High Country News June 13, 2011
Feature
How developers and businessmen cash in on Grand Canyon overflights
An air-tour businessman and Italian developers become deeply enmeshed in the politics of tiny Tusayan, Ariz., part of a plan to profit from the nearby Grand Canyon.
Current
Fire fight: Forest Service explores chemical retardant hazards
The Forest Service finally assesses the impacts of fire retardant chemicals, but never answers the question of how useful they really are.
Western papers drop D.C. reporters
As more newspapers withdraw reporters from Washington, D.C., Westerners wonder who's keeping an eye on the capital.
Spring-cleaning the acequia: A photo essay
The annual spring cleaning of its irrigation ditch brings tiny El Cerrito, N.M., together to work and celebrate.
States work conservation into trust lands management
Urban sprawl helps spur new efforts at compromise in managing state trust lands.
Locked boxes
About 2,000 post offices - some of them in small, remote Western towns - will be closed this year.
Editor's Note
The Las Vegas effect
Grand Canyon air tours are fun, the way Las Vegas is fun, but one of the world’s natural wonders should not be treated like a sideshow.
Dear Friends
Rafters and writers come to call
Lots of spring visitors; diabetes claims tribal members Stanford Addison and Leslie Baker
Book Reviews
Chronicling a lost river: A review of Dry River
Ken Lamberton explores a Southwestern desert landscape in Dry River: Stores of Life, Death, and Redemption on the Santa Cruz.
That quiet haunted place: A review of American Masculine
The short stories in Shann Ray's book take us deep into the lives of Western men.
Essays
Encountering a California condor takes one writer back in time
An interaction with a rare vulture sparks reflections on dinosaurs and extinction.
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