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Letter: Just because I can’t walk into the wilderness doesn’t mean I oppose having it

(Lennie Mahler | The Salt Lake Tribune) Clouds linger in the view from Lone Peak summit Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016.

Rainier Huck, in his March 3 letter, pretends to champion the aged and the disabled in his protest against wilderness designation. I don’t think that Mr. Huck speaks for me.

I am 66 years old, I have MS, and when I get tired my left foot will drag. I can no longer go as deep into wilderness as I once did. But I would never want to despoil it with roads and gasoline power vehicles just so I can go deeper into it. That would be the height of selfishness.

I am grateful that wilderness exists, that there will always be wilderness, and that our children and their children’s children will have unspoiled wilderness to explore and appreciate. Wilderness is not a poison for the people of Utah, it’s a therapeutic.

Even though Mr. Huck has millions of acres of federal land he can denude with his dirt bike, he still covets the small remaining places that aren’t carved up by gasoline-powered recreation. I think that is a very selfish outlook, and to pretend to claim he is concerned about the aged and disabled is duplicitous and sad.

Michael W. Loring, Cottonwood Heights

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