoming’s corner-crossing tyranny. That’s where the real action is these days.
A friend noted this recent article: https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/opinion/utah-lawsuit-public-land. But the richest person in Utah is the widow of car dealer Larry Miller. They sell Jeeps and big trucks to recreationists. Wouldn't economics dictate that politicians listen to them instead of the Lords of Yesterday?
I moved to Hamilton, Montana, from my hometown of Riverside, California, in 1992. My first look at the Bitterroot was on my drive to town to take a reporting job at the Ravalli Republic. I like to imagine I knew even then, as I noted how the ranchette sprawl south of Darby reminded me of Southern California on a much smaller scale, the extraction paradigm of the West I’d learned from books and newspapers had already been replaced.
In truth, I didn’t figure it out until a few years later when the fight over Mitchell Slough access began in earnest.
While there were still a few folks focused on getting the last of the “big pickles” — a phrase an old logging adjacent Forest Service employee once used with me to describe the Bitterroot’s still-standing old-growth ponderosa — to the mills, even then that extraction focus was already passé.
Access is now one of the most valuable scarce resources in the West and the wealthy have taken notice. Mitchell Slough. The Ruby River. The Crazies. Wyoming’s corner-crossing tyranny. That’s where the real action is these days.
Well said!
A friend noted this recent article: https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/opinion/utah-lawsuit-public-land. But the richest person in Utah is the widow of car dealer Larry Miller. They sell Jeeps and big trucks to recreationists. Wouldn't economics dictate that politicians listen to them instead of the Lords of Yesterday?