High Country News

Climate change turns an already troubled ski industry on its head

California's Mammoth Mountain provides a case study on the uncertainty of the ski business, and how global warming threatens to make it even more unpredictable.

by Greg Hanscom, Mar 03, 2013
An underwater forest reveals the story of a historic megadrought

Scientists find a climatic archive at the bottom of an alpine lake in California's Sierra Nevada.

by Brendon Bosworth, Dec 25, 2012
Where there's fire, there's global warming

Climate scientist Anthony Westerling is working to illuminate the connection between rising global temperatures and the increasing ferocity of the West’s forest fires

by Matt Jenkins, Aug 07, 2006
Rethinking national parks and wilderness

William Tweed takes a loving but critical look at the National Park Service in Uncertain Path: A Search for the Future of National Parks.

by Laura A. Watt, Jan 24, 2011
Into thin air?

Global warming spurs calls for new dams in the West – but where will the water come from to fill them?

by Matt Jenkins, Apr 30, 2007
What we love will save us

We are all, too much of the time, captives of the wreck and the mistake. Can’t take our eyes off it, can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop picking that scab. We slide into our merely negative identity — defined by what we refuse...

by David Oates, Oct 16, 2006
Saving the Sierra, tale by tale

Independent radio producers Catherine Stifter and jesikah maria ross are trying to help the Sierra Nevada by preserving the stories of the people who live there

by Jane Braxton Little, May 14, 2007
The collected Sierra Nevada

Meteorologist Hal Klieforth has collected a lifetime of knowledge – and a museum’s worth of artifacts – from years spent exploring the Sierra Nevada.

by Terray Sylvester , Apr 28, 2009
'Sticking around' for an alpine valley

Attilio Genasci has devoted himself to preserving land in Sierra Valley, Calif., where he has lived and farmed for 96 years

by Jane Braxton Little, Nov 28, 2005
High Country

Willard Wyman’s novel High Country tells the story of a Depression-era boy who is wounded in World War II but finds healing in the Sierra Nevada

by Staff, Aug 08, 2005