Reports from the Knowledge Labs about our recent findings, research topics, and interviews with lifestyle leaders who are creating their own futures.
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How to stimulate your own powers of foresight. Consider the following thought provokers. Ask yourself, in these categories what are the brand new trends and forces? Which are the ones growing in importance? Which current forces are loosing their steam? Which have peaked or are reversing themselves? Which are the "wildcards" about to disrupt us in the future? POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL thought for food: Electronics, Materials, Energy, Fossil, Nuclear, Alternative, Other, Manufacturing (techniques), Agriculture, Machinery and Equipment, Distribution, Transportation (Urban, Mass, Personal, Surface, Sea, Subsurface, Space), Communication (Printed, Spoken, Interactive, Media), Computers (Information, Knowledge, Storage & Retrieval, Design, Network Resources), Post-Cold War, Third World, Conflict (Local, Regional, Global), Arms Limitation, Undeclared Wars, Terrorism, Nuclear Proliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Governments (More/Less Power and Larger or Smaller Scale), Taxes, Isms: Nationalism, Regionalism, Protectionism, Populism, Cartels, Multinational Corporations, Balance of Trade, Third Party Payments, Regulations (OSHA, etc.) Environmental Impact, U.S. Prestige Abroad. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC Food for thought:
Labor Movements, Unemployment / Employment Cycles, Recession, Employment Patterns, Work Hours / Schedules, Fringe Benefits, Management Approaches, Accounting Policies, Productivity, Energy Costs, Balance of Payments, Inflation, Taxes, Rates of Real Growth, Distribution of Wealth, Capital Availability and Costs, Reliability of Forecasts, Raw Materials, Availability and Costs, Global versus National Economy, Market versus Planned Economies, Generations: Y, X, Boomers, Elderly, Urban vs. Rural Lifestyles, Affluent vs. Poor, Neighborhoods and Communities, Planned or Organic Growth.
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The Journal of 2020 Foresight
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Thursday, June 16, 2005
Awe-Inspiring: Stirring the Imagination and Kindling the Mind
Chapter Three: The Outpost
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
“(Chief Seattle’s letter) ‘The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of event and memories in the life of my people."
Joseph Campbell
ST. GEORGE, Utah. As we did when we left Aspen, we back tracked on highway 12, intersected 89 south and veered west on 9 to Zion National Park’s east entrance.
Journal of 2020 Foresight: Less drip-like and more etched canyon and cliff monuments of sandstone – that’s the first thing I noticed.
Pathfinder: According to the National Park Service brochure, geologist Clarence Dutton described the rugged southern country that had been hidden in its remote surrounding.
Explorer: But it was his prose that I enjoyed. He wrote about the sense of awe, "There is an eloquence to their forms which stirs the imagination with a singular power and kindles in the mind ... a glowing response .... Nothing can exceed the wondrous beauty of Zion... in the nobility and beauty of the sculptures there is no comparison."
Pathfinder: Within its borders lie a desert swamp, a petrified forest, springs and waterfalls. At Zion contrast and scale account for everything.
Trailblazer: But, the 2,000 to 3,000 feet canyon walls of grays and light tans differ from than the bright oranges and deep red-browns of Bryce.
Explorer: Zion is so unique that it’s massive rock formations and desert terrain blend in with hanging gardens and waterfalls.
J2020F: To your point. Kolob Canyon is filled with fingerlike red sandstone canyons. Hurricane Fault exposes ancient layers of rock. Kolob Arch is one of the largest freestanding arches in the world, measuring some 310 feet across.
Trailblazer: Zion Canyon itself a spectacular gorge was carved out of multi-colored sandstones and shale by the Virgin River to a depth and width of a half-mile each, narrowing to 300 feet at the Temple of Sinawava.
J2020F: My only issue with the total experience is the roads. Park roads and parking, designed in the 1920s for lighter traffic create restrictions. We waited at the Zion Tunnel for about 10 minutes.
Pathfinder: Some vehicles require an escort if they don't fit the dimensions
J2020F: We know that Zion was established as Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909 and later expanded in 1919 as Zion National Park.
Pathfinder: Mormons renamed the canyon Zion taken from the Hebrew, meaning a place of safety or refuge.
Explorer: But the name Mukuntuweap was coined by John Wesley Powell and Grove Karl Gilbert thinking it meant canyon in Paiute, in 1872.
Eagle: Those would be the Southern Paiute like other Great Basin tribes who roamed the broad four corner Colorado Plateau, the Great Basin and parts of the Mojave Desert areas overlapping what are now the southern parts of Utah, Nevada and California and the northern part of Arizona.
J2020F: Wavoka, the fish-eating, messiah’s tribe? The one who preached the Ghost Dance that ultimately led to Sitting Bull’s death in 1890?
Eagle: And the event that closed the last chapter on the Old West or the last frontier? No, you’re thinking of the Northern Paiute tribe in and around Pyramid Lake, in Washoe County, Nevada – along the state’s northwest border with California.
J2020F: So the Southern Paiutes were the first to inhabit the canyon?
Eagle: No, they were third. The official human history breaks the periods into four with the first three covering Utah Native American cultures -- pre-Anasazi, Anasazi and Fremont and, then Southern Paiute.
Explorer: The last chronicles the period from 18th century Euro-American exploration to Mormon settlements in the 19th.
J2020F: Wait. Let me guess, the first white men known to visit the area?
I bet the Escalante expedition came through on their way to California, right?
Pathfinder: Padres Dominguez and Escalante passed near what is now the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center three months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Explorer: We already know Jedediah Smith explored the area for the same mission – to find a way to California. From the 1820s and lasting several decades, a route connecting New Mexico with California followed the Virgin River for a portion of its length.
J2020F: What about Fremont? He must have figured in the early mix of explorers.
Pathfinder: True. Captain John C. Fremont wrote about his1844 journeys in the region.
Explorer: As more trade routes and emigrant trails multiplied, the settlers arrived. The first whites were from Salt Lake City – Mormon farmers who settled in the Virgin River and Cedar City area.
J2020F: This must have been in the 1850s, then?
Pathfinder: Right. In roughly a decade Mormon farming settlements had expanded 75 miles up the Virgin River and into Zion Canyon area.
J2020F: They must have encroached on the Paiutes.
Pathfinder: Zion was still virtually unknown and unexplored by whites, but a Paiute guided Nephi Johnson a Mormon missionary and translator into the canyon.
Explorer: Word got out. Mormon pioneer Joseph Black became the first white man to build a Zion Canyon cabin and farm.
Trailblazer: But life wasn’t easy because of “catastrophic flooding by the river (especially in the Great Flood of 1861-1862), little arable land, and poor soils made agriculture in the upper Virgin River a risky venture.”
J2020F: What happened to the Paiutes?
Explorer: By controlling and diverting the flow of water, settlers expanded their number of ranch animals -- Cattle and other domesticated animals, however, pushed out wild game and depleted native grasses.
Eagle: As you can imagine things got worse for the Native Americans.
Pathfinder: Ever since the first wave of whites appeared, their numbers had been greatly reduced by disease and slavery under the Spanish in the 18th century.
Eagle: Now as the era of ranching and farming took hold, their numbers decreased to almost zero.
Explorer: For almost 40 years Mormons farmed the canyon until it was protected in 1909 and converted into a national park.
Trailblazer: While consisting predominantly of sandstone sedimentary rock, the rock formations in the park also include limestone, shale, mudstone and conglomerate originating during the Triassic through Jurassic geological periods, some 250 million to 150 million years ago.
Pathfinder: And, today over 800 native plant species inhabit microenvironments created by the differences in elevation, sunlight, water and temperature -- like the hanging gardens, forested side-canyons and isolated mesas.
Eagle: Also, today mule deer, rock squirrels, lizards and rare and endangered Peregrin Falcons and Mexican Spotted Owls can be spotted. In fact, natural history field observations are encouraged to help monitor the health of the park.
Explorer: Sightings of bighorn sheep, owls, falcons, mountain lions, bobcats, bears and anything unusual can be reported on observation cards handed out at trailheads and visitor centers.
J2020F: Speaking of trailheads, while mountain biking is forbidden, backpacking permits are required to camp on a hiking trip – but they are free.
Explorer: But the hiking isn’t for your every day tourist. Moderately strenuous and strenuous trails require hiking long distances uphill. And, extreme summer heat makes any hike more difficult.
Eagle: Truth be told, we only stopped momentarily to snap photos and record video footage at the remaining turnouts.
Explorer: We all became impatient like kids. It’s like we had seen enough natural wonder to become bored.
Pathfinder: I had the similar experience a couple of summers earlier when we were continuously overwhelmed by the shear beauty of Norway --- 5 waterfalls at the same time of equal magnitude to the one show piece in Yosemite.
Trailblazer: Or at the Louvre. On one vacation I took in Paris, France I visited room after room, after room, after room where all four walls were plastered with masterpieces.
Pathfinder: I know. No way you could absorb the beauty and creativity. No way to really appreciate each piece. After awhile they all looked the same and it was time to move on to something entirely different.
J2020F: Feeling guilty for not being worthy, we exited the park and traveled back to St. George where we connected with interstate 15 and hit the trail for the desert and our overnight destination, New York, N.Y. in Las Vegas, Nevada – before going our separate ways.
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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
7:13 PM
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Hurtling Through the Universe with the Wild Bunch and the Buffalo Soldiers
Chapter Three: The Outpost
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
“(Chief Seattle’s letter) ‘We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family.’”
Joseph Campbell
BRYCE CANYON, Utah. After a series of trip holdups, it is only fitting that signs teased us with images of Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch -- the hideouts, cabins and places he held up during his reign of outlaw terror.
Journal of 2020 Foresight: We took the front office manager’s recommended directions route 89 to both Bryce and Zion. What convinced us was when he said a lot of the road would be scenic on both sides -- mostly rolling ranching meadows in the valleys between bordering ridges and mountains.
Explorer: Our original trip plan was to trace Jedediah Smith’s expedition in 1826. In the late summer and early fall he led 17 men to appraise the trapping potential of the region south and west of the Great Salt Lake.
Pathfinder: That’s right. And twenty years later the United States acquired the region in 1848 through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the Territory of Utah was created in 1850 with Brigham Young as governor."
J2020F: Didn’t we discover that in those days Utah also included Nevada?
Pathfinder: True. And things pretty much stayed that way until 1858 when silver lodes were discovered in Carson County. Californians began to flock in, and the non-Mormon element was soon in the majority. A major dispute erupted in what became known as the Utah War from 1857 to 1858.
Explorer: Allegiance to Brigham Young and Utah was renounced, and a temporary territorial government for Washoe was created by its citizens.
J2020F: I recall that the gold and silver rush prompted Congress to move quickly to pass legislation to create the territory of Nevada, and in 1861 the Nevada Territory was carved out of the Utah Territory – with Orion Clemens as governor – Mark Twain’s brother.
Pathfinder: Development accelerated. As a result Utah played a major role in the railroad expansion.
J2020F: How so?
Pathfinder: The Transcontinental Railroad got off to a slow start due to the Civil War and lack of investors but beginning in 1866 the race was on.
Explorer: To accelerate construction progress, the railroads overlapped their surveying and grading crews with the blasting crews – at times a little too close for comfort – covering the last two hundred miles.
Pathfinder: In January of 1869 the government sent a commission of civil engineers to decide where the two Transcontinental Railroads should meet.
J2020F: I know I should know this, but where did they decide?
Pathfinder: The final decision was for Promontory Summit. and Leland Stanford hit the golden spike to join the Transcontinental Western Railroads. Stanford was president of the Southern Pacific Railroad for five years.
J2020F: And where exactly is Promontory Summit?
Pathfinder: It’s 56 miles west of Ogden. There the Union Pacific Railroad engine, No 119 touched the Central Pacific Railroad's Jupiter engine.
Explorer: So, on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit in Utah territory, the first of five transcontinental railroads were completed.
Eagle: At the ceremony an interpreter had to cover up what Sitting Bull's really said instead of what he was supposed to, as the token Indian celebrity.
Explorer: I love that story. To further celebrate the big event, Grenville Dodge sent a telegraph to the President of the Union Pacific Railroad, telling Oliver Ames of the Transcontinental Railroad completion.
J2020F: Wait. On his way to the celebration, wasn’t Thomas Durant, the executive responsible for construction, held for ransom until his tie cutters received their back pay?
Pathfinder: Yes. And it was in these surroundings with a tumultuous history that the Mormons chose to settle and where, particularly in southeastern Utah, Zane Grey set many of his Old West novels.
J2020F: Didn’t mining prospects bring many other diverse ethnic groups into Utah?
Pathfinder: That’s correct. Among the largest groups were Greek immigrants.
Trailblazer: In fact they maintain a significant presence today, especially in communities of Bingham Canyon, Price, Helper and Park City.
Eagle: Because we had more than enough interstate driving, we swapped the romance of Jedediah’s expedition along I-15 for some Butch Cassidy the Sundance Kid – and theirWild Bunch.
J2020F: Kind of like the folklore back in Durango, where we discovered that the golf course and guarded community near the Bar D Chuck Wagon Ranch was named after the Dalton brothers.
Pathfinder: Another coincidence.
Explorer: Huh?
Pathfinder: Butch Cassidy’s first bank heist -- San Miguel Valley Bank – in 1889 took place just up the road from there in Telluride.
J2020F: And his partner, Sundance was born where I was, in Plainfield, New Jersey. Go figure!
Eagle: While we didn’t pull over to visit places where Butch roamed we did stop, however, to video a herd of buffalo on our way to Bryce Canyon.
Pathfinder: Speaking of buffalo, didn’t Buffalo Soldiers serve and protect the Utah citizens?
Explorer: The Buffalo Soldiers served in the Indian Wars as members of the US Army black Calvary units, after the Civil War ended.
J2020F: What was their role in Utah?
Pathfinder: They were stationed at Fort Duchesne and they were responsible for patrolling the Ouray and Uintah reservations.
J2020F: For quelling any disturbances?
Eagle: Yup. The Utes frequently returned to Colorado, even after Pickin and Vickers triumphed and had them removed from the state.
Explorer: Chief Colorow jumped the reservation and went hunting in eastern Colorado. In response, the governor, Alva Adams, sent the Colorado militia to punish the Utes.
Eagle: He privately figured that if they were all killed, there wouldn’t be a problem any more.
J2020F: What happened?
Explorer: Lt. George R. Burnett left Fort Duchesne with ten Buffalo Soldiers to keep the peace.
Eagle: Even though Colorow's band returned to Utah, the militia wanted to finish what they had started.
Explorer: The only thing standing in the way of an attack on the reservation was the badly outnumbered Buffalo Soldiers, who managed to stop the militia.
Eagle: Indian Agent T. A. Byrnes commended the Buffalo Soldiers for their exceptional courage, and Colorow and his people gained a new respect for the black cavalrymen who had saved their lives.
J2020F: By the way, how did they get their nickname?
Eagle: When Native Americans first encountered them in the skirmishes around the 1870s they said the soldiers’ wooly heads looked like the matted cushion between the horns of a buffalo.
J2020F: With Colorow’s band under control, what did the Buffalo Soldiers do?
Explorer: They escorted Indian agents when the annual government payment to the Utes arrived on the railroad.
Trailblazer: Which linked them to the Wild Bunch.
J2020F: How so?
Explorer: Rumors spread in March 1898 that Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch was going to rob the $30,000 annuity.
Trailblazer: Somehow their plans leaked out. The location was supposed to be between Price and Helper.
Eagle: But the gang had second thoughts when about forty Buffalo Soldiers accompanied the Indian agent from Price to Fort Duchesne.
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J2020F: What must have gone through the minds of the Buffalo Soldiers!
Eagle: You mean the irony?
J2020F: Exactly. They were fighting for one reason -- in a campaign to contain, suppress and kill the native peoples of the West.
Pathfinder: You know, you are right. Former slaves found themselves fighting against people who were in the process of being dispossessed of their land and whose culture was misunderstood and under attack from all fronts.
Explorer: The black troops faced prejudice especially from their commander, Major Frederick Benteen.
Trailblazer: But, for the most part white and Afro-American soldiers ate together and fought side-by-side with minimal bigotry.
Explorer: And, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., an officer who served at Fort Duchesne, became the first black general in U.S. military history.
Trailblazer: Speaking of which. Before the climb to Bryce's entrance we passed through Dixie National Forest and the two arches through which travelers passed while admiring the tans, browns, and reds -- mostly reds and oranges.
J2020F: Why was it called Dixie?
Pathfinder: We discovered from the brochures that early Mormon settlers felt the warm climate reminded them of the south, so they named it Dixie.
Trailblazer: Now for some stats: With almost 2 million acres, the forest is the largest in the state and grows Utah's largest trees - primarily ponderosa pines and spruce. The elevations range from just under 3000 feet near St. George to 11,322 feet at Blue Bell Knoll on Boulder Mountain.
Pathfinder: What do you suppose is one of the oldest forms of plant life on Earth?
Trailblazer: Bristlecone Pine found here and accessible by nature trail at Midway Summit.
Pathfinder: Cheater!
J2020F: So, Dixie National Forest is home to or borders Bryce and Zion, Capital Reef, Cedar Breaks and Grand Staircase-Escalante national parks and monuments, right?
Explorer: And two plateaus -- The Paunsaugunt and Sevier– run parallel to SR 89 for 60 miles from Circleville south.
J2020F: Circleville? That’s where Butch grew up after being born, to Mormon pioneers from England, in Beaver, Utah.
Eagle: It’s certainly easy to enjoy the panoramic view and distinctive rock formations in a territory similar in many respects to Colorado as we wound our way to the top.
Trailblazer: And, yet it reminds me of mesa country with open meadows. Sort of like a greener version of the reservations we passed outside of the Grand Canyon, some 200 miles southeast of our location.
J2020F: We tuned into 520 on our AM dial and got the low down before entering Bryce Canyon National Park and paying the fee good for one weeks' stay.
Explorer: I thought it was strange that the ranger cautioned us that no mountain biking was allowed inside the park. They follow long-standing preservation policies he said, so we followed the road stopping periodically at scenic lookouts.
Eagle: We spent less time at each vantage point, after walking around a while at Sunset Point and gazing at the Hoodoos -- the pillar of rocks beginning to form 10 million years ago when the earth created and moved the massive blocks called Table Cliffs and Paunsaugunt plateaus.
Explorer: Those “giant drip-castle” formations amazed me -- made from alternating freezing and thawing erosion forces of nature.
Eagle: While Native American people were present in the region about 12,000 years ago, little remains to describe what the experienced, how they lived, what had happened to them.
Pathfinder: As in Arizona and New Mexico, Paiutesmoved into the region once occupied by the Anasazi and Fremont cultures. They lived there until settlers and explorers arrived in the 1870s when John Wesley Powell and Captain Clarence E. Dutton explored the area.
J2020F: Apparently Ebenezer Bryce, the "discoverer" of the canyon is said to have described it as "a helluva place to lose a cow."
Eagle: The Paiutes described the hoodoos as legend people who had been turned to stone by Coyote.
Pathfinder: You know it takes a while for the natural splendor to sink in.
To realize that as we breathe each breath our planet is hurtling through space and is dynamically changing.
Trailblazer: Being shaped and reshaped by dramatic events we witness like earthquakes, tsunamis, like volcanoes, tropical hurricanes, floods and mudslides which make headlines because they are abrupt and disrupt our lives.
Pathfinder: There are other changes that we don't detect, even in the span of our human lifetime. But their influence is all around us.
J2020F: And it slowly sinks in as you read about the forces of sedimentation, uplift, and erosion that carved out the rocks and created picturesque valleys for as far as the eye can see.
Pathfinder: That’s what I mean. Millions of years -- geological periods-- some 144 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period and lasting for about 60 million years, sediment from a great seaway deposited sediments in the Bryce Canyon area.
Explorer: We found out that by continually extending and retreating, the seaway left sediment several thousands of feet thick and can be seen as the lowest and oldest brown rocks at Bryce Canyon.
Trailblazer: During the Tertiary Period-- between 63 and 40 million years ago, freshwater rivers and streams flowed on top of the sediment, depositing their own layers of iron-rich, limy sediments which can be seen as the reddish-pink layers exposed where the hoodoos are carved.
J2020F: And, the same kind of compression that helped form the Rocky Mountains deformed Bryce Canyon's rocks. Then from the north and west volcanic material deposited layers of black rock.
Pathfinder: About 10 million years ago, with the ripping apart of the earth, layers once connected became displaced vertically by several thousand feet leaving the region with the high plateaus we see today.
Trailblazer: Eventually, the Paria River carved out the Paria Valley by loosening and carrying off the softer Cretaceous rocks.
Eagle: Today, the forest and meadows support diverse animal and wildflower populations. From small mammals and birds to foxes, mountain lions and black bears. Mule deer can be frequently sited in summer mornings and evenings grazing in roadside meadows.
J2020F: While, mountain lions stalk the mule deer and balance the eco-system doing so, roughly 160 species of birds make the park their home during a year.
Pathfinder: And swallows and swifts dart in and out of cliff faces and crevices in search of insects. Coyotes join mule deer and mountain lions at lower elevations during winter.
J2020F: More than 400 species of plants grow in diverse soil and moisture conditions at elevations ranging from 6,000 to 9,000 feet. Ironically, the scarcity of water in southern Utah limits the expansion of human development in the area, while allowing for the park's diversity of wildlife.
Eagle: Looking back on our journey, I’d say we experienced our own unique diversity of wildlife, wouldn’t you?
J2020F: But wait, there's more!
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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
7:02 AM
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Green River Geo-Rendezvous, Sabbaticals, Bridgers and Dinosaurs
Chapter Three: The Outpost
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
“(Chief Seattle’s letter) 'Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins.’”
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado. When it pours it rains! We even hit rain on our way out of Aspen and we backtracked over state route 82 nearing Glenwood Springs and the junction where we returned to I-70 heading west. But the rain really poured down, so we drove carefully and slowly through our longest stretch of road out of Colorado and into Utah to reach our stopover in Ridgefield. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
J2020F: After a long time on the winding road, we finally make our way to Aspen.
Trailblazer: But Aspen, looks more like what I thought both Vail and Aspen would look like, even though it’s not ski or snowboarding season.
Explorer: Even though it’s summer, even Snowmass looked like what I expected.
J2020F: The roads are a real nuisance -- under repair from the winter season. But, as we neared the town of Aspen we saw a hang glider floating along the air pockets swirling against the mountains.
Explorer: And a harmony festival under way near the Aspen Airport.
Trailblazer: Though not as difficult as in Durango,we found our hotel in a round about way -- actually stumbling on it after trying on the river side of Main Street.
Eagle: Yeah, but we saw an entrance to a bike trail that we would later take the following morning.
Pathfinder: We unloaded and hit the pool. Then they arrived.
J2020F: You mean the Boomer bikers on their Harleys?
Trailblazer: From their boisterous conversations in the pool and rear-end soothing Jacuzzi, they had been on the road for days from the east coast.
Explorer: But they left the pool, went out on the town and that was the last we heard of them until some jerk revved up his motor for a half and hour sometime closer to 5:30 a.m. than 6:00 a.m.
J2020F: Walking around town, bumping into people and reading articles we concluded that Aspen’s story had been riches to rags to riches, again.
Pathfinder: It’s actually the story of the region -- the Roaring Fork Valley including Glenwood Springs Aspen Glen, Carbondale, El Jebel, Basalt, Old Snowmass (home of the Harleywood Café) and Snowmass Village
Trailblazer: Don’t forget about the world-renowned Aspen Institute in the Roaring Fork Valley.
J2020F: Wait, wasn’t The Aspen Institute founded by Walter Paepcke – the same one who formed the Aspen Skiing Company and other resorts?
Pathfinder: The one and the same. In a way he followed in the footsteps of Nathan Meeker and Horace Greeley.
J2020F: What?
Pathfinder: He too wanted to create a utopian community – but not to transform the Utes into god-fearing citizens. He succeeded in transforming the mining-depressed area into a destination for business, thought leaders and recreation enthusiasts.
Explorer: Aspen's mines and mills gave way to condominiums on the hillsides after World War II.
Eagle: It says here, that in 1893, a 1,840-pound and 93% pure silver nugget extracted from Smuggler Mine and displayed at the Chicago Columbian Exposition symbolized the rags-to-riches-to-rags history of sliver mining in the area.
J2020F: How so?
Trailblazer: When supply exceeded demand, prices plummeted in the panic of 1893 and Colorado's economy imploded – in much the same way as the Finnmark’s telecommunications industry did in the dot.com bust.
Pathfinder: But when skiing came to Aspen two decades later, in 1930s, private enterprise jumped on the bandwagon, and the rags turned once more into riches. Aspen turned into a year round resort area.
J2020F: The brochures describe Aspen as having the greatest downhill skiing in the world with unsurpassed Colorado Rocky Mountain vistas.
Explorer: Like in Vail, you can try your hand at hiking, biking horseback riding.
Trailblazer: Personally I like then authentic Victorian town architecture – and restaurants “acclaimed by famous dining critics.” You’ve got all kinds of shops, boutiques and galleries where you can browse your day away.
Eagle: For me I enjoy the “spectacular outdoors as my playground” --snowmobiling and ice-skating in addition to skiing in winter. And the fly-fishing, rafting and hot air balloon rides, tennis and golf in the summer.
Pathfinder: No matter what the season, it’s hard to beat the clear blue skies, fresh clean air for deep relaxation and rejuvenation
J2020F: And, Aspen had a Pearle Street of their own.
Explorer: Yeah, that one juggler said the city didn't pay him for his performance and he'd been doing the entertainment for over 10 years.
J2020F: I think he said 14.
Explorer: I stand corrected. He said he was married and had 4 children, three adopted. Then he said, if only they could get the 4th one adopted, everything would be...
Trailblazer: Another rim shot.
Explorer: What he did which was unique for us was give tips to the most reasonable restaurants, t-shirt shops and other establishments.
J2020F: We wondered what if anything he received from the referrals. Kind of like a US version of the tourist cell network we encountered in Cabo San Lucas, before we left town. Outside of Grand Junction, we stopped at an information center for advice.
Pathfinder: Basically, we wanted to get out of the rain and stretch our legs.
Explorer: What we wanted to know was if after we take I-70 and connect with I-15, should we travel on I-15 and shoot south towards Las Vegas and cut back east to Bryce Canyon and Zion or take another route -- state route 24, a black road on the map, or the red route, 89.
Trailblazer: We didn’t get definitive answer there, but we enjoyed a down home, friendly visit with a senior citizen who gave our dinosaur pins “for the kids back home” -- showcasing the dinosaur museum.
Eagle: He did caution us to fill up within the next 3 exits, because there was nothing from Green River west to Ridgefield, a distance of about 100 miles.
J2020F: You know I had an epiphany when we stopped for gas and beef jerky at an AM PM-like gas market. Gas stations and truck stops are the modern day equivalent of trading posts, forts and outposts.
Trailblazer: Now, that’s a coincidence!
Explorer: Now, what?
Trailblazer: Check it out, out of all the Utah geo-caches, we’re very near Grey Owl’s last geo-cache. Take a right and pull over there, near the plaque honoring John Wesley Powell’s expedition on the Green River in 1869.
J2020F: What do you see? What did he leave us this time?
Trailblazer: Here it is. The Utah Expedition listed the extremes, three resort towns in the innovation stage of appreciation and two in the late growth, early maturity stage.
J2020F: Give us the innovation growth towns on the list.
Trailblazer: Grey Owl lists three – Moab, Boulder and Escalante -- both in the Capitol Reef Area. First, Moab: Zip Code 84532 -- Moab's Times-Independent Newspaper and for a more independent view, the Canyon Country Zephyr and the source for vacation properties and real estate.
Second, Boulder: Zip Code 84716 -- Near Dixie National Forest and Bryce Canyon in Garfield County (where you can find a list of foreclosures and a touch of the local Boulder and Escalante history. And, third, Escalante: Zip Code 84726 – history, business summary and real estate opportunities.
J2020F: How many made the late growth, early maturity list?
Trailblazer: Two next to each other, Park City: Zip Codes: 84060, 68, 98 -- and its news and information source. The second is Deer Valley: Zip Code: 84060 – with its real estate news.
J2020F: Anything else?
Trailblazer: Oh, and two other links for Utah, county real estate listings and
news links.
Pathfinder: You know while looking out the window and letting my mind wander, as soon as I saw the sign to Green River I immediately thought of the great Rendezvous events held upstream in the first four decades of the 19th century.
Explorer: Speaking of Escalante, you don’t mean to overlook the first expedition of Europeans known to have entered Utah -- Fathers Escalante and Dominquez, Franciscan priests, right?
Pathfinder: No not at all. They didn’t pop into my daydreaming mine – that’s all.
Explorer: Good. The fathers may be like Wilkes, who didn’t receive as much publicity for his explorations as did John Fremont. But, heading a party of 10, they left Santa Fe 50 years earlier, in July 1776, to search for a direct route to Monterey, California. After almost dying in Colorado, they entered northeastern Utah and discovered the Green River, crossing it just south of the present entrance to Dinosaur National Monument.
J2020F: Great, now that that’s settled, can we move on?
Pathfinder: Sure, here’s my point.Jedediah Smith and his party of trappers spent the winter of 1823-24 with a band of Crow Indians who told him how to reach the Green River. In mid-March 1824, they rediscovered the South Pass -- a passage to the Northwest through present-day Wyoming -- and descended into the Green River area for the spring hunt.
Explorer: Meanwhile, the Great Salt Lake was discovered in 1824, by trappers James Bridger and Etienne Provost, who mistakenly reported they found an arm of the Pacific Ocean.
J2020F: Isn’t that the same Jim Bridger who guided prospectors overland to the gold mines of Montana and laid out new overland trails for stage routes such as the one for the Central Overland?
Explorer: The one and the same. Through Bridger Pass, now I-80. He also charted the overland route for the Leavenworth Pike's Peak Express Company out of Denver.
Pathfinder: Remember, the American mountain men and fur trappers weren’t the only ones roaming this country.
J2020F: Oh?
Pathfinder: In the period 1824-1829 eventual Hudson's Bay Company trapper Peter Skene Ogden led five trapping expeditions into the "Snake Country" -- the upper reaches of the Columbia.
J2020F: The Hudson’s Bay Companyof course. Which of the five explored Utah – what today is known as Utah?
Pathfinder: The one beginning in 1824 is the first written account of that region of Southeastern Idaho and Northern Utah that includes Cache Valley, Ogden Valley, and the Weber River Valley.
Explorer: Isn’t that one known as a famous confrontation between the HBC and the Americans?
Pathfinder: It is. And what survived from that trip are Ogden's journal and that of his chief clerk, William Kittson.
J2020F: You said 1824 was the first.
Pathfinder: Right. His last expedition, from 1828 to 1829 followed the Humboldt River and explored the region north of Great Salt Lake.
J2020F: So, in the 1820s we find Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger and Pierre Skene Ogden exploring the same region.
Pathfinder: Right. In 1826, Jedediah Smith led 18 men on an expedition through the Great Salt Lake Valley and through southwest Utah, southeast Nevada, to Needles, California area, and west across California.
J2020F: So Smith’s expedition came to this area -- to appraise the trapping potential of the region south and west of the Great Salt Lake.
Pathfinder: Right. This expedition took him along the route of present-day Interstate 15, the entire length of Utah, to the Virgin River and its eventual confluence with the Colorado River.
J2020F: So in a sense, we’re closing the Jedediah loop with our own expedition.
Pathfinder: Sure. We already traced his route when he followed the Colorado south to the villages of Mojave Indians, then turned his band westward across the Mojave Desert.
Explorer: On that trip, his band reached the Utah-Nevada border near present day Grandy, Utah, continued on to Skull Valley and reached the south tip of the Great Salt Lake two days later.
Trailblazer: What I remember about that expedition was by the time they arrived at the 1827 Mountain Man Rendezvous in present-day Laketown, they had become the first Americans to return from California by an overland route.
J2020F: What I remember, after passing through Needles was party of Mojave Indians, angry with an earlier trapping party, killed ten of Smith's men and scattered his furs and supplies.
Pathfinder: True. That happened later in 1827. Jedediah, with 18 men, retraced his steps from Great Salt Lake to southern California.
Explorer: But this time the Indians attacked his party and captured all the horses. The survivors made their way to California and into the clutches of Mexican officials waiting to incarcerate them.
J2020F: So the fur trapping and trading business was extremely difficult – especially when the mountain men had to haul what they collected to the trading posts and merchant centers.
Trailblazer: Right. All that changed when the merchants and traders came to the trappers on the banks of the Green River, rather than the fur traders coming all the way into town to trade their wares.
Explorer: And, the way stations, forts and trading posts set up along the overland trails from Independence, Missouri.
Eagle: So, the essential supply chain comes to the point of purchase – or trade – as the case may be. It must have revolutionized business models as we know them in the 1800s.
J2020F: And speaking of revolutionizing business models -- in no time at all, the railroads replaced the boat and the wagon train and the stagecoach as the primary transportation vehicle.
Pathfinder: And as the focus for when, how and where commerce was conducted.
Explorer: What do you mean?
Pathfinder: Well, towns sprung up along the railroad lines. Before that, they grew along the riverbanks.
Trailblazer: And as transportation evolved from hiking or riding horseback in combination to river exploration to stage coach and finally to railroad the time it took to connect people from ambition to destination shrunk.
Eagle: And accelerated the sheer volume of easterners who could unload at any particular town along the way.
J2020F: Yeah, there’s something about basic units of economic trade or transaction. And, the location where the transaction took place.
Trailblazer: And establishing the value of transaction – either basic commodity or customized product or service.
J2020F: So, today this wide-open space -- Sevier County, Utah boasted something different that really appealed to me -- adventure tourism.
Pathfinder: You mean -- hunting, fishing, horseback riding, and mountain biking just the beginning of the list of activities. So you might offer more commodity-based units for one adventure unit?
Explorer: I would. I value more experience-based units than price-based units. Remember back at our rest stop. They were selling a newly opened Paiute ATV trail that beckoned as an example of innovative thinking between government agencies at all levels.
J2020F: Together with petroglyphs and pictographs on rock outcrops that attest to the presence of Indians now called Fremont. That is so unique. So customized. You can’t buy that at a local big box retailer. You know what I mean?
Explorer: Exactly. You wonder though, what did they call themselves? What were they like? Where did they go?
Pathfinder: I think we should organize sabbaticals next. We might start with Fremont Indian State Park. It was established in 1985 to preserve a treasure trove of archaeological material excavated from sites in Clear Creek Canyon.
Eagle: I’m with you on that. We should explore the possibilities in Cathedral Valley, Monroe Mountain, Hot Springs, Capitol Reef National Park, Bullion Canyon, Big Rock Candy Mountain or Otter Creek we’ve seen en route to Richfield and on to Bryce and Zion.
J2020F: We had passed from the rainstorms and afternoon showers of mountains, lushly green scenery of Colorado into Utah with its buttes and grays and browns. As we descended from high desert country into desert and then into ranching and farming country we were grateful for our fully functioning air conditioner.
Eagle: When we arrived in Ridgefield I didn’t find it very attractive compared to all the other outposts we established along the way.
Pathfinder: But, what it lacked in charm it more than made up in friendliness -- the Travelodge demonstrated the best customer service so far on our journey by calling to our room after we had checked in to determine if there was anything else they could do to make our stay more enjoyable.
Eagle: But no complimentary breakfast. And our supply of soda and beer, stashed without ice in another cooler was dwindling. So we hit town to find the local market to restock our supplies and discovered they had coffee and donuts, Danishes and muffins at a reasonable price.
Trailblazer: Dinner was as the combination KFC - Taco Bell franchise, where we encountered confused teenagers who managed to screw up our order even though we had gone through it several times.
J2020F: I felt like a kid. All I wanted to do was to hit the outdoor pool and the indoor Jacuzzi to relieve the stress and monotony of the all-day drive. I just didn’t care. I looked forward to the last leg of our journey.
Trailblazer: Me too. Oh, I almost forgot. You asked if there was anything else earlier.
J2020F: There was?
Trailblazer: Here’s Grey Owl’s quote – one Eagle will like because it is taken from Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
J020F: How does it go?
Trailblazer: "In September, 1805, when Lewis and Clark came down off the Rockies on their westward journey, the entire exploring party was half-famished and ill with dysentery -- too weak to defend themselves. They were in the country of the Nez Perce's, so named by French trappers, who observed some of the Indians wearing dentalium shells in their noses. Had the Nez Perce's chosen to do so, they could have put an end to the Lewis and Clark expedition there on the banks of Clearwater River, and seized their wealth of horses.”
Eagle: You’re right. I found that passage here in my copy of his book about the Nez Perce. “Instead the Nez Perce's welcomed the white Americans, supplied them with food, and looked after the explorers' horses for several months while they continued by canoe to the Pacific shore. Thus began a long friendship between the Nez Perce's and white Americans. For seventy years the tribe boasted that no Nez Perce' had ever killed a white man."
J2020F: I wonder why he didn’t include the famous speech by Chief Joseph?
Eagle: I don’t know. You mean the “I Will Fight No More…” speech?
J2020F: How did it go?
Eagle: “Tell General Howard I know his heart. When he told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men (Ollokot) is dead.
It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death.
I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”
J2020F: Which brings us to the brief story of the Buffalo Soldiers.
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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
2:45 PM
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Trading the Great Lakes for a Mile-High Lifestyle the Utes Left
Chapter Three: The Outpost
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
“(Chief Seattle’s letter) ' The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?"
Joseph Campbell
ASPEN, Colorado. Saying goodbye is always tough. Especially to our local guide. He went out of his way to show us the off-the-beaten-path experiences no tourist would find in and around Denver.
Journal of 2020 Foresight: How did Finnmark end up in a southeastern exurb of Denver?
Pathfinder: From Southern California, by way of Chicago. He missed the outdoors sports and mountain living – hiking, backpacking, and skiing. He grew up near the Pacific Ocean and frequented the local mountains and the Sierra Nevada’s – Mammoth Mountain, for instance.
Explorer: Don’t forget he worked for summers not too far from where we found our first of Grey Owl’s geo-caches
Trailblazer: Where was that? Tom’s place, right?
Explorer: Rock Creek,to be more exact.
J2020F: Now everything is in driving distance? Except the ocean, of course.
Eagle: He told me it was the congestion – how all of Southern California became over developed – that made him entertain second thoughts when he discovered Illinois just didn’t suit him.
J2020F: And what was wrong with the Windy City? The Great Lake comes close to being an ocean.
Eagle: For a Southern California boy, it was the fact that he had to wear long underwear under his suit during the first winter there.
Explorer: It wasn’t the cold so, much, he told me – Denver gets cold. He and his wife just missed the access to mountains. He told me it hit him when he waited to cross a downtown street at a pedestrian crosswalk. A big SUV came barreling through the intersection, hit a puddle and drowned him with gray slush.
Trailblazer: Literally hit him! The slush that broke the camel’s back! All the little things just added up into a general recognition of dissatisfaction for them.
Pathfinder: He and his wife sat down that weekend – at a little resort hotel they both enjoyed -- and answered two questions: “What would you do if you had ten years to live and $10 million in the bank?” and “Where would you live, anywhere on the planet?”
J2020F: And then what?
Pathfinder: They listed their passions and their dislikes. They prioritized their two lists into a common one and then discovered they were in synch on the vast majority of their “Musts” and “Wants.”
J2020F: So they transferred their jobs to a better quality of life location?
Eagle: That was the hard part. They took a big risk. They gambled that they could both find jobs to support their lifestyle in a climate and geographical location where they’d be happy.
Trailblazer: But, it was a calculated risk. They did their homework and tapped into their “Birds of a Feather” – tribal connections, if you will, ahead of time.
J2020F: By that you mean, what?
Explorer: Finnmark knitted together a small group of like-minded people – The Colorado Expedition – for the soul purpose of trading inside information and referrals to sources of business intelligence and introductions needed to make the best life decision they could.
Trailblazer: And, they took several scouting trips – some on business trips, some on vacations to confirm what they had researched. They double-checked advice they had received from family, friends and new “expedition members” along the way.
Eagle: In fact, it was from his pioneering work that we started to notice the connections among Dana Point, California and Pagosa Springs, Colorado and Parker, Colorado.
J2020F: He was telling me he helped you flesh out the “Lone Eagle / Doing What You Love” scenarios, right?
Eagle: He went from doing what he liked, but didn’t love in a location he didn’t love to a struggling lone eagle.
Explorer: They set up their own outpost by renting outside of the Denver urban area while they explored where they want to live. As it turned out, Finnmark’s wife lands a job she loves first.
Eagle: And in a few months both begin living the staying put (in ideal location) doing what you love scenarios.
J2020F: And when was this? Before 9/11?
Explorer: At least a decade before.
J2020F: Wasn’t he in the telecom industry, though? I remember him saying something about the roller coaster of ups and downs in the local Denver job market.
Pathfinder: Finnmark took me aside and told me he’s more recently fallen into a version of the trapped and permanently temporary scenario and is more seriously considering struggling lone eagle options.
Trailblazer: But, knowing about the volatility in today’s world, he had anticipated the probabilities each scenario suggested, and has put together a much better game plan.
Explorer: He told me he wouldn’t mind helping in the next revision -- updating the scenarios to reflect events after the terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq and projecting past 2010.
Pathfinder: For those of us putting together five-year life and financial plans.
J2020F: So for different reasons, roughly 12 decades after gold fever attracted so many mid-westerners and easterners to Denver, Finnmark and his wife found what they had been looking for in Parker – the rugged natural beauty that attracted the original people to the region.
Eagle: And, from their pioneering work, we drew heavily on what Finnmark shared with us to plot the migration profiles, remember?
Trailblazer: Sure, we determined that Parker had promise because of the presence of the more affluent lifestyle clusters Harry Dent described.
Eagle: Except for deciding not to have children, Finnmark fits the broad blend of Landed Gentry and Elite Suburbs social groups.
J2020F: How can you tell about the fit?
Eagle: You can check out the community profiles, – in Finnmark’s case, the Country Squires and God’s Country executive profiles show up in Parker’s neighborhoods, according to Claritas PRIZM segmentation.
J2020F: Explain.
Trailblazer: When you visit the Claritas website, click on "You Are Where You Live" button, then choose PRIZM in the drop down menu and search on Parker’s zip code – 80134. You’ll see that Elite Suburbs social group represents one of the most affluent and well-educated clusters – high in education attained, investments and spending.
J2020F: And Landed Gentry?
Trailblazer: They’re the fourth most affluent with multiple incomes from executive, professional and technology-related knowledge workers. They prefer to live in the exurbs – beyond the suburbs and dense urban areas.
J2020F: And the Country Squires and God’s Country?
Trailblazer: Both yearn to escape urban stress and prefer to live away from the city. Country Squires have been called “big bucks in the boondocks” by Claritas. God’s Country neighborhoods apply their dual incomes to support an active, outdoor lifestyle.
Eagle: You can see the fit that Finnmark and his wife found when they first moved to Parker many years ago. But over time, what once was exurban now becomes suburban, and almost urban as communities mature.
Trailblazer: If they had to do it over again, they might check out Parker’s 2025 Master Plan to decide if there was as much fit as they had anticipated.
Explorer: In the long term Finnmark said he wouldn’t mind living off the grid – becoming more self-sufficient like in the Lone Eagle scenarios. If he moved he’d probably look other exurb areas north, northwest and west of Denver.
Eagle: He told me the same thing. So the next Colorado Expedition might explore where the historic overland trail linked together fur trading posts, pony express and stagecoach stations in the Platte River region beyond Julesburg.
Pathfinder: I love the Julesburg story.
Explorer: Julesburg provided the backdrop to Mark Twain’s account of Jack Slade as a good guy-turns-outlaw-murderer.
Pathfinder: In addition to being an overland stage station, it burned to the ground.
Eagle: Nearby soldiers from Fort Sedgwick (where Kevin Costner’s character gets assigned in “Dances With Wolves”) couldn’t prevent the burning of Julesburg by the Sioux and Cheyenne in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre in November of 1863.
Explorer: Following along the string of forts, Finnmark’s expedition might investigate the area near historic Fort Vasquez where Andrew Sublette and Baptiste Charbonneau (son of Sacagawea – guide to Lewis and Clark), Jim Beckworth and Louis Vasquez traded furs, or Fort Morgan, Fort St. Vrain (near present day Greeley where Rope Thrower Kit Carson and John Fremont stopped on one of their Rocky Mountain expeditions in 1848).
Eagle: Or by Fort Collins (where we find the legend of Antoine Janis and his fur trading exploits along the Cache La Poudre River) or on to Denver, but closer to the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.
Trailblazer: Actually, I believe he’d be more interested in the I-70 corridor heading west. He’d probably target towns branching off on smaller road tributaries to the north and south.
Explorer: Which, as it turns out, is where we headed.
J2020F: We had said our goodbyes outside the Parker bike shop, stopped in at the local market and stocked up for the return leg of our journey, the northern route. We skirted around the southwestern edge of Denver on the interstate until we got to I-70 and the ski resorts.
Explorer: There we found the beginning of Colorado’s favorite mountain resorts beginning with exits to Loveland Pass into the Arapaho Basin.
Trailblazer: U.S. Highway 6 traverses Loveland Pass, one of Colorado’s high Rocky Mountain passes on the Continental Divide
Eagle: Highway 6? Here’s a factoid – in years past it was the only highway connecting Cape Cod on the east coast with Bishop, California on the left-coast.
J2020F: And here’s the next factoid. We passed through Summit County – home to “Colorado’s favorite mountain resort, Breckenridge– and Frisco, Dillon, Silverthorne, Keystone and Copper Mountain.
Eagle: All potential towns for Finnmark’s consideration.
Pathfinder:
Breckenridge’s history is odd, I think.
J2020F: Why?
Pathfinder: Well, it starts out like the typical Colorado story. By 1861, 2 years after gold was first panned from the Blue River, Breckenridge had become a booming settlement.
J2020F: So? Breckenridge is one of Colorado's oldest continuously occupied mining towns.
Pathfinder: The town takes its name from Vice President John C. Breckinridge.
J2020F: A lot of town’s get their name from famous politicians.
Pathfinder: But look at how his name was spelled.
J2020F: You mean the “i” instead of the “e”?
Pathfinder: Exactly. You see Breckinridge was an unsuccessful candidate for President in 1860, losing to Abraham Lincoln. He served in the U.S. Senate until expelled by resolution in 1861.
J2020F: And?
Pathfinder: Breckinridge became a brigadier general for the Confederacy during the Civil War and later served as their Secretary of War.
Explorer: How did the town come down on North versus South?
Pathfinder: A number of local citizens joined the Confederate Army. But, those who stayed behind, however, showed their sympathies by changing the town's name to the northern spelling of Breckenridge.
J2020F: After stopping for about a half an hour at Copper Mountain -- which was in its post ski season state of repair— we reconsidered our plans.
Eagle: And we quickly realized that if we’re going to stay on schedule we have to get to Vail, first for lunch, in Eagle County -- and then on to the Lamplight Inn in Aspen.
Pathfinder: I’m surprised that the villages of Vail edge along the interstate.
Trailblazer: Me, too. I was disappointed comparing the location to the mental picture I had carried for years visualizing what the famous Vail resort would be like.
J2020F: Lots of shops. That’s what I pictured, so I wasn’t disappointed. During lunch we picked up brochures for the typical Colorado adventures during the summer. We also checked out condos for a return trip.
Trailblazer: It says here --Vail, internationally known for skiing and its Alpine-style village -- offers year round access to recreation in the surrounding White River National Forest.
Pathfinder: The town owes its development to the ski paratroopers who had trained during World War II in the vicinity.
Trailblazer: In Vail and, for that matter, in the --whole Beaver Creek Mountain area you can go ballooning, take a gondola or chairlift ride, cruise around town on bikes, or hit the mountain trails.
Eagle: I noticed you can also play golf or tennis or try your hand at fly-fishing.
Explorer: What about river rafting? What’s a trip to Colorado without river rafting or 4-wheel driving into the backcountry?
J2020F: Or boating, kayaking, camping hiking, going for a carriage ride, visiting a museum or a nature center, for that matter.
Pathfinder: You can paraglide, ride the range or go rock climbing. Or you can shop until you drop.
J2020F: Who wouldn’t want to live here? The average price for a single-family or duplex home in Eagle County was $601,801 in August 1997 – --who knows what they go for today?
Trailblazer: Too little, too late. That’s why it is on Finnmark’s mature list.
Explorer: And the same for Steamboat Springs.
Pathfinder: As the Steamboat story goes James Crawford was attracted to the Yampa River Valley in 1874 by reports of idyllic scenery and a mild climate. Impressed by the magnificence of this valley of springs, Crawford built his cabin on the west bank of Soda Creek.
Eagle: So they didn’t decide to name the town Crawford and then change it to Crawfort?
Pathfinder. Very funny. Legend has it that the fledgling settlement was named Steamboat Springs because of the rhythmic chugging of the hot spring near the river, from which mineral water spewed 15 feet into the air. In the immediate vicinity there are 157 mineral springs, both medicinal and recreational, composed of alkali, salt, iron, lithia, sulfur, magnesia and other minerals.
Explorer: It’s still too expensive for me. And the same for Aspen – the county seat of Pitkin County.
J2020F: Pitkin? Frederick Pitkin? The one who made a fortune in the San Juan Mountains?
Explorer: The one and the same. In the 1870s, it seemed logical that the gold and silver veins that were yielding fortunes in Ouray (the town) on the east slope of the Uncompahgre Range also would show on the west side.
Pathfinder: After the Brunot secured the treaty with Chief Ouray, the subsequent claims staked in 1875 on the mountainsides above the headwaters of the San Miguel proved the premise.
Trailblazer: Columbia, the supply camp at the bottom of the narrow gorge, soon changed its name to Telluride after tellurium, the non-metallic matrix in which the precious metals appeared.
J2020F: So Pitkin must have been on a roll.
Pathfinder: Right, Pitkin had used his power to become governor of Colorado when it became a state in 1876
Eagle: After the end of the Sioux wars in 1877 Pitkin and William B. Vickers, a Denver editor-politician who despised all Indians, especially Utes, began drumming up a propaganda campaign to have all Utes exiled to Indian Territory, thus leaving an immense amount of valuable land free for the taking.
Pathfinder: They used a federal policy to their advantage.
J2020F: How?
Pathfinder: The great father, President Grant, pursued a stated "Peace Policy" as a possible solution to conflicts between whites and Indians.
J2020F: In what way?
Pathfinder: The policy included a reorganization of the Indian Service, with the goal of relocating various tribes from their ancestral homes to parcels of lands established specifically for their inhabitation.
Eagle: And here’s the kicker. The policy called for the replacement of government officials by religious men nominated by churches to oversee the Indian agencies on reservations in order to teach Christianity to the native tribes.
Explorer: The Quakers were especially active in this policy on reservations.
Eagle: So, that accounts for Wovoka’s hybrid religion – the influence of the Christian Indian agencies.
Explorer: What Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy had referenced in defense of the spreading Ghost Dance -- "If the Seventh-day Adventists got up on the roofs of their houses in their ascension robes to welcome the Second Coming of Christ, the whole U.S. Army is not rushed into motion."
Pathfinder: The "civilization" policy was aimed at the eventually preparing the tribes for citizenship.
Explorer: So, in 1878 a new agent upsets the turnip truck for the – thanks to a debt owed to Horace Greeley, the butt of Mark Twain’s running gag in “Roughing It.”
J2020F: You mean Nathan Meeker and the Greeley -- the Union Colony?
Explorer: Right. Nathan Meeker, after a couple of trips to Colorado founded Union Colony near Fort Latham and the fork of the South Platte River because of the area’s agriculture potential.
Eagle: The Utes went along with the treaty that Chief Ouray negotiated, but they only humored their agents at Los Pinos and White River by going through the agriculture motions.
Pathfinder: That’s true. They were self-supporting and didn’t want or need the provisions dole out to them though the reservation system.
Trailblazer: Then Meeker came along, where was it, at White River?
Explorer: Meeker owed Greeley a large debt after the majority of his cooperative agrarian colonies – utopias – failed. While Greeley favored the ventures, Meeker needed the agency income to pay off what he owed.
Eagle: While he might have had the best of intentions, he came across as someone who was out to destroy everything to do with the Ute way of life.
Pathfinder: One of his first mistakes was to move the Agency near present day Greeley to establish the Union Colony – right in the middle of the area the Utes used for hunting and racing their ponies.
J2020F: What happened?
Pathfinder: The chiefs told Meeker he violated the treaties they signed. Nothing mentioned relocating the agency.
Explorer: While Chief Colorow had missed visiting down town Denver when they were moved to the White River – dining in restaurants, attending theaters and clowning for white citizens –he really enjoyed hunting in the White River country.
Eagle: Dee Brown says Meeker soon realized that his mission to convert the savages to civilized ways was surely doomed, “because their needs are so few.”
J2020F: So he couldn’t make them dependent.
Pathfinder: Exactly. So he decided he might succeed if he could take away their ponies to keep them from roaming on hunting trips.
Eagle: And then he planned to “replace the ponies with a few draft horses for plowing and hauling, and then as soon as the Utes were thus forced to abandon the hunt and remain near the agency, he would issue no more rations to those who would not work. 'I shall cut every Indian down to the bare starvation point,' he wrote Colorado's Senator Henry M. Teller, 'if he will not work.' "
J2020F: Wasn’t he a reporter originally? And didn’t he contribute articles to newspapers?
Explorer: He reminds me of Mark Twain, in a way, except Twain would never take on Agency work with such missionary fever.
Eagle: Good points. Brown writes, like Twain, "Meeker's inveterate itch for writing down his ideas and observations, and then sending them off to be put into print, eventually brought him to a complete breaking point with the Utes.”
J2020F: Oh, how so?
Eagle: During the spring of 1879 he wrote an imaginary dialogue with one of the Ute women, attempting to show how the Indians could not comprehend the joys of work or the value of material goods.... This little composition was first published in the "Greeley Tribune."
Pathfinder: Guess who read it?
J2020F: Picken?
Pathfinder: Close. No, Vickers saw it.
Explorer: Vickers saw Meeker’s piece as an argument for removing the Utes from Colorado, so he wrote an article about it for the "Denver Tribune
Eagle: And, it didn’t stop there. Vickers wrote considerably more, and his article was reprinted across Colorado.
J2020F: Like what?
Pathfinder: Of all things, while Meeker had tried and failed at establishing Utopian communities because the Utes resisted – the Utes were branded as communists.
Eagle: Here’s how Brown described it: “'The Utes are actual, practical Communists and the government should be ashamed to foster and encourage them in their idleness and wanton waste of property. Living off the bounty of a paternal but idiotic Indian Bureau, they actually become too lazy to draw their rations in the regular way but insist on taking what they want were ever they find it. Removed to Indian Territory, the Utes could be fed and clothed for about one half what it now costs the government.' "
Trailblazer: He succeeded in branding the campaign with the headline: The Utes Must Go!
Eagle: And bad went to worse.
J2020F: You mean a chain of events was set in motion?
Eagle: Brown says, “Meanwhile, William Vickers was accelerating his 'Utes Must Go' campaign by manufacturing stories of Indian crimes and outrages."
Pathfinder: And, Meeker appealed to Governor Pitkin for assistance when Chief Johnson resisted an order to kill his horses and allow the resumption of plowing his pasture.
Eagle: Literally, push came to shove. Johnson shoved Meeker in anger, but then walked away.
Explorer: The incident convinced Meeker that the Utes needed to be taught a lesson. Deteriorating relations deteriorated further.
J2020F: Pitkin sends in the troops?
Pathfinder: You bet. Shots are fired as both sides – soldiers and Indians – had tried to de-escalate a confrontation.
Eagle: But, word of the violent confrontation reaches the Utes at White River – they’re told the soldiers were fighting their people. So about “dozen of them took their rifles and went out among the agency buildings shooting at every white workman in sight. Before the day ended they killed Nathan Meeker and all his white male employees."
Explorer: And like dominoes falling one after another, local militia took up arms in town after town to protect their families.
J2020F: So, except for a few Southern Utes the state of Colorado was wiped clean of Indians?
Eagle: Basically. Dee Brown described it this way, “"Vickers called upon the white citizens of Colorado to rise up and 'wipe out the red devils,' inspiring the frantic organization of militia units in towns and villages across the state. So many newspaper reporters arrived from the East to report this exciting new 'Indian War' that Governor Pitkin decided to give them a special statement for publication.”
J2020F: A special statement?
Eagle: “I think the conclusion of this affair will end the depredations in Colorado. It will be impossible for the Indians and whites to live in peace hereafter. This attack had no provocation and the whites now understand that they are liable to be attacked in any part of the state where the Indians happen to be in sufficient force. My idea is that, unless removed by the government, they must necessarily be exterminated. I could raise 25,000 men to protect the settlers in twenty-four hours. The state would be willing to settle the Indian trouble at its own expense."
J2020F: So that was that?
Pathfinder: Chief Ouray, on his deathbed in 1880, tried to argue his tribes case in Washington D.C., but to no avail.
Eagle: Brown writes, “It was decided 'the Utes must go' to a new reservation in Utah -- on land the Mormons did not want. Ouray died before the Army herded his people together in August 1881, for the 350-mile march out of Colorado into Utah."
J2020F: So the names remain, but it’s not the same!
Eagle: Brown sums it up by saying: "Except for a small strip of territory along the southwest corner -- where a small band of Southern Utes was allowed to live -- Colorado was swept clean of Indians. Cheyenne and Arapaho, Kiowa and Comanche, Jicarilla and Ute -- they had all known its mountains and plains, but no trace of them remained but their names on the white man's land."
J2020F: Looks like the dark clouds are gathering, so we better get on the road again!
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