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Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing Theses and Dissertations by Author "Carr Childers, Leisl, committee member"

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    Spent a little time on the mountain: backcountry ski touring in Utah and Colorado
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Miller, Alexander, author; Childers, Michael, advisor; Carr Childers, Leisl, committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee member
    Backcountry skiing has continually grown as a recreational activity since alpine skiers began leaving developed ski area boundaries in the late 1930s. Placing individuals in a less managed, sometimes hostile, winter landscape creates a significant management issue for the U.S. Forest Service. This thesis examines this issue by looking back to the sport's emergence as a popular winter recreation activity. It asks how ski tourers from the 1960s through the 1980s understood the way they used land. To answer this question, it examines the development of avalanche research and growing avalanche awareness in the Mountain West, the experience backcountry skiers sought and the mentality that created, and how that mentality established an advocacy framework aimed at protecting access to the backcountry—the area outside ski resorts and away from signs of the "works of man." Through this investigation, it highlights how the U.S. Forest Service facilitated this new form of land use, what exactly it is backcountry skiers are using, and how this use informed environmental politics. Finally, it argues that through understanding how the growing backcountry skiing community used mountain landscapes in the past, skiers, land management agencies, and the broader outdoor recreation community, can begin to come to terms with the impacts of this use and how to mitigate them.
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    "To boldly go where everyone else has gone before": the road to ADAPT
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Petrie, Gentrice, author; Orsi, Jared, advisor; Carr Childers, Leisl, committee member; Hepburn, Susan, committee member
    During the 1970s, residents of the newly established Atlantis independent living center used civil disobedience tactics to sway the city to provide accessible transportation services. Their strategies worked, and by 1983, Denver had one of the most accessible public transportation systems in the country. After their success, members of Atlantis decided to expand their cause by founding the activist organization American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, now American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT), which not only gave disability activists a national platform to draw attention to the issue of inaccessible transportation, but also gave them the opportunity to integrate disabled individuals into a world that denied them access to mainstream services. This story not only illuminates the success that direct action protest had on influencing public policy on a local scale but highlights how this activism empowered activists and members of the disability community by occupying public spaces, therefore challenging the idea that disabled people are unable to advocate on their own behalf and live independently.