I almost missed my chance to kayak the White Salmon River before it changed forever. After dropping off the kids at school, packing, making last-minute phone calls and sending last-minute emails, I left the house an hour later than planned. With a five-hour drive and only the afternoon of a late October day ahead of […]
Departments
Posted inHeard Around the West
Hot hot Arizona, stubborn obituaries
ARIZONA Phoenix broke a record on April , though we can’t imagine anyone celebrated the event. The temperature climbed up to 105 degrees — six degrees hotter than the previous record for that day. COLORADO A recent paid obituary in the Denver Post for a man named Michael “Flathead” Blanchard made for some delightful reading. […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Recycling diesel emissions for farm fertilizer?
The summer of 2007 was one of the driest and hottest on record in Montana. Fields withered along the state’s arid Hi-Line. But in the small, north-central town of Rudyard, one emerald-green cornfield stood out amid the brown. The field was a test plot grown with a technology that only a fed-up farmer could have […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
L.A. activists try to stop woodlands from becoming sediment dumps
The list price was $1.125 million in August 2011, when Sotheby’s International Realty held the first open house for 1674 Highland Oaks Drive, in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia. Scented candles burned, classical music played and the air conditioner ran as potential buyers milled through the home’s three bedrooms, living room and combination den/dining […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Retirees join environmentalists in fighting Arizona copper mine
Nestled as it is amid saguaro-studded hills, under a sky crisp blue by day and starry by night, you’d never guess Queen Valley, Ariz., is only 40 miles east of Phoenix. Its cozy homes surround a lush golf course, about four miles from a swath of state land perfect for four-wheeling, hunting and bird-watching. About […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
How to dispose of frozen cows
COLORADO Time has run out for the frozen cows of Conundrum Hot Springs, the immensely popular, 11,200-foot-high stopover for hikers in western Colorado’s White River National Forest. According to the Aspen Daily News, several cows jammed themselves into a Forest Service cabin this winter, apparently to get warm, though unfortunately they were unable to figure […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Western legislatures grab for control of public lands
In late April, Arizona’s Legislature approved a bill demanding that Washington, D.C., give the state control over most of its federal land. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a similar measure in March. These bills are, of course, highly unlikely to result in any actual transfer of land; most legal experts think they’ll prove unconstitutional, and […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
The least — and most — American of places: A review of Rez Life
Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation LifeDavid Treuer368 pages, hardcover: $26.Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012. Accomplished novelist David Treuer turns to nonfiction in his latest book, which combines elements of his own life on “the rez” with a historical look at North American Indian life over the past several hundred years. Since “most people will […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Western legislative roundup
Western legislatures, except California‘s, have finished for 2012. Montana and Nevada didn’t have a lawmaking session this year, but elsewhere, election-year politics, not surprisingly, influenced what happened. In New Mexico, many Republican-favored bills were shot down by a Democrat-controlled Legislature, including a measure to repeal a 2003 law that allows undocumented immigrants to get drivers’ […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
The delights of urban wilderness
I spent most of my awkward teenaged years sequestered in subdivisions among manicured lawns and black-topped cul-de-sacs. Fortunately, when after-school TV got too boring, I could leave the house and go exploring — wandering alone through the scruffy patches of woods and fields that edged our orderly neighborhood outside St. Louis, Mo. I remember the […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Dear HCN: Reader survey responses
Our annual reader surveys have been trickling in, and as always, they’re chock-full of thoughtful criticism, enthusiastic encouragement, and suggestions for widening — or narrowing — our field of view. Here’s a sampling of what’s on your mind. One of the things we appreciated is that HCN is apolitical. I found Tom Zoellner’s “Extreme Arizona” […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
HCNers go to journalism conferences
High Country News‘ hometown of Paonia, Colo., has great food, great people, great access to mountains, rivers and deserts, and a great climate. What it doesn’t have, beyond our little office, is much in the way of opportunities for journalistic cross-pollination or training. So we were thrilled when HCN online editor Stephanie Paige Ogburn won […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Bark beetle kill leads to more severe fires, right? Well, maybe
The lodgepole pine and spruce-fir forests of the Intermountain West are reeling under a one-two punch: more frequent and severe wildfires, and an epidemic of tree-killing bark beetles. Once-green forests are filled with red dying trees and patches of gray dead ones. From a distance, the effect is oddly beautiful. Up close, people often experience […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Matters of life and death: A review of Contents May Have Shifted
Contents May Have ShiftedPam Houston320 pages, hardcover: $25.95.W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Pam Houston writes somewhat like a modern-day Jane Austen, although rather than merely dance at the ball, Elizabeth Bennet gets to go backpacking with Mr. Darcy in the San Juans (or perhaps take a trip to Tunisia or Bhutan). Beginning with her […]
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
Sierra Crane-Murdoch on Idaho’s political transformation
KDNK, a public radio station in Carbondale, Colo., regularly interviews High Country News writers and editors, in a feature they call “Sounds of the High Country.” Here, KDNK’s Nelson Harvey talk with High Country News correspondent Sierra Crane-Murdoch about Idaho’s political transformation and the (mostly) California migrants behind it. Protest audio courtesy of noisecollector, from freesound.org
Posted inHeard Around the West
Library-loving geese intimidate kids
COLORADOCanada geese may not enjoy reading, but one pair has definitely become territorial about the Harmony Library on the campus of Front Range Community College in Fort Collins, Colo. When library patrons try to enter or exit the main door, the 10-to-14-pound geese hiss and flap their wings — an “intimidating” experience for little kids […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Balancing fish and farms on a Washington estuary
In late summer last year, a small but enthusiastic crowd gathered in northwest Washington to witness the rebirth of a waterway — the result of years of negotiation, compromise and patience. Those present heard about the project’s importance, not only for Pacific salmon, but also for the local community’s livelihood. It sounds a lot like […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Note: along with the sidebar at left, a separate editor’s note accompanies this story. At 6:30 on a warm spring morning, a brightly colored summer tanager flits above green cottonwood, willow and sycamore trees. Lower down in the forest, a vermillion flycatcher darts from one mesquite branch to another. A piercing cry — “ke-er” — […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Imaginary journeys on a rowing machine
I don’t mind exercise. Really, I don’t. But I’ve always preferred to do it while accomplishing something else: going to work, talking to a friend, running an errand. At the very least, I like to huff and puff outdoors, away from the computer and incipient carpal-tunnel syndrome. Going to a gym? It’s always seemed a […]