THE ROADRUNNER
January, 2001
Volume 49 Number 1
A Bi-monthly Publication
of The Kern-Kaweah Chapter Of The Sierra Club
Box 3357, Bakersfield, CA 93385-3357
(661) 323-5569
E-mail: kern-kaweah.chapter@sierraclub.org
January 2001 Calendar of Events
Every Thursday Evening Conditioning Hike. 4-5 miles in northeast Bakersfield area. Meet at 7 pm at the Chevron station at the corner of Highways 178 and 184. Call Leaders Eva & Gordon Nipp (661) 872-2432 or Larry Wailes, (661) 861-1186 for details.
Jan. 15 (Mon) Owens Peak Group Monthly Meeting. Speaker to be determined later. Meet at Maturango Museum, 100 E. Las Flores. 7:30 pm. Call Dennis at760-375-7967 for details.
Jan. 20 (Sat) Nicolls Peak (6070')Hike. Great views of So. Fork Valley from this impressive looking peak, also tungsten mine. Gain 2700+ ft. Class 2-3 climbing. Meet at Ridgecrest Cinemas. Call Dennis at 760-375-7967 for further information.
Feb.19 (Mon) Owens Peak Group Monthly Meeting. Steve Smith will show slides of the western Mediterranean. Meet at Maturango Museum, 100 E. Las Flores. 7:30 p. m. Ridgecrest. Call Dennis at 760-375-7967 or Jeanie at 760-375-8973 details.
Mary Ann Lockhart to Assume Editorship
Beginning next month The Roadrunner will be edited by Mary Ann Lockhart (email jmal@frazmtn.com). Mary Ann plans to have the February Roadrunner out by approximately February 1. The next issue of The Roadrunner will be out two months later, around April 1 and every 2 months after that. Mary Ann has done an outstanding job editing the on-line newsletter for the Condor Group and we look forward to her editorship of The Roadrunner.
Kern-Kaweah Chapter Website
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter Website is
If you wish to receive The Roadrunner online, contact Lorraine Unger at alunger@juno.com. Please specify whether you still wish to receive a paper copy of The Roadrunner by U.S. Mail.
Get Involved in the California Wild Heritage Campaign
California has millions of acres of unprotected wilderness areas and thousands of miles of unprotected wild rivers. The Sierra Club along with Friends of the River, California Wilderness Coalition, The Wilderness Society and dozens of other conservation groups, has started a campaign to protect these vulnerable places. The California Wild Heritage Campaign (CWHC) will succeed because of the support of both local communities and a diverse, statewide coalition in support of unprotected wild rivers and wilderness.
THE CWHC has succeeded the initial inventory effort which started in 1997 as Wildlands 2000. Sierra Club, through our California/Nevada Regional Wilderness Committee and many interested volunteers around the state, has been closely involved from the beginning. This campaign is an ideal opportunity to bring to play the Sierra Club's unique strength - combining outings with a conservation campaign! We look to 2001 to be our big year for Sierra Club outings to areas we need to protect. Outings are the best way to educate the public and get local support for protecting our areas. Outings to "candidate" wilderness areas are the number one way our wilderness committee aims to focus the Sierra Club's campaign effort. There are other ways to help too.
Get involved in this historic effort to help protect our last wild lands and rivers. Join volunteers from across the state who are studying and mapping potential wilderness areas and wild & scenic rivers. You can also team up with activists working in your community to build support for protecting these special places.
You may find find an updated list of events and full schedule of activities in your area at www.californiawild.org. The Sierra Club's Regional Wilderness Committee is working closely with CWHC staff to mobilize as many Sierra Club volunteers to become active in the campaign. To find out more about the campaign and how you can help effectively in your locality, contact me, Vicky Hoover, regional wilderness chair at 415-977-5527 or contact Joe Fontaine, 661-821-2055, joe.fontaine@sierraclub.org, our chapter's liaison to the regional wilderness committee.
Check out the wilderness campaign on the web! Sign up for updates and alerts. Visit us at www.californiawild.org.
- Vicky Hoover, CNRCC Wilderness Chair
No Trail
I love a trail to follow - the feet are just pulled along. Best if smooth with gentle grades, it leads on mile after mile and ... surely i'm getting there?
Unarrived, it peters out - no trail reaches where I must. Scrambling across bogs, up scree, foreced to heed shapes underfoot, lay of moraine, marker trees.
Iron-stained rocks, back and forth I hop a dry watercourse. Feet so bruised but can't stop now - it's farther yet. Just maybe over that next bare-edged ridge.
© Narayan
Midgebuzzings
Those of us who live in and around Bakersfield and Kernville are fortunate to be near some of the finest roadless mountain land to be found in the Sequoia National Forest. We can, on a single day's excursion, without the hiking legs of a Sherpa, leave the blighted air and accelerated noise and commerce of the valley, and enter into another world, much of which is still beautiful and serene. When we travel the road along the Kern River to Kernville and beyond, we are in a kind of corridor, with steep mountain wildlands to the right and the left of us which support an abundance of animal species and an amazing variety of trees, shrubs and flowers. We can leave the valley in the morning, lunch at the foot of a giant redwood, listen to the music of chickadees and cascading streams, breathe the sweet air of a conifer forest, and be home in time for supper.
Now, even with national leadership less friendly to natural values than we have had for the last eight years, we have an opportunity to speak out for the preservation of these unique Kern Wildlands. Only Congress has the power to establish wilderness boundaries, and Senator Barbara Boxer has said that she will support wilderness status for these lands if she can be convinced, by enough letters from local citizens, that such a designation is important to us. After the Forest Service failed to come up with a good plan in response to President Clinton's proposal for better management of "priceless back-country lands", there was a massive citizen protest. Twenty-three thousand citizens attended meetings hosted by the Forest Service, and people wrote 1.5 million letters and postcards demanding improvement, and prompting Dan Glickman, overseer of the Forest Service, to exclaim: "Never before have the American people so actively participated in helping to decide how their public lands should be managed!" The Forest Service responded with a more protective plan. Our letters, email messages, cards and phone calls do count, and with enough of them we get action.
The best protection for imperiled plants and wildlife, and against the watershed-damaging activities of logging and offroad vehicle traffic, is wilderness status. You can become one of the Americans who have so impressed government officials, by writing a letter in support of wilderness for the Kern Wildlands. Address your letter to Senator Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senate, 112 Hart Building, Washington DC. You might mention the value of these lands to a fast-growing number of valley citizens for outdoor recreation such as camping, hiking, rafting, fishing, photography and nature appreciation, and the revenue that visitors will bring to all kinds of local businesses. If you live in the southern San Joaquin Valley or near Kernville, your letter will be especially helpful. Send it to: Kern Wildlands, 3ll2 Linden Avenue, Bakersfield, California.
Letters should be mailed before February 20th, and will be forwarded in a packet to Senator Boxer before March l. I thank you in advance for your help.
© Ann Williams, 2001
Officers and Committee Chairpeople
Executive Committee (All but noted codes are 661)
Chair: Glenn Shellcross, shellcrossg@earthlink.net 832-3382; Vice-Chair: Monte Harper; Secretary: Bonnie East, 832-9775; Treasurer: Gordon Nipp; Assistant Treasurer: Larry Wailes; Conservation: Ara Maderosian sfa@lightspeed.net; At Large: Arthur Unger, , Mary Ann Lockhart; Richard Garcia, Gordon Nipp.
RCC Delegates: Bonnie East, Glenn Shellcross;
Alternates: Neil Fernbaugh, Lorraine Unger
Committee Chairpeople: Conservation: Ara Maderosian; Membership: Lorraine Unger, 323-5569; Political and Compliance: Harry and Kathy Love; Council Rep: Arthur Unger; Outings: Theresa Stump, 559-781-0594; Publicity: Paul Gipe; State and Local Government: Neil Fernbaugh; Legal:Georgette Theotig; Fundraising: Richard Garcia; History: Michelle Hoffman and amp; Ann Williams; Environmental Ed.: Joe Fontaine, ; Phone Tree: Mary Ann Lockhart; Air Quality: Art Unger; Biodiversity: Harold Wood; Endangered Species: Art Unger: Energy: Paul Gipe; Environmental Justice: Art Powell; Forest Organizer: Ara Marderosian; Population Growth: Glenn Shellcross; Urban:Lorraine Unger; Wilderness/Parks/Refuges: Joe Fontaine and Gordon Nipp; Waste: Lorraine and Art Unger.
Kaweah Group (Porterville, area code 559)
Chair: Theresa Stump, 781-0594; VC: Diane Jetter; Conservation: Carla Cloer; Outings: Jim Clark
Mineral King Group: (Visalia & Hanford, 559)
Chair: Harold Wood harold.wood@sierraclub.orgVice-Chair: Mary Moy sierraprimrose@ca.freei.net (559) 625-0287
Conservation Chair: Neil Fernbaugh, marmot@lightspeed.net (559) 798-0343
Membership and Social: Beverly Garcia gmachine@psnw.com (559) 592-9865
Outings: Brian Newton xchiker@lightspeed.net (559) 627-3571
Secretary: Nina Stone (559) 734-7362
Treasurer: Janet Wood jswood@mediaone.net (559) 739-8527
Fundraising: Richard Garcia gmachine@psnw.com (559) 592-9865
Environmental Education and Webmaster: Harold Wood harold.wood@sierraclub.org
Owens Peak Group (Desert Area Code 760)
Chair: Dennis Burge, 375-7967; V.C.: Steve Smith; Conservation: Jeanie Haye; Treasurer: Dolph Amster; At Large: Dororthy Vokolek; Outings: Don Peterson, 375-8599
Condor Group (Frazier Park & Pine Mountain)
Chair: Chester Arthur ches@frazmtn.com ; Membership: Barbara Matthews; Outings: Ray Albridge & Harry Nelson; Conservation: Kevin Royle; Hospitality: Elsbeth Feldman; Publicity; Karen Cotter: Treas: Jean & Ed Rustvold; Ast Treas: M Albridge; Newsletter: Mary Ann Lockhart; At Large: Marta Bigler
Editor: Commencing February 1, 2001: Mary Ann Lockhart
(email jmal@frazmtn.com
PO GG
Frazier Park, CA 93222
Telephone (661) 242-0432
Want to submit an article for the Road Runner or express opinions?
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Deadline: 5th
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Copyrighted articles, graphics and photos can only be reprinted with the owners permission.
Published 12 times per year by the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club, Bakersfield, CA. All non-copyrighted material printed in the Roadrunner may be reprinted in any Sierra Club publications with acknowledgement.
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter newsletter is available at the Sierra Club website. You can save the Chapter mailing costs and save a tree by notifying us if you want your paper copy discontinued. Please e-mail Lorraine Unger at alunger@juno.com with your name and your membership number (found on the label). Any one who wants an extra hard copy anytime call (661) 323-5569.
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