When I was a kid, I swam all summer in backyard pools and at the city park, lessons in the morning, wildness all afternoon. My bare feet grew calluses, my hair turned brittle green, my shoulders got broad, my Lycra suits disintegrated. And then I left home. I’ve lived in this mountain town for a […]
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Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Climate changes for wolverine listing
What good can the Endangered Species Act do in a warming world?
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
A once nomadic firefighter decides to stay put
There’s a wildfire burning three miles from my house. Sparked by lightning, the column of smoke went nuclear yesterday, pushing flame through deadfall on the rugged shoulder of Chief Joseph Mountain in northwestern Oregon. This is a mountain we climb and ski and hike, the place where, with a glance, we can see the elevation […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Early eulogies
Methinks Christopher Ketcham is a bit premature with his eulogy, “The death of backpacking?” (HCN, 7/21/14). Backpacking is not so much a sport as an activity whose ebb and flow in popularity reflects that of the natural world he enters on his sojourns. Nothing in that world stays the same. It gets hot, it gets […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
California water waster fines and condoms from conservationists.
COLORADOYou could almost hear the teeth gnashing in Aspen. A well-connected man, Robert K. Steel, chairman of the board of the Aspen Institute, exploited a loophole in county regulations so that his daughter could be married in remote splendor – in a “pristine sub-alpine meadow on the backside of Aspen Mountain at 10,000 in elevation,” […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The Tea Party loses one in Colorado
John Pennington lost his primary election bid for sheriff of Mesa County, here in western Colorado, last month. I don’t know why he lost to Steve King, a former Republican state legislator who then canceled his own campaign due to a scandal, leaving the general election race wide-open for several new candidates. But I do […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Future defenders
Maybe instead it’s the death of parenting (HCN, 7/21/14). Take your children backpacking. Start ’em early and start small. It can be done. Get creative. Make it happen. Leave the devices at home. It does not need to be expensive. No doubt it’s cheaper than 129 other things Americans do on vacation. Lord knows wildlands […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Meeting needs
I respect John Olivas’ choice to ban fracking from his area (“Ready for a fight,” HCN, 6/23/14). But on the other side of the coin, in areas like Wyoming that derive a lot of money from fossil fuel activities, the environmentalist should respect our choice to prefer jobs. The Environmental Protection Agency’s latest emission rules […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Old friends
I’m 35 and also cannot find backpacking companions my age (HCN, 7/21/14). Most friends my age are more interested in camping at the brewery or a music festival. All my backpacking buddies are pushing 60. Still, I can’t help but enjoy the thought that traffic on the trails is getting better and not worse. Bradley […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Polite excuses
After reading Quinn Read’s article “The Virtues of Old-School Car Camping” (HCN, 7/21/14), I was struck with a wonderful moment of reminiscing. It took me back to the days of family car camping in the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona and the Rockies in Colorado. We, like Quinn, would struggle to fall asleep before Dad’s snoring […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Taking the romance out of farming
(This editor’s note accompanies an HCN magazine cover story headlined: Idaho’s sewer system is the Snake River.) When I was a boy in the Midwest in the 1950s, I liked to walk through the corn fields in late summer. I could disappear deep in the thickets of green stalks that were taller than I was, […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Shocked at suckers
Thanks to Ted Williams and HCN for the article “Suckers for Gold” (6/9/14). First, I was surprised that such an “enterprise” exists. Then, I was outraged at the ways these “miners” disturb riverbeds and fragile habitat for fish and other creatures. Finally, I was shocked to learn that my own state of Washington has not […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Short-sighted snowmen
Do recreational snowmobilers care enough about the future of their sport to lobby for global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (“Snowmobiling for science,” HCN, 6/9/14)? Snowmelt is occurring earlier every year, and that is directly attributable to global warming. While snowmobilers are worrying about “large closures,” they ought to worry even more about shorter and […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Lay of the land
How to Read the American West: A Field GuideWilliam Wyckoff384 pages, paperback: $44.95.University of Washington Press, 2014. Too hefty to be carried in a hip pocket or even a daypack, William Wyckoff’s How To Read The American West is a field guide unlike any other, with a focus on patterns, variations and the distribution of […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The Ansel Adams Wilderness
The Ansel Adams WildernessPeter Essick, foreward by Jamie Williams112 pages, hardcover:$22.95.National Geographic Society, 2014. For 25 years, Peter Essick traveled the globe as a National Geographic photographer, and recently he was named one of the world’s 40 most influential nature photographers. In 2010, Essick began “a potentially controversial” project in his native California: shooting in […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The bomb builders’ wives
The Wives of Los AlamosTaraShea Nesbit233 pages, hardcover: $25.Bloomsbury, 2014. In her deft debut novel, Colorado writer TaraShea Nesbit imagines the lives of the wives of the men who were stationed in New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, working on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Nesbit writes in the collective voice of the […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
New kids in town
Well, they’re not exactly kids, but HCN is pleased to welcome two new interns to our Paonia, Colorado, office for six months of journalism boot camp. And we’re also delighted that Krista Langlois, our extraordinary editorial fellow, is staying for another six months. Growing up in Toronto, new editorial intern Sarah Tory devoured books on […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The Latest: 20,000 Utah acres protected from drilling
BackstoryFor years, Utah conservationists struggled to protect sensitive environments from four-wheeling, oil and gas and other development – until conservative lawmakers like Republican Rep. Rob Bishop realized that state-held lands with wilderness characteristics could be used to bargain for mineral-rich, federally owned tracts. In 2013, Bishop began negotiating a compromise with wilderness advocates, off-roaders and […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
The virtues of old-school car camping
Backwoods adventure isn’t the only way to develop an affinity for the outdoors.