Feature

My Crazy Brother

Ray Ring takes a personal, painful look at the West’s suicidal tendencies, as shown in the life and death of his brother, John.

Editor's Note

Breaking the silence of suicide

It may seem like a considerable departure for High Country News to write about mental illness and suicide, but as Ray Ring’s deeply personal lead story shows, both tragedies are rooted in the West.

Dear Friends

Dear friends

“Poetry Corner” brings verse from readers; schadenfreude in the correction department.

Uncommon Westerners

Native Intelligence

Lili Singer is in love with California’s native plants and wants to share that love with other people.

News

Conservation easement conundrums

New York transplant Erin Toll helps Colorado crack down on conservation easement abuses.

3:10 to Baghdad

In the desert outside of Yuma, Ariz., the United States military prepares for overseas combat.

Book Reviews

Reasons to stay

In Charlotte Bacon’s novel, Split Estate, a damaged New York family seeks refuge and renewal on a Wyoming ranch.

Thinking like a fish

The essays in Chad Hanson’s collection Swimming with Trout celebrate the wonder of water and its mysterious inhabitants.

Essays

Wyoming’s day in the spin

Ed Quillen looks behind the recent brouhaha of Wyoming’s Democratic caucuses, and speculates on Hillary Clinton’s response to Barack Obama’s victory in the state.

A message to our grandchildren

Environmental pioneer Stewart Udall and his wife, Lee, ask their grandchildren to be “steadfast enemies of waste.”

The loneliness of the redneck environmentalist

Drew Pogge is caught between two cultures: the redneck good ol’ boy gearheads of his youth, and the holier-than-thou environmentalists of his present.

The legacy of the 10th Mountain men

Peter Shelton spends a day skiing and reminiscing with the veterans of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division.

Heard Around the West

Heard Around the West

Spring is around the corner, even in Wyoming; toilet-to-tap without a “yuck” in Orange County; Utah lawmakers say the craziest things; how nonprofits deal with stress; pink poodle kerfluffle in Boulder; and pterodactyls in Washington.

Letters

Pinko politicians

Higher wages and health hazards

Managing complexity

The park service has the power

Two Weeks in the West

Two weeks in the West

A good time to buy a McMansion – cheap; lawmakers wrangle over development; “eco-terrorism” in suburbia; EPA head honcho in trouble; cleaning up dirty Western air – and a few dirty Western politicians.