Feature

Utah's ancient Lake Bonneville holds clues to the West's changing climate

In Utah, scientists are exploring the site of a long-vanished inland sea called Lake Bonneville to understand the West's past - and future - climate.

Editor's Note

Western scientists study the past to predict the future

Scientists are digging into the past of the West to try to understand what the future may bring.

Dear Friends

Wanted: a few good board members

High Country News board of directors meets with staff in Reno; David Wolman's "Accidental Wilderness" wins prize; Greg Hanscom to work for Grist; farewell to Elouise Cobell.

Uncommon Westerners

Lawyer Laird Lucas on how and why he fights for the West

The environmental lawyer battles big industries and government agencies in the courtroom on behalf of the nonprofit Advocates for the West.

Book Reviews

To die fighting: a review of Jesse's Ghost: A Novel

In Frank Bergon's new novel, a young man in California's Central Valley is haunted by the memory of his best friend, whom he murdered.

Mapping the Hi-Line: A review of Honyocker Dreams

Writer David Mogen sets out to understand his childhood and his rural ancestors, who lived along Montana’s Hi-Line, just below the Canadian border.

Essays

Wrestling with a destiny of dryness

A Utah writer struggles with his family’s predilection to always end up living in very arid places.

Letters

It's a perilous profession

A press of pessimists

Why so defeatist?

A truly burning problem

Clinging to wilderness, pristine or not

"Pristine" is in the eye of the beholder

Unloved survivors

Current

Western voters love ballot initiatives -- and sometimes make a mess

A Western tradition of citizen legislation may cause more problems than it solves.

BLM experiments with camouflage to hide renewable power structures

The Bureau of Land Management is working with landscape architects and camouflage experts to better disguise renewable energy infrastructure on public lands.

Development near national parks impacts park ecology

Home building around national parks has a ripple effect on wildlife and habitat inside those parks.