Urban and wild define the New West — fast-growing cities nestled in Wallace Stegner’s “geography of hope.” The art, the history and the food of New Mexico have been commoditized, for obvious reasons. But many of its special places are intact, and owned by every American because of the Wilderness Act, which dates to the fertile years of Stewart Udall’s reign as the emperor of the outdoors.
Mark Udall has climbed every one of Colorado’s 54 peaks over 14,000 feet (and has come within 3,000 feet of the summit of Everest). Tom Udall is the driving force behind legislation that saved the spectacular Valle Vidal in northern New Mexico from the predations of Dick Cheney and his allies.
From a longer piece by Timothy Egan on the Udalls and Democrats in the Southwest. Egan is one of the very best contemporary writers on the West anything.
Egan’s The Worst Hard Time is especially good. It won the National Book Award.