High Country News congratulates Dave Philipps, who covered the West’s wild horse controversy for us in a 2012 feature story. In April, Philipps and the Colorado Springs Gazette received the Pulitzer Prize, newspaper journalism’s highest honor, in the national reporting category for Philipps’ investigative series, “Other Than Honorable.” The three pieces “used Army data to […]
Dear Friends
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
In like a lion, out like a donut
Spring has hit High Country News headquarters in Paonia, Colo.: The trees are blooming and the temperatures rising, the winds are strafing our winter-complacent mucus membranes with Colorado Plateau dust and juniper pollen, and snowpack is raging down the North Fork in a torrent of red water. HCN is undergoing a sort of season change […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
A brave and unusual conservationist turns 90
Ninety years ago, on April 12, 1924, Tom Bell was born in a house owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, in Winton, Wyo., a coal-mining camp. It was an inauspicious but appropriate beginning for the guy who would start both High Country News and Wyoming’s largest conservation group. Tom’s father, Lafe Bell, worked in the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
It’s spring break time again!
In mid-March, as snow melts and crocuses bloom in our hometown of Paonia, Colo., HCN staff takes one of our four annual publishing breaks. Look for the next issue, a special issue on unusual travel experiences around the West, to hit your mailbox around April 14. And in the meantime, visit hcn.org for fresh news […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Goodbye, Hello
In January, our board of directors gathered by phone and Web to talk with staff about High Country News‘ progress over the last four months. There’s good news: Print and digital subscriptions are up 1,000 from last year, our coffers are bursting with end-of-year donations (thanks to all who contributed!), and our redesigned website should […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
New HCN employees and several visitors at the office.
Thank you for helping us blow our gift-subscription goal out of the water! Our loyal readers gave their friends and families more than 1,600 holiday gift subscriptions. We joyfully welcome our new readers and thank our existing ones for sharing your commitment to our journalism and to the region that binds us together. New development […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
HCN welcomes new interns
We’re delighted that stellar intern Krista Langlois is staying for another six months as our latest editorial fellow. And two new interns have arrived for a half-year of journalism boot camp. Christi Turner isn’t just thrilled to be out West – she’s pleased to be back in the United States. A Rhode Island native who […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
HCN takes a holiday break
With sub-zero lows and nearly a foot of fresh snow outside our Paonia, Colo., offices, it’s finally looking – and feeling – like wintertime. That means it’s time for another publishing break in our 22-issue-per-year schedule. The next HCN appears Jan. 20, but meanwhile, you can visit hcn.org for fresh news, features and opinion. Here’s […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
Ed Quillen anthology available now
Last June, regular High Country News contributor, Denver Post columnist and dear friend Ed Quillen died suddenly. Now, his daughter, Abby Quillen, has compiled an eBook anthology, Dispatches from the High Country: Essays on the West from High Country News, available on Amazon Kindle and through Smashwords. She’s also gathered his best Denver Post columns […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
California Boomin’
Longtime contributor and former HCN editor Jon Christensen is shaking up the academic world with the latest edition of Boom: A Journal of California. A native Californian and adjunct professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Jon now edits the quarterly that, he says, “strives to bottle that lively mixture of what makes […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2013: Cosmic Prospecting
Mailbox surprise
The staff and board were surprised and deeply humbled by the generous check that arrived in our mailbox last month, a bequest from the late Gerald Hollingworth of Steamboat Springs, Colo. Gerald was a longtime reader who shared High Country News articles with his friends and engaged them in long conversations on many Western subjects, including […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
Fall ‘friendraiser’ and board meeting
The first snow was fluttering down when High Country News‘ staff and board members arrived in Hailey, Idaho, for a late September meeting. But the white flakes couldn’t quite cover the black tracks left by a summer fire that rampaged down ravines to the edge of town. Signs – many in front of insurance offices […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Help HCN complete its online archives!
We’re proud that High Country News is 43 years old — but our website, hcn.org, is still incomplete, because our online archive goes back only 20 years. Now we’re finally scanning in issues published before 1994. Soon they’ll be available online. We need your help to finish the project, though. So far, our point man, […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2013: Intimate Geographies
See you in October
As we do four times a year, High Country News is skipping an issue. We’ll be back in your mailbox around Oct. 14. In the meantime, keep up with us at hcn.org, and eat as many homegrown tomatoes as you can; they won’t last forever. Summer visitors Longtime subscriber Brian Jatlin came by our Paonia, […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2013: Of Sparrows and Sodbusters
Summer Visitors
Here in HCN‘s hometown of Paonia, Colo., the peaches and sweet corn are ripening, and we’ve been welcoming lots of visitors from around the West. Longtime subscribers Phyllis Hasheider and Jim McKee of Longmont, Colo., stopped by on their way home after a drive on the San Juan Skyway, a scenic route that passes through […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Fishermen, writers and cyclists come to call
Colin Glover of Denver stopped by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters on a seven-day fly-fishing trip that had already taken him and his friends to Durango, Buena Vista and Ouray. When asked what stretch of the Gunnison’s North Fork, which passes through Paonia, he planned to fish, he shrugged and said he wasn’t sure. Fortunately, the […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Report from the summer HCN board meeting
High Country News‘ board of directors met in our hometown of Paonia, Colo. at the end of May, to assess the nonprofit’s health, discuss our prospects, and savor the Western Slope’s beauty. The news was good: HCN continues to expand its reach — our website, hcn.org, saw one-third more visitors in the first quarter of […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Time is running out to get the poster!
We’re in the home stretch of our special referral promotion to enlist friends, family and colleagues to join the HCN community of people serious about the West. More than 125 new readers have stepped up to subscribe and support the work we do here. And their reward? Besides the high-quality journalism we’re known for, they’ll […]
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
More awards for HCN
We’re honored to announce that HCN is the winner of the prestigious 2013 Utne Media Award for Environmental Coverage. “HCN stood out for its consistent reports on important stories we’re not reading anywhere else,” wrote the Utne judges. “From the effects of Twilight-inspired tourism on the Quileute Nation to half-built subdivisions at the foot of […]
Posted inMay 27, 2013: Haywired
Subscriber Warning
High Country News subscribers should be aware that an Oregon company is mailing unauthorized offers for HCN subscriptions and renewals. Please note: These are not authentic solicitations from High Country News. The company name on these solicitations is Publishers Billing Emporium. The solicitation we have seen offers a renewal for $85.95 and includes a lot of […]