Wild men with strategically placed gear give ‘raw’ look to new Nevada calendar

Launce Rake, Las Vegas Sun

Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006 | 7:53 a.m.

A statewide conservation group is featuring "wild men of Nevada" in its 2007 wall calendar. How wild? Let's say the gentlemen are getting back to nature.

All the way back.

Thirteen men, ranging in age from their 20s to 70s, are taking it off and posing with strategically placed hats, canteens, fishing gear and other staples of Nevada's backcountry adventures. The calendar is a fundraising effort for the Nevada Wilderness Project, a group dedicated to designating land in the Silver State as federal "wilderness," which generally prohibits development and motorized activity.

"They don't have clothes on, but they're not naked," says Kristie Connolly, project associate director. "It's wild men in wild Nevada."

Among the scenes: Fly-fishing in a mountain stream in February and skiing in the buff in January - two activities not suited for the thin-blooded. Jane Day, a member of the group that helped plan the calendar, says it took a bit of convincing to get her husband, Kevin Day, to pose on snow.

"It was a nice sunny day; so it wasn't too cold," she says. "We wanted to do something fun and make light of how much fun it is to be in the Nevada backcountry."

With "chagrin and embarrassment" and some amount of humor, John Wallin, the group's director, agreed to serve as Mr. October. He posed - jumping from rock to rock - in the Lava Beds Wilderness Area, which sprawls over nearly 30,000 acres on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

More information about the $20 calendar is available by contacting wildmen@wildnevada.org.