Feature

Spreading the gospel: Outdoor education teaches people to know and care about the West

The number and variety of outdoor education programs has increased dramatically in the last 25 years.

Getting outside all around the West

A state-by-state directory describes some of the many outdoor education programs in the West.

Tough love proves too tough

Controversial "wilderness therapy programs" such as Utah's North Star, intended for troubled kids, come under critical scrutiny - and lawsuits - after several teenagers die while in their care.

Dear Friends

Dear Friends

Special issue, board meeting in Grand Junction, drop-ins, odds and ends.

News

Military in a dogfight for crowded skies

The Colorado Air National Guard's plan to increase fighter-jet training over southeastern Colorado raises opposition from environmentalists, ranchers and residents - and from Colorado Springs' booming airport.

Silence could be shattered by military jets

The Colorado Air National Guard's plan to increase training flights over the Sangre de Cristo and Wet Mountains and the San Luis Valley upsets locals, including contemplative monks in Crestone.

GOP moves to rein in its rebels

A GOP memo to this year's Republican candidates urges them to start looking green.

Sagebrush rebels in the apple orchards

Two Chelan County commissioners defy Washington state's Growth Management Act, claiming freedom from state and federal controls.

Planning regulations bite a planning proponent

Former U.S. Senator Dan Evans, who once supported Washington state's Growth Management Act, now seeks to change the law after finding it will prevent him from building a house where he wants.

A small fish takes a big hit

An irrigation district's water diversion from the Rio Grande in New Mexico wipes out an estimated 70 percent of the endangered silvery minnow population.

Lawmakers say Colorado prisons are king

The Colorado Legislature passes a bill allowing the state Corrections Department to ignore local zoning when it wants to build or expand prisons.

Salvage logging rider barrels into a shy seabird's world

Under the salvage logging rider, thousands of acres of habitat of the endangered marbled murrelet may be cut in coastal Washington and Oregon.

Operation bullsling

To improve trampled vegetation and watershed in California's Ishi Wilderness, Forest Service officials remove 13 tranquilized bulls by helicopter.

Salmon find a friend

Republican Gov. Tony Knowles of Alaska joins an environmental lawsuit fighting Columbia and Snake River dams in the Northwest to save endangered salmon.

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Strange bedfellows in the West: Wal-Mart and Main Street, sheep and range restoration, javelinas in Washington state, cartoonist John Callahan runs for Oregon state Legislature, Cheetos in space, cowboys and California.

Letters

Climbing ban makes sense

On the fate of Hanford

Related Stories

New life springs from tainted soil at a Denver school

A program called Volunteer-led Investigations of Neighborhood Ecology (VINE) introduces urban children to nature, as demonstrated by Denver's Garden Place Academy.

The best guide knows how to let go

River guide, author and activist Roderick Nash describes a method of outdoor education he calls "unguiding" - letting the river teach its own lessons.

An unsung army of students maintains our national parks

The Student Conservation Association has been sending thousands of young volunteers to help maintain national parks since 1957.

Acting for the environment

A Northwest conservation and outdoor recreation group, The Mountaineers, educates children by sending actors such as Loren Foss into schools, who teach by assuming character roles such as "Old John."

The big dogs: Outward Bound and NOLS hit their thirties

The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and Outward Bound are the biggest outdoor education schools in the West.

The rise and fall of Steve Cartisano

Utah native Steve Cartisano, the controversial "godfather" of wilderness therapy, has left a trail of lawsuits behind him, including one for negligent homicide in the death of a Florida teenage girl.