Letters: Straight Up, with a List

I was hit with an odd sense of d‰j€ vu after reading that the inspiration for "The List" (December) was John Goddard. Back in 1966 I was 17 years old, and Goddard gave a slide presentation about one of his trips at my high school. His "wish list" had a profound effect on my life, for it was then that I decided that what really mattered to me was travel and adventure. I must say, it's been a long, strange trip — and I have no regrets.

I applaud your list of 100 ideas toward a larger life. Having pondered that very idea, I took the last two years off, bought some horses, wrote a novel, lived through a harrowing night in the Sierra as a pissed-off bear tore up our camp, and more. Now I don't know whether to go back to work or just give in and start the whole thing over again.

Your roundup of 100 adventures for a lifetime led me, as I'm sure it did others, to dream up my own list. I live in Alaska, which to most people means I spend endless time hiking, kayaking, and mushing. What I really do is what everyone else does — I work. And in my free time, I fix up the house, go out for community meetings and Thai food. What I want to do is take an entire summer off and kayak Prince William Sound, stay in a cabin in the Sound's remote southeastern corner, catch salmon and watch sea lions. Then I'll head to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and watch a herd of caribou in migration over the tundra. Thanks for the inspiration.

Playing with Fire

I read with great interest Robert Boynton's report on last fall's fire at Vail Resorts ("Powder Burn," January). While it's difficult to condone arson as a method of protest, it's even harder to sympathize with Vail Associates, which seems to insist on holding its responsibility to stockholders above its responsibility to our environment. By condemning the Earth Liberation Front for the fire, we lose sight of the real villain. Edward Abbey once asked, "Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?"

I take issue with Robert Boynton's reference to the recent Vail fires as "the most costly act of ecoterrorism on record." What about Chernobyl, or the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which cost billions to clean up? Or the Union Carbide toxic gas escape in Bhopal, India, which killed more than 3,500 people? The arson fire at Vail is touted as a $12 million loss, but it's harder to pin down a dollar figure on these other "ecoterrorism" events.

To Fido, with Love

In a recent Wild File column on taxonomy ("How do scientists classify species?" January), you say that "several species of birds and fish are known to mate outside their kin." I'm afraid the problem is not the animals, but the biologists who have historically defined new species for their own purposes. Consider the wolf, Canis lupus. The dog is Canis familiaris, so wolves and dogs are different species. However, wolves and dogs mate. They are different species only because some past biologist named them so. Furthermore, a German shepherd is more like a wolf than a Chihuahua. If any critter should be a different species, it's the Chihuahua.

We Having Fun, Yeti?

In "Yeti or Vot" (December), the date of Reinhold Messner's oxygenless solo Everest ascent is incorrect. Messner and Peter Habler climbed Everest without oxygen in 1978. Messner soloed it in August 1980, as described in his book The Crystal Horizon.

Recently, your magazine lampooned an American living legend, Mr. Gregg Allman, by likening his appearance and odor to those of a yeti. I have crafted this response. It's titled "He Ain't Yeti, He's a Brother," and it should be sung to the tune of Allman's "Whipping Post."

Gregg Allman doesn't look like a yeti, man. Well, maybe a little when he was in that movie Rush. But c'mon, at least Gregg Allman exists. And he puts out music a hell of a lot better than a damn yeti could.

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