Email this article
Printable version
Mountain Studies eyes Silverton site
10-acre parcel would host area research center
Herald Staff Writer
Photo by JERRY McBRIDE/Herald
The Outward Bound Colorado camp on the outskirts of Silverton – lodge and cabins – that the Mountain Studies Institute wants to buy for a research center are seen Tuesday from an adjacent hillside. The Animas River, which the property borders, isn’t visible, but lies between the camp and the historic Lackawanna Mill in the background. The institute is trying to raise $1.5 million to buy and develop the site.
Click image to enlarge
Photo by Courtesy of Richard Sales of the University of Colorado at Denver
The research center envisioned by the Mountain Studies Institute is seen in an architectural concept.
Photo by Courtesy of Richard Sales of the University of Colorado at Denver
The research center envisioned by the Mountain Studies Institute is seen in an architectural concept.
Photo by Jerry McBride/Herald
Jim Donovan, operations manager for the Mountain Studies Institute, and Katy Rende, a volunteer from the Western Hardrock Watershed Team, inspect the Outward Bound Colorado camp on Tuesday.
Photo by Jerry McBride/Herald
This pond is one of several riparian features of the Outward Bound Colorado camp on the outskirts of Silverton.
The Mountain Studies Institute, formed eight years ago to foster collaboration among researchers, educators and policymakers interested in mountain systems worldwide, wants to build a research center in Silverton that would accommodate visiting scientists. It would also host a central database to make the result of investigations as close as the nearest computer.
The institute, with headquarters at Fort Lewis College and a field station in Silverton, likes the home of Outward Bound Colorado - 10 acres and several buildings on the outskirts of Silverton - for the center and is trying to raise $1.5 million to buy and develop the site.
"There's a mountain of data that isn't available," institute director Koren Nydick said Monday. "We have to organize it and use it better for the benefit of the community and decision makers." A research center, secluded but within walking distance of town, would serve three purposes, Nydick said. It would be a base for international researchers, an educational center for regional and out-of-state students, and a motor to drive the local economy.
Jason Neff, an associate professor in the geosciences department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has done his own research in the San Juans and has taken students there in summer and winter to study the rate and history of dust deposition on the region's snowfields.
"Researchers from a number of universities have worked in the San Juans on a variety of projects," Neff said. "A facility to support researchers would be useful." Among present or past projects conducted in the San Juan Mountains: • A Fort Lewis College biology professor is studying the effect of early snowmelt - occasioned by warmer temperatures - on a dozen alpine plant species.
• A University of Colorado doctorate candidate studied the possible effect of global warming on the pika, a rabbit relative, that inhabits rocky terrain in alpine regions.
• An entomologist is interested in the aquatic-insect communities whose presence or absence reflects water quality and, by extension, the overall health of the watershed.
• A Bureau of Land Management hydrologist is monitoring the accumulation of precipitation-deposited mercury at Molas Pass, an area that receives a large amount of rain and snow, in order to compare with Mesa Verde, where there is little precipitation.
• Academics study sphagnum mosses in fens - delicate wetlands formed over millennia that can be geologic time capsules containing rare plant and animal life.
"Mountains are the only physiographic feature that acts like a dipstick through the atmosphere to record vertical changes in climate through time," said Rob Blair, president of the Mountain Studies Institute board of directors and a retired Fort Lewis College geology professor. "This field station will help MSI to do just that as well as serve many of the nine to 14 college and university field camps that occupy our hills each year." FLC support for Mountain Studies Institute dates from the tenure of former college president Kendall Blanchard, said Blair, who taught for 28 years at FLC.
He recalled showing Blanchard the Silverton area soon after his arrival and mentioning the possibility of having an international research center there.
Blanchard immediately foresaw becoming the Woods Hole of mountain research, Blair said.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the Massachusetts town of the same name is synonymous with top-notch marine research.
Post a comment
durangoherald.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post.
Read our full policy.
Guidelines: You share in the The Durango Herald community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Read more.
advertisement
A beautiful 640-acre ranch with great views of the Black & Barble Mtns. Only 25 mins east of Cortez, gateway to the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde & the Ute Tribal Park. Here, in the archaeological heartland of the US, vast cultural resources & outdoor recreation opportunities await your discovery. Bordered on 3 sides by thousands of acres of BLM lands, this ranch is an exceptional hunting property. $875,000
Durango Herald Calendar of Events
