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    <title>Gulliford&apos;s Travels</title>
    <category>Gulliford&apos;s Travels</category>
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        <link>https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/gullifords-travels/rocky-flats-atomic-amnesia-and-the-half-life-of-memory/</link>
        <title>Rocky Flats: Atomic amnesia and the half-life of memory</title>
        <description>Entrance signs to the main trailhead at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge display a butterfly perhaps to represent a rebirth and new purpose for the 5,257- acre refuge which once produced 70,000 plutonium triggers or nuclear bombs. Beginning in 1952...</description>
        <pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0600</pubDate>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[Entrance signs to the main trailhead at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge display a butterfly perhaps to represent a rebirth and new purpose for the 5,257- acre refuge which once produced 70,000 plutonium triggers or nuclear bombs.Beginning in 1952 at Rocky Flats northwest of Denver, we plunged into the Cold War producing plutonium triggers. Contractors working for what would become the Department of Energy secretly contaminated soils, waters and air during a lethal legacy creating 70,000 bombs. Now the site is a 5,257-acre wildlife refuge with hiking trails. Is it safe?Some of the original acreage is closed to public access. Radioactive plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years yet the 6,551 acres of Rocky Flats, once a Super-Fund Cleanup site, is coveted land with expansive views of the Flat Irons near Boulder. Modern real estate developments crowd the refuge to the south and east with condominiums, town homes, single family houses and shopping malls.Are we suffering from atomic amnesia? In High Country News, Hannah Nordhaus wrote about the dangers of radiation from loose particles of plutonium, but “The half life of memory, by contrast is a much briefer thing. The contamination at Rocky Flats will long outlive our efforts to control or even remember it,” she wrote.The Colorado Sun published Michael Booth’s article “Open space vs. safety: The debate goes nuclear at eager-to-please Rocky Flats.” Booth focused on the goal of an 80-mile bike path from Denver to Rocky Mountain National Park. Such a path would cross several counties. County administrators and county commissioners have mixed feelings about potential citizen exposure to radioactive particles.Rocky Flats once had “hot rabbits” hopping in and out of prairie grasses. The bunnies had high doses of radioactivity absorbed from eating plants grown in poisoned soils. The site had 400 structures and buildings now demolished and infamous production rooms such as Room 3549 in Building 371 so heavily contaminated that radiation levels could not be measured. Standard detection equipment needles went off scale toward infinity hence the name “infinity rooms.”Because of my interest in Colorado’s publicly accessible federal land, I had to visit the wildlife refuge, although I did so with trepidation. Libby Schultz, a Broomfield resident of four decades, would be my guide. She had friends and neighbors who had worked at Rocky Flats, including a man who in his 30s became sick with Mesothelioma cancer. As with other Rocky Flats workers, exposure to radiation would result in cancer years later. Schultz had another friend who worked on the Rocky Flats hazardous materials team. Accidents happened and everyone’s fear was of the blue flash of a “criticality,” or a nuclear chain reaction from a dangerous plutonium fire.Broomfield resident Libby Schultz stands next to the kiosk at the Rocky Flats Wildlife refuge at the beginning of its trail system. Signs on the kiosk describe 239 species of wildlife and 630 plants in the adjacent tall grass prairie. Interpretive panels state, “The security that once protected the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant also preserved this unique expanse of Front Range habitat . . . levels of residual contamination on refuge land are very low and meet state and federal standards and regulatory guidance.”For decades, Cold War secrecy prevailed. Workers took their jobs seriously as part of defending America against the Soviet Union and communist aggression. In 1952, there were no interstate highways, no expanding suburbs, no daily traffic jams on Highway 93 between Denver and Boulder. Politicians welcomed the jobs and the federal paychecks that grew to $500 million annually and 8,000 employees at Rocky Flats. In the 1950s and 1960s, few workers questioned scientific or federal authority.Employees dressed in protective gear, stood together in a stainless-steel assembly line, placing their arms into lead-lined “glove boxes” to piece together the parts of plutonium triggers or bombs in the Building 771 complex known as the Hell Hole. It took skill, nerves and patience to work the line, delicately holding spheres of plutonium-239 shaped like large oranges. These were fissionable cores, atomic bombs in their own right. Employees got sick, made mistakes, and human error in a bomb factory can have deadly consequences.“The lungs are especially vulnerable,” writes Kristen Iverson in her evocative memoir “Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats.” “Plutonium can ignite spontaneously when exposed to air, and as it burns, it turns into a very fine dust, similar to rust.”On the west edge of Rocky Flats, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) experiments with a variety of wind generators. The lab is there because of prevailing winds which may have spread radioactive particles and toxins into Denver suburbs for years.Inhaling that dust can result in berylliosis, which is an inoperable lung disease causing victims to have less and less ability to breathe, having to pause going up or down as few as three stairs.A dangerous fire broke out Sept. 11, 1957, with a radioactive plume that covered Golden, Arvada, Wheat Ridge and part of Denver. In Building 771, “For thirteen hours, unfiltered radioactive smoke poured out of the 771 smokestack – smoke filled with plutonium, americium, beryllium, acids, cleaning solvents, and other toxic contaminants,” Iverson writes.In 1969, as the environmental movement accelerated, so, too, did a second fire at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. It was Mother’s Day. The plant was understaffed. The maze of buildings contained plutonium equivalent to hundreds of thermonuclear bombs. A fire slowly spread through the glove boxes in Building 776 and Building 777. Air circulating in the production rooms helped grow the fire, but in a stroke of luck, a firefighter accidentally backed his truck into an electric pole, which cut off power and slowed the catastrophe. Two firefighters suffered radioactive exposure. They were hot or “crapped up.” The fire burned for six hours.Because Rocky Flats made bombs from plutonium, which has a radioactive half life of 24,000 years, monitoring wells, small buildings with detection devices, and other equipment will need to be functional far into the future.Protests began over the threat of nuclear war and proximity of the Rocky Flats weapons facility to Denver’s suburbs. Fear grew with stories in the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, which described Rocky Flats as “Denver’s Nuclear Neighbor.” Whistleblowers leaked stories of the plant’s own leakage of hazardous waste, sloppy cleanups and dangerous practices such as taking radioactive sludge from drying ponds and placing it in concrete for shipment elsewhere. Called “pondcrete,” the blocks contained both radioactive waste and hazardous chemicals, which often failed to solidify, spilled from boxes and required years to reprocess.Two decades after the Mother’s Day fire, an unprecedented FBI investigation in June 1989 of the Department of Energy and its contractor Rockwell International revealed even more shoddy workmanship and dangerous exposure especially on 178 contaminated acres. A grand jury sifted through 760 boxes of documents and testimony from 110 witnesses. The jury members concluded that criminal prosecution of employees at both the Department of Energy and Rockwell International had been woefully inadequate. Justice failed as did attempts to provide medical compensation for suffering Rocky Flats workers and retirees.New housing and commercial developments abound adjacent to Rocky Flats despite potential radiological contamination on windy days which are legendary along Colorado’s Front Range. The Rocky Flats facility was once considered the most dangerous nuclear site in America.As the Cold War wound down with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rocky Flats moved from weapons production towards a massive environmental cleanup. A 1995 D.O.E study estimated cleanup would require 50 years and $36.6 billion, yet the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge opened for public access Sept. 15, 2018.Schultz and I went to the refuge’s main trailhead. No interpretive signs greeted us telling the story of weapons production. We were alone on the trail and heard a bird or two, but we did not see the 239 species of wildlife that live there. We arrived in the still morning air to avoid afternoon winds and dangerous dust. She has been to Hiroshima, and she wore a shirt featuring colored folded paper cranes that represent prayers for those who have died from nuclear radiation.To honor the dead at Hiroshima as well as fatalities from other nuclear explosions, when we visited Rocky Flats, Libby Schultz wore a t-shirt she bought at the Hiroshima Peace Park in Japan. The image depicts folded paper cranes.The only historical interpretation of the site is on private property south of Rocky Flats where artist Jeff Gipe’s horse statue wears a protective hazmat suit. Titled “Cold War Horse” the equine is posed with one raised hoof. Plaques discuss Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Rocky Flats, which is a mile away. Lettering states, “Let us recognize this part of our history and acknowledge the responsibility that comes with building weapons that have the potential to end human life on earth.”On private property along Colorado Highway #72 a horse sculpture by artist Jeff Gipe wears a red hazardous material suit and stands dramatically facing Rocky Flats. Adjacent signs are in memory of Dru Nelson and a thank you to Bruce & Janice Roberts “for help and generosity in displaying the Cold War Horse.”Signs honor “the workers who suffered so much,” and who have “yet to be acknowledged by state and local governments.” A stone memorial was dedicated Oct. 18, 2015, after “the cleanup,” and it stands “as a reminder of a history that we must not forget.”In front of the sculpture titled “Cold War Horse” historic interpretive signs link Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Rocky Flats which under various levels of secrecy and national security produced nuclear bombs or plutonium triggers during the Cold War.Within a few miles, residential and commercial neighborhoods thrive oblivious to the plutonium past. Thanks to the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, and Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado, new trail signs have gone up warning of potential exposure to radioactive materials. The signs have been approved by Boulder County Open Space and the city of Westminster and are posted at trail entrances to the federal wildlife refuge. But 3 million Denver area residents longing for green space may continue to hike and bike the trails anyway.As loud protesters descended upon Rocky Flats in the 1970s and 1980s with slogans like “Hell No! We won’t Glow” and “Better Active Today than Radioactive Tomorrow,” workers off shift retreated to a bar along Highway 93 for a few quiet beers before going home. Now a beer garden, the bar offered bumper stickers which proclaimed, “Save Rocky Flats – Move Denver.”Andrew Gulliford is an award-winning author and editor and a professor of history at Fort Lewis College. He can be reached at gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu.]]></content:encoded>
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        <link>https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/gullifords-travels/u-s-forest-service-cabins-and-southwest-staycations/</link>
        <title>U.S. Forest Service cabins and Southwest staycations</title>
        <description>The house that forester Aldo Leopold built for his new bride Estella Luna Otero Bergere in 1912 is now part of a historic complex listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The bungalow’s wide front porch faces east to...</description>
        <pubDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0600</pubDate>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[The house that forester Aldo Leopold built for his new bride Estella Luna Otero Bergere in 1912 is now part of a historic complex listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The bungalow’s wide front porch faces east to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. (Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford)As spring edges into summer and snow melts in the high country, I think about camping among aspen trees. Another way to experience the forest is to leave the tent at home and rent a historic cabin from the U.S. Forest Service via www/recreation.gov.I treasure days without driving, and from a forest service cabin, hiking trails are often close. These historic log cabins, with pine tree motifs on shutters, gates and doors, are intimate, cozy spaces with fly-specked windows, several beds, propane stoves, refrigerators and lighting. Most have no electricity. Forget computers. Try a little digital detox. Leave the cellphone at home and instead bring books, good friends, beer and wine, sourdough bread, binoculars and hiking boots.The U.S. Forest Service evolved with available labor during the 1930s Great Depression. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt conceived of the extremely popular Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC “boys,” who were out-of-work young men often from urban areas, built many forest ranger cabins that became known as “guard stations” because forest rangers stayed there to be closer to the natural resources they protected and to be available in fire season. Some guard stations had nearby barns for horses and tack or saddle gear. Almost all ranger stations had adjacent horse pastures.Ranger stations became standardized with a bedroom, bathroom, well-lit kitchen and garage. Most of the garages were converted into an additional bedroom or sometimes bunkroom for seasonal staff. Kitchen-front doors open onto small stone porches and woodwork, and hinges and kitchen tables all demonstrate the excellent craftsmanship of the CCC.The late Lloyd McNeill from Mancos worked tirelessly as a USFS employee to save the Jersey Jim Firetower and the Aspen Guard Station for public use. His efforts are carried on by the Jersey Jim Foundation which he helped to create. Both structures are now available as seasonal rentals.My favorite cabin on the San Juan National Forest is the Aspen Guard Station on the Dolores Ranger District. Across the West, these historic log buildings are now available for seasonal rental including the Aspen Guard Station, the Glade Guard Station and the Jersey Jim Fire Tower, all maintained by dedicated volunteers working with the Jersey Jim Foundation. At the Aspen Guard Station, forest service employees stack firewood safe and dry outside in a “ranger manger.”The Aspen Guard Station on the Dolores Ranger District of the San Juan National Forest is a delightful location deep in an adjacent aspen grove. Heat, light, and refrigeration is by propane and a wood stove keeps the kitchen area warm. Wood is stacked outside in a “ranger manger.”I’ve stayed in the Aspen Guard Station as an historian-in-residence for the USFS as well as a paying visitor with my wife. We enjoyed daily hikes, including a short walk on the Big Al Trail, which is graded and perfect for wheelchairs with stunning views of the west side of the La Plata Mountains, including Hesperus, Sharkstooth and Centennial peaks.The Jersey Jim Firetower is a fine place to spend a few nights soaking in the San Juan National Forest, but beware, the outhouse down at ground level is quite a hike in the dark.The Glade Guard Station is not log but instead has a white clapboard exterior, a tall hipped roof and a lovely corner porch. Retired smokejumpers refurbished the building 15 years ago. Volunteers put in 10-hour days on the structure that replaced the original log cabin ranger station built in 1906 when the USFS was only a year old.Other forests have fine cabins for rent, too, including the Lone Cone Ranger Cabin on the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre Gunnison National Forest (known affectionately as the GMUG). Twenty-four miles from Norwood and deep among aspen trees, the Lone Cone cabin has a stone front porch with a long distance view of Lone Cone Mountain to the west. I slept there with an archaeological survey crew when we spent three days searching for sheepherder arboglyphs or carved aspen trees, a valuable but increasingly scarce cultural resource.Almost identical to the Aspen Guard Station on the Dolores District of the San Juan National Forest, the Lone Cone Guard Station 22 miles from Norwood has a similar layout and distinctive stone front porch coming off the kitchen front door.Other cabins available on the GMUG are all above 9,000 feet, including Moose Manor, Aspen Leaf, Jackson Guard Station, Black Bear, Oak Cabin and the Silesca Ranger Station. These cabins have bedrooms but also sofa sleepers and twin beds. In some cabins you must bring your own lanterns. Kerosene lamps are not allowed. Cleaning supplies are provided. Hint, hint: Clean up before you leave.Key dates and information Jersey Jim Tower• Anticipated opening date: May 28, 2026• $50 per night plus an additional $8-9 charge for Rec.gov• All reservations and cancellations will be handled by Rec.gov• Reminder emails, unexpected closing notices, etc. will be handled through Rec.gov• After a reservation has been secured, JJF will handle operations and questions through email, as usual. A phone number will also be posted at a later date.• All other information including age limits, occupancy numbers, supplies, etc. will be on the website as usual. Emails will be issued.• Closing date: October 16Aspen Guard Station• Anticipated opening date: June 6• $100 per night plus an additional $8-9 charge for Rec.gov• All reservations and cancellations will be handled by Rec.gov• Reminder emails, unexpected closing notices, etc. will be handled through Rec.gov• After a reservation has been secured, JJF will handle operations and questions through email, as usual. A phone number will also be posted at a later date.• All other information including age limits, occupancy numbers, supplies, etc. will be on the website as usual.• Closing date: October 31Glade Guard Station• Anticipated opening date: July 1• $100 per night plus an additional $8-9 charge for Rec.gov• All reservations and cancellations will be handled by Rec.gov• Reminder emails, unexpected closing notices, etc. will be handled through Rec.gov• All other information including age limits, occupancy numbers, supplies, etc. will be on the website as usual.• After a reservation has been secured, JJF will handle operations and questions through email, as usual. A phone number will also be posted at a later date.• Closing date: October 31In Utah above Moab, an available cabin is the Warner Lake Guard Station on the Manti La Sal National Forest. In New Mexico, what is exciting is Mi Casita at Tres Piedras on the Carson National Forest will be available for the public. A craftsman style bungalow with a wide, wood front porch that faces east to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, this is the house that Aldo Leopold built for his young wife Estella Luna Otero Bergere in 1912. Coming from a wealthy New Mexican family and always having had servants, she named it Mi Casita or “My Little House.” Leopold graduated as a forester from Yale University and was among the first generation of foresters in the American Southwest. A dedicated conservationist, his life and career bridges the environmental movement.The house that forester Aldo Leopold built for his new bride Estella Luna Otero Bergere in 1912 is now part of a historic complex listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The bungalow’s wide front porch faces east to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. (Courtesy of Richard Rubin)His book, “A Sand County Almanac,” published in 1949 is one of the major works on American conservation and environmental philosophy. Put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 and restored to its original appearance in 2005-06, the Forest Service management plan says Mi Casita “will function as a retreat for persons interested in modern conservation issues and as an interpretive site. ... The Forest Service will offer the house to the public as a place of reflection and scholarly pursuits.”The Leopold Writing Program, based in Albuquerque, began a writers-in-residence opportunity in the house in 2012. I was honored to be there in July 2016. The isolation at Tres Piedras allowed me to dive into my historical research, write, walk and keep writing. I pulled a small, covered utility trailer with all my gear, food and writing supplies. I ran out of beer, cheese, salami and Triscuits, but I had plenty of canned soup. No fresh vegetables. The drive to resupply is about the same either to Taos or Antonito, Colorado. I tried both and enjoyed the route north along what is now Rio Grande National Monument.Buy a copy of the Carson National Forest map and take some hikes but always have a full tank of gas. In that part of northern New Mexico, roads lead on to roads and some are mapped and some are not. Strangers are rare. Practice your Spanish. Get to know the staff members in the USFS office two blocks away. Find the Tres Piedras themselves – three large boulder outcroppings – and hike around them.To be at Mi Casita is to affirm the happy marriage of Leopold and his wife. Their children were yet to come. He almost died at the house from severe storm exposure in April 1913 after being on range patrol near the Jicarilla Apache Nation. Leopold started to suffer kidney failure while his beloved was in Santa Fe in confinement for their first child. Luckily, he took the train to Santa Fe and received lengthy medical care, but how ironic – he never came back to enjoy his house. They lived in Mi Casita less than a year.Now Leopold’s bungalow also contains a sizable and valuable conservation library with donations from former writers in residence and environmental-history professors, as well as original 1903-1907 “Primers of Forestry” and “The Use Book.” There are over 175 books on Leopold scholarship, New Mexico nature and culture, and Forest Service history as well as deep leather chairs in true arts and crafts style.Leopold’s arts and crafts style bungalow has been restored by the U.S. Forest Service and it has a wonderful period interior including comfortable leather chairs and hardwood floors.On 8 acres, Mi Casita and its associated structures, including corrals and a barn, are listed as the “Old Tres Piedras Administrative Site ... a perfectly preserved and classic representative of the early history of the National Forest Service.” Public access has been restricted, but under the leadership of retired physician Dr. Richard Rubin, of Arroyo Seco, and with Friends of Mi Casita volunteer help, rental accomodations are now available. As many as eight people can stay and study from two to five days.Retired physician Dr. Richard Rubin, of Arroyo Seco, N.M., has long been an advocate for maintaining and refurbishing Aldo and Estella Leopold’s bungalow named “Mi Casita” on the Carson National Forest at Tres Piedras, NM. Dr. Rubin has started an informal group titled Friends of Mi Casita.How fortunate to be able to visit, to absorb Leopold’s environmental thinking and to hike on ground that he surely traversed. Mi Casita would make for a great Southwest staycation. What a superb opportunity for family and friends. There’s nothing quite like watching summer thunderstorms roll across the Sangres from the snug safety of Leopold’s expansive front porch.Tres Piedras, where Aldo Leopold’s bungalow “Mi Casita” can be rented, has a nearby climbing area historically named by the Spanish as Tres Piedras, which consists of three large stone outcroppings that can be seen for miles from the north and south.Andrew Gulliford, an award-winning author and editor, is professor of history at Fort Lewis College. Reach him at andy@agulliford.com.]]></content:encoded>
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