COLORADO SUPERLATIVE

A thousand years ago, grizzly bears roamed not only Colorado's mountains, but ranged far across the foothills and plains. Wolves hunted in familial packs, and great herds of bison thronged the prairie. Today, our national parks and wilderness areas preserve intact the spectacular scenery from previous millennia, but they lack the original wildlife pageantry. There are plenty of places left in Colorado that look more or less the way they did in the year 1000, but no place that feels the way it must have to a mountain wanderer of a thousand years ago.

But if we were to restore fauna amid the unchanged flora, Colorado has just the place to do it: the South San Juan Wilderness in Colorado's unmatched San Juan Mountains. This 158,000-acre wilderness offers Colorado's most rugged, remote, and unspoiled mountain wilderness. For that reason, it also offers the best location for recapturing our lost wildlife heritage.

Many believe the South San Juans still harbor a remnant population of grizzly bears. These "ghost" grizzlies may number only a handful, and their necessarily secretive nature combined with the area's impenetrable wild country shields them from human discovery. Colorado's last documented grizzly was an elderly sow killed here in 1979, a full 25 years after the previous "last" Colorado grizzly was observed.

The South San Juans provide haven for elusive lynx as well. The last confirmed lynx evidence was discovered here only 10 years ago, and in the past year more than 40 lynx transplanted from Canada were released into the wilds of the southern San Juans. Other rare or vanished top-level predators such as wolverine and timber wolf might also one day be restored to these mountains.

Of course, while they were gone, lots of humans moved in next door. Right now a proposed luxury resort named Piano Creek Ranch has designs on claiming the last, big unspoiled valley in the San Juans: the East Fork Valley on the wilderness area's north end. If it's built, the year 1000 will rub shoulders with the year 2000.

Only time will tell whether they can get along.

- Mark Pearson of Durango is chairman of the Wilderness Committee of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club. He is the author of several books on Colorado wilderness areas and wild rivers, including "The Complete Guide to Colorado Wilderness Areas."

Copyright 1999
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