Digging in Winter finally fell on Paonia after fooling us for so many weeks with sunny days and skittish snow. The ski areas are happy about their feet-thick bases, and local water supplies, though still in snowpack, seem robust. But it isn’t cold yet, with that dry, biting cold we’ve come to expect in December. […]
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Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Dear friends
Let the waters flow As the days grow shorter and darkness comes earlier, we look for signs that winter isn’t really closing in. Octogenarian David Brower helped us out the other day with a cheery phone call at dusk from California. He had surprising news: The club’s board had just voted unanimously to support emptying […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Dear friends
The aftermath With this issue we get our chance to punditify, prognosticate and otherwise ponder what Western voters meant to do when they each took five or 10 minutes to punch out their preferences: Urban voters may pull down levers in booths with curtains; rural voters tend to stand at open lecterns and punch out […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Dear friends
What happened? Unlike you, we don’t have a clue as to how the elections came out. Did Bob Dole come out of nowhere to upset Bill Clinton? Did Walt Minnick pull a similar feat in Idaho? Is it now illegal for cows to pee in Oregon’s streams? Do parents have new rights in Colorado? Did […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Dear Friends
Braving blaze orange It’s hunting season again, and who knows it better than this office? Our neighbor to the south is a meat locker which works overtime this season, thanks to pickup loads of dead deer, elk and, lately, bear. The gang of cats that patrols the alley seems in hog heaven while the animal-lovers […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Dear friends
Thank you, Driggs Three times a year HCN holds board meetings and potlucks with subscribers around the region. Until recently, we tended to gather in places like Sun Valley or Boulder. Those are good places, but we realized we were neglecting less well-known towns. So last winter we met in Colorado Springs, famous as home […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Dear friends
Odds and ends Thanks to Boulder, Colo., reader Evan Cantor who sent us 10 years of back issues of High Country News. They’ve been snapped up by Paonia High School, which school secretary Judy Briscoe tells us has become much involved in interdisciplinary teaching. And thanks to Evergreen, Colo., writer Dyan Zaslowsky, who passed on […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Dear friends
New interns Recently, while chewing sloppy melted chunks of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and watching shadows cast by moonlight cross the walls of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, intern Patrick Dowd got his first taste of the area around Paonia. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, moving inland in 1991 to […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Dear friends
Fires – again First, you read about the 700 new fires breaking out in Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Washington and Wyoming – most started by lightning. Then, if you live in Colorado or Nevada, where fires are already burning, you notice the intense salmon colors of dawns and sunsets. Suddenly, it seems, the West […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Dear Friends
A celebration of essayists We are not calling this issue devoted mostly to essays “special,” but it certainly feels that way. It is the first time we have taken such a large break from straight reporting to feature stories that stem from personal experience in the West. Staff debated the idea and finally plunged. An […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Dear friends
Curiosity about consensus Perhaps feeling angry or resentful takes more work than cooperation, or maybe it’s the habit of perceiving people as black hats or white hats that eventually seems old hat. In any case, we’ve had so many requests for our special issue May 13 on consensus (-Howdy, neighbor!: As a last resort, Westerners […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Dear friends
Back with a bang Staff is back on the job, returning just in time for the 4th of July parade up Paonia’s Grand Avenue, an event which usually requires 30 minutes, tops. This time it took an hour for more than 100 entries to pass, what with past Cherry Days queens representing five decades, Shriners, […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Dear friends
We brake for summer We skip the next issue of High Country News because, we like to joke, everyone needs a chance to catch up on their HCN reading. Some of us here will hike, bike or cheer for kids at summer baseball games, others will head for “meditation camp” in New Mexico, and all […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Dear Friends
They don’t know it all This issue is an exploration by Elizabeth Manning and other writers of the state of outdoor education in the West. It’s a subject some approach with awe, particularly if we’re the one who admits: “That (course, teacher, backpacking expedition, river trip) changed my life.” Perhaps because so many of us […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Dear Friends
Woe is Montana Poor Montana. And we aren’t even counting the Freemen extortionists who won’t come out of their rooms. No, the latest slam against the “last best place” comes from a grumpy editor of the (need we say powerful?) New York Times Magazine. James Atlas’ family vacation near Yellowstone and Glacier national parks was […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Dear Friends
Going with the flow Locally, things are hopping. A cold snap wiped out up to half the fruit crop, and police say a “little old lady” mistook where the reverse gear was and plowed into the Paonia Post Office, demolishing three newspaper stands and a concrete wall. Both events were not novel. Fruitgrowers have always […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Dear Friends
A confusing season We realize it’s spring when an April day combines snow flurries, afternoon rain and thunder, intermittent sun and evening temperatures in the twenties. And the next morning the grass grows even greener. On this town’s main street the look of the season is layered with the one constant: muddy boots, for this […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Dear Friends
Hello, uh, fire department Pastures smudged with black ash, fast-rising billows of smoke visible from miles away, these are the signs that signal spring in this medium-altitude (5,600 feet) mountain valley. “Burning ditch” is an annual rite here, followed in more than a few instances by emergency calls to a town’s volunteer fire department (-Come […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Dear friends
They have our thanks Boise, Idaho, resident Kay Hummel sent us a note one night because she was too excited to sleep. She said she and close to 200 people had just attended a tribute to three of Idaho’s environmental heroes, and the feelings generated at the event Feb. 24 were still warm. Those honored […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Dear Friends
Spring interns The last time Michelle McClellan was in Colorado, she woke up in a pasture near Rocky Mountain National Park to a bellowing herd of cows trying to maneuver around her tent. Her reception in Paonia has been far less hectic, she reports. Michelle grew up in Kirkland, a city of 40,000 close to […]