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Fire Services Appreciation Day this Saturday Page 5
Student Noelani Garing Disovers a Piece of Her Heritage for Senior Project
St. Thomas Playhouse Students stage Thoroughly Modern Millie, Jr. and Fame — The Musical this week
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Kris Olenick Shares her Spiced Balck Bean Burger Recipe Page 15
read about it on PaGe 4
J u n e 2 0 , 2 0 1 2 • V o l . 5 • N o . 2 5 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Christensen’s Wild Side
The Idaho Conservation League acquaints people with parts of the Sun Valley area they might not otherwise venture into, such as this foray to Baker Peak.
ICL Summer Hiking Series STORY & PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
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he Idaho Conservation League has finalized its summer hiking series. First up: a watercolor painting hike with Dayna Gross at Silver Creek Preserve. “The summer hiking series is a great way to experience some of the wonders of our backyard and to meet new people. The hike leaders are a fantastic group of locals with knowledge to share,� said Brett Stevenson, who heads up the ICL office in Ketchum. “The hikes help foster an appreciation for our spectacular natural surroundings. They’re fun. And they vary widely from short, easy hikes to more adventurous off-trail hikes— there is something for everyone.� Here’s the lineup: Saturday, June 23-Silver Creek: Watercolor Painting with Dayna Gross, Silver Creek Preserve manager and artist. It will be less hiking and more painting than last year. Just a short distance from the visitor’s center we will settle down by the water for a lovely morning of painting. Bring watercolors or other painting or drawing supplies. Less than 1 mile. Easy. Call 726-7485 to make a reservation. Saturday, June 30-Trail Creek Headwaters: Exploring with Miles Teitge Venture. Visit remote and very scenic canyons with Miles. Expect good views, lots of wild flowers, and some time off-trail. 8.5 miles. Difficult. Call 726-7485 to make a reservation Saturday, July 7-Prairie Creek: Mountain Goats with Ed Cannady, backcountry recreation manager with the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. We will scurry around in mountain goat territory, keeping our eyes peeled for the majestic creatures. 8 miles. Moderate to Difficult. Call 726-7485 to make a reservation. Saturday, July 14-Headwaters of the Big Wood River: Discover the source of the water of the Wood River Valley with Dr. Wendy Pabich, hydrologist and environmental scientist. Do you ever wonder where the Big Wood River starts? This is an off-trail adventure following the river to the source. 4.5 miles, 1,500-foot elevation gain. Moderate to Difficult. Call 7267485 to make a reservation. Saturday, July 21-Galena: Avalanche Ecology with Blase Reardon, avalanche forecaster for the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center. Hike around the Galena area to view
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STORY & PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
A
nn Christensen leaps onto a log straddling Eagle Creek as she spots a snake wiggling on it. Dropping to her stomach, she reaches down and pulls the 2-foot-long snake off the log to the delight of the youngsters watching her. “It pooped on me,� she exclaims, as the kids gather around her. “Wasn’t that a mean thing to do to a snake?—to scare it like that? There’s no way these guys can hurt us at all.� “How do you know so much?� a darkeyed girl asks her. “Well, honey, I’m old and I’ve been studying a long time,� Ann tells her. Indeed, Ann Christensen is now in her 70s. But she approaches the world around her with the wide-eyed reverence and curiosity of the very kids she leads on walks to examine ants and plants and slugs and bugs. “I worry about the kids now. They spend so much time on technology. If you don’t learn to love nature, who’s going to take care of it?� says Christensen. Christensen has become an indispensible part of the Wood River Valley—from sitting on the floor examining caterpillars with 3- to 5-year-olds at The Community Library’s Tuesday morning Science hours, to donating week-long stays at her oceanside Casa Akumal in Mexico, to nearly every fundraiser in the Valley For all that and more, members of the Wood River Land Trust chose her for this year’s Blaine County Historical Museum Heritage Court, which honors women who have contributed to the rich fabric of life in the Valley. Although she had skied here before, Christensen’s real introduction to the Sun Valley area came in 1977 when she and her late husband Doug led a 10-day Sierra Club backpacking trip into the White Clouds near Castle Peak during the last week of August. “It snowed almost every day. But the
last day the sun passed through, giving us a glimpse of how beautiful the area was,� she recalled. “We went to the Sun Valley Lodge all grungy and dripping wet and set up a tent in our room. And we stayed through Labor Day, while our daughters got to ride bicycles all over and we got to experience all that the weekend had to offer. And that sold us.� The following winter when they returned to ski, Doug took off with local realtor Stan Potts looking at ranches from East Fork to Stanley while Ann went heli-skiing. The next day Ann found herself following outfitter Sheila Leonard into the Circle A Ranch, which the Forest Service had been trying to keep Boise businessmen from subdividing. It was so reasonably priced, Ann said, that she and her husband bought it. And they moved there full time in 1983 after daughter Amy graduated from eighth grade. Moving from Marin County in northern California was hard for Ann, who loved teaching her middle school science students about everything from seabirds to spiders. But the family hadn’t even finished unpacking at their Stanley Basin home near the Park Creek ski area before she found a new mission: saving the salmon. Noticing salmon stranded in the irrigation ditches, Ann emptied the moving boxes and began scooping the salmon up. Then, she and her two daughters Eloise and Amy carried the fish back to Valley Creek. It would not be the last of the Christensens’ work on behalf of endangered salmon. Ann and Doug led the way when Idaho Rivers United became the first group in Idaho to press for the removal of the four lower Snake River dams. They helped develop a New York Times advertising campaign to bring national attention to Idaho’s endangered salmon and steelhead runs. They raised funds to travel
Ann Christensen holds her new Havanese Bichon—the kind of dog that Cubans use to herd chickens. It was her parting gift from her husband of 51 years before he passed away a few months ago. PHOTOS AT TOP (Left-Right) • Christensen always has plaster tracks in tow as she heads out on animal tracking workshops for the Environmental Resource Center. • Christensen checks out a snake with students in her Ants and Plants class. • Christensen talks butterflies with a young Nicky Allen.
to Washington, D.C., to lobby for salmon restoration. And they hit the streets of Ketchum collecting signatures on behalf of the fish. Come winter, Ann and Cathy Baer got renowned tracker Bruce Thompson to put on an animal-tracking workshop in Sun Valley. Christensen has led workshops every winter since, teaching people how to read the snow and piece together sto-
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