Feature

Accidental Wilderness

Washington's Hanford Site and New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range both hold deadly nuclear contamination – along with unspoiled landscapes rich in wildlife.

Current

Going to extremes

Determined ideologues are hijacking Western politics, but some reformers are trying to change that.

In the belly of the whale

Trash is filling up our oceans, even ending up inside whales.

The rabbit course

An Oakland chef teaches students how to butcher bunnies for dinner.

Clean air, hazy politics

A new Colorado air quality law pits coal against natural gas -- and rural environmentalists against urban ones.

Power struggle

The economic numbers behind coal and wind energy -- and energy efficiency -- are compared in Montana.

Last rites in salmon country?

Salmon fishermen gear up for a risky season despite California’s ongoing water wars.

Dear Friends

HCN wins awards

High Country News wins Utne Independent Press Award for Environmental Coverage and Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism; thinking globally; corrections.

Writers on the Range

Birding, fast and slow

If Pepper Trail's Birdathon team had a theme song, it would be "Bat out of Hell."

Book Reviews

What lies beneath?

The likable characters in the three novellas in Jim Harrison's The Farmer's Daughter are all confronted by loneliness and brutality.

Essays

Walking Woman

The Owens River is flowing again -- and Mary Austin's Land of Little Rain is rejoicing.

Letters

Civics lesson

Saving wildlands, ignoring urban lands?

It's cultural, not rational

Let's make a (national) deal

Evidence

For wilderness, look to a wasteland

A map shows some of the largest sites managed by the departments of Defense and Energy in the West, and their ecological value.