Simply dismissing us as snitches doesn't explain why we'd all abandoned these tactics years before we were arrested. I felt like it was important, for the movement, to speak the truth, and not just be a cheerleader. I knew that if I refused to cooperate and became a martyr for these actions, I wouldn't have been able to be honest in my critique of what we did. It was just that nearly everyone had already admitted guilt, committed suicide, or fled the country, and the idea of spending the rest of your life in prison isn't something you can fathom until you've faced it. I understand it in a more personal way than my critics, actually, since I'm doing nine years because my friends turned me in. I understand the general principle that turning your friends in to the cops should be discouraged. Maybe that seems funny to people who have condemned me as a snitch. But otherwise I don't want to say who did what or name names. Now that it's all over, I don't mind talking about my own role in the actions, and I don't mind talking about what my codefendants have already said. But the government characterized the ELF as a top domestic terrorism threat because we burned down unoccupied buildings in the middle of the night. I got involved at a time when a right-winger had just bombed the Oklahoma City federal building-killing 168 people-and anti-abortionists were murdering doctors. To call us terrorists, as the federal government did, is stretching the bounds of credibility. Many of our actions didn't involve fires at all, and none of us fit the profile of a pyromaniac. I just stood in a forest of pines and firs and took everything in. The night of October 18 was cold, but I couldn't make a campfire-it might attract attention. We finalized our plans, and I dropped him back at a trailhead in Vail. He rested for a few hours in the campsite I'd found way up a logging road, but there wasn't much time: The bulldozers were supposed to start rolling the next day. I dropped Avalon where we'd hidden the fuel, and we set a meet time for a few days later-long enough for him to hike fuel can after fuel can several miles and hundreds of feet up the hill and hide them near each of the buildings. I wasn't really thinking that Avalon and I would end up doing it alone, but that's what happened. Most of the group just didn't believe it was possible, so they went back to Oregon. Now there were a half-dozen of us, but nothing was set. We drove a few hours away to meet some others who'd come out from Oregon to help. The fuel was still miles below our target, a string of buildings and ski lifts on a ridge at 11,000 feet it would have to be hiked up the mountain. We stashed the fuel cans in the woods and got out of there. There were maybe 75 gallons of fuel in the back, it was starting to get light out, and there were hunters around. Once we got to Vail, we tried to drive the fuel-some gas, some diesel-up the mountain one night, but there was too much snow, and my truck got stuck. We abandoned them altogether after we realized they wouldn't work in the cold. Half the clocks we bought didn't end up working with the design. These timers were digital, with longer delays than the ones he'd used-delays long enough for us to get down off the mountain and out of the area before the fires started. Avalon had instructions, but he'd never built this kind before. We stopped at a motel in Utah to assemble the timers for the incendiary devices.
We always wore baseball caps to shield our faces from overhead cameras, just in case. An alarm clock and maybe a bottle of water from a Fred Meyer. We bought everything in cash and in small quantities.
There are only so many, and we could get only so many components at each one without raising suspicions. Josephine Sunshine Overaker, believed to have fled to Europe in 2001, remains at large and is wanted by the FBI.On our way from Oregon to Vail, we stopped at every major store in every major city in three states. In August 2018, suspect Joseph Dibee, on the run for 12 years, was en route to Russia when he was apprehended in Cuba, then returned to the United States. In 2006, Chelsea Dawn Gerlach and Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff both pleaded guilty to the attacks. The fires were set at Two Elk Lodge, and destroyed multiple buildings on Vail Mountain, including Two Elk Restaurant. This was one of the most serious ecotage attacks in the history of the United States, causing $12 million in damages, which caught the attention of the nation. On the morning of October 19, 1998, a group of people part of the Earth Liberation Front set fire to several lifts and buildings at Vail Ski Resort. Please introduce links to this page from related articles try the Find link tool for suggestions. This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it.
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