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Tuesday, December 25, 2007
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It's a beautiful white Christmas here in Denver. As of 8:00 a.m. it's snowing hard up here on the north side. Coyote Gulch wishes everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. May all your Christmases be white.
Thanks to Hellchild for the link. Llega Navidad, y yo sin vos.
8:04:22 AM 
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Say hello to DowntheRiver.org a, "21st Century expedition down the Green & Colorado Rivers from Wyoming to Nevada September to November 2007." Here are some excerpts from The Missoulian:
A journey of 1,000 miles turned into 1,400 before ending on the night of Dec. 8-9, as Jennifer Sauer and Josh Mahan lay flat on their bellies on an island in the lower Colorado River. Bullets - at least a couple hundred of them, Mahan estimated - whizzed over their heads. They were 100 miles from their adjusted goal of Yuma, Ariz., where the Colorado peters out. Mahan said three men on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation side of the river opened fire in the dark for 10-15 minutes as the floaters hid behind their meager tent. Mahan and Sauer pulled off the river the next morning. They never learned who the shooters were. They'd been warned, they said, of potential hostilities as they neared Mexico, and figure the gunshots were scare tactics. "They were shooting over us. They knew we were there," Sauer said last week from her family's home in Denver. "It was a terrifying encounter, but it's interesting. We saw so much on this trip, and we saw everything change so much - the landscape changed, the river changed. But eventually it was the human element that changed so much it finally ended our trip."
The 3 1/2-month journey was launched in late August in Green River, Wyo. It began with four people, waxed to as many as 15, and waned to just Mahan and Sauer for the final 400 miles below the Grand Canyon. Their intent, as stated on a Web site that was periodically updated, was to retrace the 1,000-mile exploration of the Green and Colorado rivers of John Wesley Powell in 1869. Buzz Holmstrom led a subsequent running of the rivers in 1937. Mahan is a professional guide and journalist who grew up south of Darby and graduated from the University of Montana. Sauer, a 2001 UM graduate and marathon runner, quit her job on the copy desk at the Missoulian to make the trip. Their companion for most of the way was Mike Roselle, a writer and co-founder of Earth First! who once climbed Mount Rushmore to hang a gas mask on George Washington to protest acid rain. Roselle, Mahan and Sauer were recruited for the trip by former Missoula guide Bob Scholl, who left the expedition after 16 days and later rejoined the party with the permits to run the Grand Canyon. The goal, Mahan wrote on Downtheriver.org, was "to chronicle the 1,000-mile journey, and sort through the host of environmental and social issues that have woven around the West's most prominent drainage along the way." They floated past six states and through four of America's permitted canyon sections, the fourth being the Grand Canyon. Some of the obstacles mirrored those faced by the early expeditions. They lost a boat in rapids below Flaming Gorge Dam, and whitewater wreaked havoc in the Grand Canyon.
Read the whole article.
Category: Colorado Water
7:33:24 AM
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Here's a look at an water education program called "Creek Connections" in El Paso County. The program gets kids out of the classroom to learn about the connectedness of human activities and water. Here are some excerpts from The Colorado Springs Gazette:
The nearly 1,000 square miles in the Fountain Creek watershed are plagued by wastewater spills, frequent flooding and erosion that chips away at the foundations of roads and houses. Leaders in the eight cities it passes through are trying to find solutions, but, like most issues involving water and the West, there aren't easy answers. Now they're getting help from an unlikely source: local students such as 16-year-old Sarah Sousa, who recently was studying a small creek near The Grace Center. "It's nice getting out of the classroom," Sousa said. "It's more hands-on." Sousa was with other St. Mary's High School students as part of Creek Connections, a field study of local watersheds that teaches students about the connection the community has to its waterways. Part of the curriculum involves performing stream water analysis, which these students have done twice a month at The Grace Center since September.
Developed in Pennsylvania, Creek Connections was brought to Colorado Springs via Laura Tuel, who was an intern in the program at Allegheny College. Tuel was hired as director of education at the Catamount Institute in September. Tuel, with the help of Colorado College intern Paige Bedell, has adapted the Pennsylvania program for Colorado and led two half-day teacher workshops on Creek Connections that were attended by 40 teachers from more than 30 local schools. The workshops were designed to pique educators' interest in teaching the program in their classrooms next semester...
Students in Creek Connections are studying the Fountain Creek watershed. Mary Williams is teaching Creek Connections to her applied chemistry and ecology classes at St. Mary's. "Right now, we're collecting background data," Williams said. "One week, the turbidity is really high, or the dissolved oxygen might be low or the pH real off. We say, 'What can we do about this?'"[...]
"We're touching all grade levels, K-12," Tuel said. "You don't have to be a certain age or anything like that. We just adapt. Everyone needs to learn about water." All three third-grade classes at Manitou Springs Elementary are participating in Creek Connections this year -- a total of 71 students. Christi Marquardt, a thirdgrade teacher and six-year veteran of the district, said her students are becoming empowered...
Students in the program will display results and conclusions about the watershed at a Creek Connections symposium to be held at Colorado College in April.
Category: Colorado Water
7:20:20 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
1/1/08; 1:31:50 PM.
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