The Ranchers and The Military Can't Be Friends

For those of you who don't know, I am currently working for Colorado Preservation Inc. as a survey intern. I am working on two survey projects in southeast Colorado. One is in Baca County surveying rural resources. It is an entire county with no stoplights, 7 restaurants and 2 drive through liquor stores. My fellow intern and I are driving all of the dirt roads in the county and finding a lot of abandoned buildings, quanset huts and dugouts.

Today, I worked on the other survey project in Las Animas County. This is the Ranching Survey that is being done is response to the proposed Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site expansion. For more information from the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition go to www.pinoncanyon.com. The ranchers are working hard to save their land and their way of life.

This morning we met Jerry the rancher at an old store called "Walt's Corner". He led Abbey, my boss, Richard, an archaeologist, and me to several historic homesteads on his ranch. We also went to a whiskey still that dates from prohibition. I crawled into the space between the cliff and the stone wall that was built to hide the still. We also found lots of stone foundations, vigas, dugouts and corrals. I learned a lot listening to Richard talk about the pieces of worked glass, iron and ceramics that he found on the surface.

After a rapid lunch, we traveled to John's ranch where we found more homesteads and a potential community along the Old Trinidad Road. John took us to Miner's Peak where we climbed a "lava dome". At the top of the besalt mound we found multiple prehistoric petroglyphs in the rock face and a beautiful view.

Back in Trinidad this evening, Abbey and I went to Fort Carson's (the fort that sends troops to the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site) presentation/public comment of their 900 page Environmental Impact Statement. However, this EIS statement isn't about the expansion of the Pinon Canyon Site but about constructing buildings to put more troops on the site. Obviously, the ranchers see this as a way to induce the expansion of the site. Once they agree to put more people on the site then they will "need" to have more land. There were a lot of passionate, angry people in cowboy hats and a lot of emotionally empty people with fancy nametags. So, eventhough the ranchers are mostly pro-military and pro-America they can't be friends with people that are lying to them and trying to overtake their way of life.

Well, tomorrow, we are back at John's ranch to see more homesteads and have more adventures...