OBITUARIES

Boyd Quinn

October 22, 1927 - February 21, 2023

Writers On The Range

What’s coming next is clear. Some mountain bikers, led by the Sustainable Trails Coalition, have introduced legislation to exempt mountain bikes from the prohibition on mechanized travel in Wilderness. en there are the trail runners who want exemptions from the ban on commercial trail racing. Drone pilots and hang-gliders also want their forms of aircraft exempted.

What’s confounding is that climbing is already allowed in Wilderness. is bill is simply about using xed bolts to climb as opposed to using removable protection. at’s apparently confusing to some people.

An article in the Salt Lake Tribune went so far as to wrongly state that, “a ban on anchors would be tantamount to a ban on climbing in wilderness areas.”

But now, even some climbers are pushing back. e Montana writer George Ochenski, known for his decades of rst ascents in Wilderness, calls the Tribune’s position “Total bullsh*t.” In an e-mail, he said bolting routes “bring ‘sport climbing’ into the wilderness when it belongs in the gym or on non-wilderness rocks.”

For decades, many climbers have advocated for a marriage of climbing and wilderness ethics. In Chouinard Equipment’s rst catalog, Patagonia founder and legendary climber Yvon Chouinard called for an ethic of “clean climbing” that comes from “the exercise of moral restraint and individual responsibility.”

We don’t like to think of recreation as consumptive, but it consumes the diminishing resource of space. And protected space is in short supply as stressors on the natural world increase. With every “user group” demand, the refuge for wild animals grows smaller. Meanwhile, a startling number of our animal counterparts have faded into extinction.

As someone who loves trail running, I understand the allure of wedding a love of wild places with the love of adventure and sport. But I’ve also come to see that the ip side of freedom is restraint, and Wilderness needs our restraint more than ever.

Dana Johnson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonpro t dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is a sta attorney and policy director for Wilderness Watch, a national wilderness nonpro t.

After 95 years of good living, Boyd Quinn – husband of Audrey, father of Scott, Kathi and Casey, grandfather of Amanda, Casey James, Davis, Jensen and Aurora, friend of too many to name and community builder extraordinaire – passed quietly in his sleep on February 21st, 2023. Born in Wichita, KS, on October 27th, 1927, Boyd became a resident of Clear Creek County at 4 yrs old when he settled into his home at the corner of Fall River Road and Hwy’s 6 & 40 with his mother, Anna and his older brother Harold. In high school, Boyd played drums in the Idaho Springs Drum and Bugle Corp but changed to the bugle after a winter of carrying his snare drum home from what is now Carlson Elementary School to his home on Fall River Road. Following his graduation from high school, Boyd served as a Marine at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii following WWII. He returned to Idaho Springs, married Audrey Meisel (also an Idaho Springs graduate) and started a family. As a “bulldozer man” for Clear Creek County, Boyd earned a state-wide reputation for his skills for quickly clearing the highway following the Disney Avalanche on Berthoud Pass in 1957. Boyd put his skills to work building the Guanella

Pass road and then volunteering to do “the dirt work” to clear and level what became the high school football eld. Boyd and Audrey were two of the founding members of the “Idaho Springs Auto Racing Club, Inc.” established in January of 1959. e racetrack was the very same ground that Boyd later dedicated hours of his life to building a baseball program upon and is now known as “Boyd Quinn Field.” Boyd went to work for e Coors Porcelain Company in the early 60’s as an “experimental technician” and worked on projects such as the ceramic studs for snow tires, the ceramic putter and parts for the space shuttle. Boyd also served as the Boy Scout Pack Leader of Troop #91 and was known by many for his beautiful tenor voice when singing with the United Methodist Church choir. Boyd was a quiet man whose legacy is his commitment to his family and community. He joins his wife, Audrey and his grand-daughter, Amanda Capper, in the great playground in the sky. Boyd’s did not want a celebration of life service. e family requests donations be made in his name to the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank.