Craig,

I'm writing to you because I know that you are on the Board of ONDA and can make sure that my observations are shared appropriately.  If my name sounds familiar, it's because we met years ago at your place at Summer Lake.  I visited with 3 teenage birders and Kit Larsen.  That may have been the first time that you and Kit met.  I know that you've worked together since then.

I recently spent 5 days at Hart Mountain, using Hot Springs camp as my base and hiking and driving extensively from the west side flats to the top of Warner Peak.  On my fourth day of looking out over that spectacular, expansive and senic country a small thought began to form in my mind.  In a second or two it moved into full awareness: there are no fences!  How subtle, but how magnificent the difference!  I'd been looking at a vast natural landscape unbroken by a fence line for four days.  All the breaks were the natural ones: a hill, an aspen grove, a rock cliff, a draw, a green spring...but none of the unnatural straight fence lines that cover the west and that I have accepted for 30 years as an unavoidable part of the experience.  Wow, what a difference!

It's a great experience to hike across the desert without having to climb over or under a fence now and then.  But it is a visual treasure to look out on hundreds of square miles of desert lands unbroken by fence lines.

Please give my thanks to ONDA and all the volunteers who worked so hard to restore the land.  I was going to write to the staff of Hart Mt separately, but just decided to include them on the CC.  Thanks to everyone on the refuge staff who worked to make this fence free refuge a reality.  Fourteen years is a long time, but the results will pay dividends forever.

Stephen Pruch

Eugene, Oregon