By Chris McCracken, Public Affairs Committee

But that's exactly what the 100 attendees at the fourth annual Quiet Commotion Summit aimed to do, gathering in GlenwoodSprings over the May 4th weekend to raise a fuss about hush - or the lack thereof.

"Colorado is a hotbed for quiet, active recreation," said Aaron Clark, recreation campaign director for the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance. "We're trying to take a positive approach by focusing on the need to preserve quiet recreation opportunities and wildlife habitat. However, if ATV users and the advocacy groups that represent them have their way, there will be fewer places to go to find quiet and solitude."

The timing of the annual conference was particularly significant as federal officials are currently deciding the fate of Colorado's 4.4 million roadless acres - land designated a candidate for wilderness protection but not yet shielded from oil and gas exploration, mining or ski-area expansion. Although the more development-oriented uses of "extraction" industries such as drilling, mining and timber are considered differently from recreational uses by land agencies, quiet-use advocates view the impacts of any roads on the wild land the same.

"I like to think of quiet users as an 'extraction' industry. Mountain bikers are extracting the sensation of gravity as they ride down a trail; bird watchers are extracting the sight of a bird in nature; hunters are extracting the animals they hunt," said Tom Sobal, a Quiet Use Coalition volunteer coordinator from Salida. "Everyone is extracting their little thing, but we have a lot in common. We all want the forest to be in pristine state when we get to it."

"We organized this conference to be proactive in helping the agency understand our visions and to build better relationships with them. to offer them a chance to rise to the occasion and start thinking about the value of quiet use," Clark said. "The media and general public often portray the conservation community as negative and pessimistic, but I think that a conference so well attended proves that we are actually the ones who are optimistic and still hold hope that America's public lands can be managed to protect the resources and the natural sights, sounds and smells that we all crave".