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The Mog Squad

In the quest for the ultimate firefighting machine, the BLM in Nevada has turned to some very big, very strange, and very foreign vehicles.
The old man and the stream

A brief encounter with an elderly fisherman moves W.S. Robinson to think about the mysteries of life and death -- and fathers and sons.
All along the watchtower

Andrew McNair, who works weekends at a computer in Olympia, Wash., is not your typical Western firefighter.
Not even the privileged can deter a porcupine

Judy Muller contemplates the humble porcupine, which is wreaking havoc among pricey houses in Telluride Mountain Village.
Size matters if you go for “green” bragging rights

Monique Cole wonders if a 6,500-square-foot “green-powered” McMansion is a contradiction in terms.

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Riparian repair

River restorationists tackle the Clark Fork River near Milltown, Mont., in a project that demonstrates how hard it is to revive a damaged waterway.
An unlikely Shangri-la

Steve and Marc Jenson have ambitious plans to turn a failed ski resort near Beaver, Utah, into a private enclave for the ultra-rich, but not everyone is thrilled about the idea.
Crash of the cottonwoods

Across the West, cottonwoods are dying, and no one is sure how to save these iconic trees.
Going to the gasroots

In western Colorado, oil and gas companies mobilize in a publicity blitz to pack a Grand Junction hearing about proposed changes to the state’s natural gas drilling rules.

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High Country News July 21, 2008

$A fractured party$

Feature

A fractured party

The Grand Old Party will either find a new life – or court self-destruction – in the West today, where moderates and hard-liners are battling over conservation issues.

Editor's Note

Don't fence Western Republicans in

Some moderate Western Republicans, tired of being penned up behind rigid ideological fences, are rebelling against the hard-line elements of their party.

Dear Friends

Concert-goers and bird-watchers

Visitors en route to other adventures stop by the High Country News office.

Two Weeks in the West

Solar flip-flops and fish stories

BLM flip-flops on solar and expedites oil and gas; Western Governors’ Association talks about energy; more fossil fuel risks; good (and bad) salmon news.

Bears saved from the 'burbs

Finding room for grizzly bears through the Montana Legacy Project.

Uncommon Westerners

'Si, se puede'

Latino activist Dolores Huerta continues to inspire and organize after 50 lively years.

News

Watch the river flow

In western Colorado, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park wins an important water claim.

Manufactured homes for the birds

Zoologist David Olson and his colleagues are trying to create artificial cacti to house the rare coastal cactus wren, whose cholla cactus habitat is being threatened by California’s recent wildfires.

Book Reviews

Dreaming of a New Deal for nature

A review of Neil M. Maher's book, "Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement," which reminds us that to succeed, an environmental policy must reckon compromise.

Essays

Home is where the guilt is

In Santa Fe, N.M., April Reese wrestles with the question of whether owning a new house is worth being responsible for the bulldozing of pinon and juniper trees.

Power of the picture

High Country News photographer Morgan Heim joins the International League of Conservation Photographers to document the gasfields and the wildlands around Pinedale, Wyo.

Winning the West

The debate that won’t happen

Even though the West is supposed to be a key battleground in this year’s election, so far the presidential candidates have managed to avoid addressing Western issues.