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Following the tracks

Catherine Fink recalls long adolescent days spent wandering along Colorado railroad tracks, singing at the top of her lungs and discovering the world.

Death of a mine

Utah’s Lisbon Valley Mine was supposed to be a hugely profitable copper producer; instead, it went belly-up in just two years.

The short life of Lisbon Valley

A brief timeline traces the brief history of Utah’s Lisbon Valley Mine.

A Rico renaissance

The tiny mountain town of Rico, Colo., finds its post-mining economy threatened by a possible mining resurgence.

Mining the West

A potpourri of maps and graphics illustrates the complex nature of hardrock mining in the West today.

Power from the underground

Geothermal power heats up in Reno, Nev., as the West begins to pay more attention to its underground energy resources.

Two weeks in the West

HCN looks at the various problems of Western wildlife, including Northern Rockies wolves, porcupines, fishers, pikas, and more; and Rocky Mountain National Park tests elk for chronic wasting disease and also gives out birth control.

Men with boots

The transformation of once-scrappy mining towns like Silverton, Colo., and Superior, Ariz., into trendy tourist havens is bound to leave the locals with mixed feelings and some nostalgia.

Reluctant Boomtown

A copper-mining company is courting Superior, Ariz., but the former mining town – now re-inventing itself as a modest tourist haven – is unsure whether it really wants a new marriage with extractive industry.

Heard around the West

Jim Stiles asks about perfect moments; rent-a-pet; Douglas Bruce behaves like a jerk; Forest Service meeting gets nasty in Montana.

Standing outside, late, in a charcoal forest

Die with me

Three new books about the West’s Indian wars – Ned Blackhawk’s Violence Over the Land, Kingsley Bray’s Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life, and Robert W. Larson’s Gall: Lakota War Chief – seem to romanticize a violent past.

Time to call the gas industry’s bluff

Randy Udall says Colorado needs to act now to collect severance taxes from the natural gas companies that are making a fortune from the state.

A bad idea hits the gas pumps

Dustin Heron Urban has declared war on the little black stickers at gas stations that announce the availability of ethanol.

Nevada stakes its salmon claim

Nevada sportsmen, tribes and environmentalists ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission not to renew licenses for Hells Canyon’s dams until Idaho Power makes it possible for salmon to survive its dams.

Two weeks in the West

A flurry of end-of-year easements saves lots of lovely landscapes; heli-skiing wins in Utah; snow-lovers help starving Colorado deer; a possible ceasefire on the Klamath; and bark beetles are destroying Colorado’s lodgepole pines.

Planning for uncertainty

A Phoenix symposium on dealing with drought and global warming echoes the larger uncertainties facing public-land and national park managers throughout the West.

The Chaparralian

Richard Halsey says Southern California’s chaparral is not to blame for the fires that scorch the region every year.