Staff writer Deborah Schoch's article "An Axle to Grind" (Oct. 23) was a fine example of why urban readers have such different attitudes about public lands than small-town and rural residents.
While Schoch terms John Gatchell as an "investigative hiker," it's not for nine paragraphs that she finally gets around to mentioning that Gatchell is a green activist, hired by the Montana Wilderness Assn. in 1985 and now its conservation director. Unlike his opponents trying to retain access to public land for play and for work, Gatchell is paid for, as Schoch put it, his "preaching."
Part of the reason that the debate over access in Montana is so vitriolic is because environmental groups get millions in tax-free grants for purely political activity while claiming their spin is "public education."
DAVE SKINNER
Whitefish, Mont.
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Deborah Schoch's balanced and objective article about ATVs in Montana is deja vu for California off-roaders. Montanans could learn much from our experience with the California desert in the '70s and '80s, when we motorcyclists stubbornly cultivated a previously absent environmental ethic and established the user-funded Green Sticker program.