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If Culebra Peak, 14,047 feet, sat a few miles farther south, it would be the tallest peak in New Mexico, rather than merely 41st in Colorado. Another distinction, according to a climbing guidebook, is that Culebra is the only privately owned 14,000-foot peak in the United States.
That could change, because Culebra Peak crowns the Taylor Ranch, an old Mexican land grant which spreads across 77,000 acres near San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado.
The ranch is for sale, and there are plans for the state to buy the ranch and to arrange with San Luis for the community to manage the ranch as a local commons -- grazing, firewood, fenceposts, fishing, hunting.
That's the way things ran from 1851 to 1960, when Jack Taylor, a North Carolina lumber baron, bought the land grant and fenced it off. San Luis has been fighting, in court and otherwise, ever since.
Restoring the traditional communal use of the ranch may appear to be an odd course for our state government, but consider the alternatives:
· Create a Culebra National Park, managed by the National Park Service. Scenic national parks attract hordes of tourists, so San Luis can look to Estes Park and Grand Lake for guidance as it develops fast-food strips, go-kart tracks and miniature golf courses. Why should they get to live in relative serenity when the rest of us have to put up with Winnebago caravans and a violently seasonal economy?
The tourists will want to see natural
wildlife,
so the park will be managed just like Rocky Mountain
National Park, with huge elk herds that demolish meadows
and aspen groves.
It may seem odd that the Interior Department, so concerned about rancher overgrazing these days, also indulges in the same practice inside a national park that it is supposed to be protecting.
But that's exactly what is happening, according to Karl
Hess, Jr., in his book Rocky Times in Rocky Mountain
National Park,
just published by University Press of
Colorado.
And it happens for pretty much the same reason -- money. The rancher wants to put as many pounds as possible on his cattle. The Park Service wants to attract more visitors, and elk are a major draw; more visitors means more political support, which translates into larger appropriations at the expense of one-time habitat for beaver, aspen and willow.
· Sell the Taylor Ranch to the Department of Defense. Military pilots need a place to practice dogfights in their jets. Several training corridors have been proposed in southern Colorado, inspiring vehement local opposition.
But the opposition might be stifled if the military owned the land, and there's another benefit. Gentrification would halt because jet roars and sonic booms would deter potential immigrants who might otherwise buy 35-acre ranchettes and erect palatial second homes.
· Turn it over to the Forest Service. About 10,000 acres will be scalped in below-cost clear-cuts. Several cyanide-leach mines will be developed, with full assurance, as at Summitville, that the operations will never leak. Someone will propose a ski area. The resulting process of environmental impact statements, hearings and studies will take at least 30 years, thereby keeping everyone in San Luis busy.
· Transfer the Taylor Ranch and the town of San
Luis to the Disney Corporation to be operated as
AztlanLand,
a Southwestern theme park with genuine
burro rides, authentic morada tours and impressive
computer-controlled robots that cut firewood and churn
butter.
There are other possibilities, such as our State Land Board, legally bound to get the highest possible return from the property, or an extension of the Forbes Ranch which offers wooded sites and protective covenants for the trophy homes of America's corporate elite.
Given those alternatives, it's really hard to imagine how the community of San Luis could do any worse with the Taylor Ranch than any other agency which might conceivably acquire and manage it.
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