High Country News

(Manmade) snow is for fighting over

In an increasingly arid West, snow-making becomes a more important component of a ski area’s operating plan. But they need water to make snow, and getting it isn’t always easy.

by J.R. Logan, Mar 04, 2013
A crisis brews on the Colorado

As the Colorado River Basin enters a sixth year of drought, the Interior Department orders seven states to start coordinating their management of the dwindling water supply.

by Matt Jenkins, Jan 24, 2005
A fall crop of visitors

High Country News gets lots of visitors; Paolo Bacigalupi's HCN sci-fi story "The Tamarisk Hunter" is in a new anthology; Utne Reader honors visionaries, including some of HCN's friends.

by Jodi Peterson, Nov 10, 2011
A future of big fires and tiny bugs

A second-generation forest ranger considers how fire prevention and climate change are affecting the forests he once roamed with his father.

by Frank Carroll, Apr 17, 2012
A green obsession

Westerners, like most Americans, are deeply in love with their lawns – but in an time of increasing drought, the Kentucky bluegrass is going to have to go

by Paul Larmer, Aug 21, 2006
A world built on groundwater

In Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the Great Plains, William Ashworth examines the effects of groundwater dependency in a dry land

by Matt Jenkins, Jul 24, 2006
Adapt or collapse

In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond warns about societies that overreach themselves – a warning that southern Arizona, in the midst of its tremendous real estate boom, ought to heed

by Paul Larmer, Jun 12, 2006
Another water-short year in the Southwest is taking its toll

Generous spring snow storms were a momentary, if welcome, distraction from the region's real weather story: drought.

by Cally Carswell, May 13, 2013
Arizona returns to the desert

Rampant growth in the Phoenix area and a severe drought on the Colorado River challenge Arizona's water sustainability.

by Matt Jenkins, Mar 21, 2005
Bark beetle kill leads to more severe fires, right? Well, maybe

The connection between bark beetle outbreaks and Western forest fires is more complicated than it might appear.

by Gail Wells, May 13, 2012