Columnist Susan Snyder: Orange alert ruffles some feathers

Monday, March 31, 2003 | 8:16 a.m.

An orange alert lured Mary and Jack McIntyre to a new place last week.

The McIntyres, of Henderson, and their friends Jim and Marilyn Clayton, of Idaho, went to the Desert National Wildlife Range north of Las Vegas for the first time last week because their usual bird-watching spot was closed.

The Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve and Water Reclamation Facility will remain closed to the public as long as the country remains on an orange, or high, terrorist alert.

"It's so sad. I hate having it closed," Sherri Collier, of Henderson's utilities services department, said. "But it's too connected to the rest of the facility, and this is our wastewater treatment plant. Every time we have an orange alert, it's going to be closed."

So the terrorist alert gave the McIntyres, valley residents since 1996, an excuse to see the national wildlife range 25 miles outside of Las Vegas.

The couples meandered along the footpath that winds through the Corn Creek Spring area, a tiny oasis and the most easily accessed portion of the refuge that covers 1.5 million acres, or more than 2,300 square miles.

It is the largest U.S. wildlife refuge outside of Alaska and was set aside to protect bighorn sheep habitat. Corn Creek visitors' center and information kiosk is 3.7 miles east of U.S. 95 on Alamo Road. A sign on U.S. 95 marks the turnoff that is about 4 miles north of Kyle Canyon.

The refuge's two roads, Alamo and Mormon Well Road, are graded gravel and passable by passenger car as far as Corn Creek.

Mormon Well Road traverses the refuge to the east and ends at U.S. 93 about 32 miles north of Interstate 15. Alamo Road extends more northeast ending about 36 miles farther north on U.S. 93 at the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. A high-clearance vehicle is recommended on either road beyond Corn Creek.

The refuge's remote nature deters all by the hardiest of visitors. So few people venture into its interior that desert bighorn sheep can be born, live and die without ever setting eyes on a human being.

Pretty amazing, given the proximity of urban devlopment along its southern border north of North Las Vegas. But Corn Creek offers a wealth of high-quality, low-intensity natural experience for those willing to hang around a while. It's a good escape from life's daily trials.

"You're not going to ask me about the war are you?" Jim Clayton asked as the foursome emerged from the edge of one pond.

All had small binoculars, and Clayton carried a notebook for recording which birds they saw.

Now I wouldn't know a nuthatch from a spraddle-legged coat hanger. But the couples spotted 14 different birds during their 90-minute visit. One of the birds, a phainopepla, is a variety the Claytons can't see near Boise.

"Jim was reading to us from the brochure, and they say there are 50-some species of birds out here," Jack McIntyre said. "We saw 14, so we're 20 percenters."

Well, they identified 100 percent more species than this untrained visitor.

But you don't have to know a thing about birds to enjoy their tweet and twitter or warm sun, a cool breeze and the burble of a creek in spring. Turtles sun themselves on pond banks. Little unseen creatures rustle deeper into the shrubs at nearly every footstep.

Orange alerts? Not here.