In West Yellowstone, Mont., where snowmobile tourism is a mainstay of the economy, locals are split between fierce supporters of the industry and those who favor a little more quiet and a measure of control.
The Latest Bounce
The country’s next nuclear power plant may be built in Idaho. The Department of Energy’s “Nuclear Power 2010” initiative aims to get a new plant built somewhere in the U.S. by the end of the decade. One of three DOE sites under consideration is the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), which a year…
Emery County’s late-lamented heritage
Dear HCN, The issues of tourism and formal designation of special status for the San Rafael Swell have once again surfaced. As I remember, the last time the people of Emery County had this much debate about development issues was in the early 1970s. At that time there was a very tiny minority who spoke…
NRA: Get the lead out, and lead
Dear HCN, There is no need for condors to be dying of lead poisoning (HCN, 2/18/02: Condor program laden with lead). There are already several alternatives to lead bullets on the market. For more than a decade, solid copper bullets have proven effective on all game. Though currently expensive for shooters who do a lot…
Braking development in the Breaks
MONTANA When then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt visited Montana’s Missouri Breaks on a rafting trip down the Missouri River in 1999, he roused fears among some that if the area were declared a monument, it would be put off-limits to oil and gas leasing. Shortly thereafter, the Bureau of Land Management awarded a series of leases…
Evans a liberal Republican
Dear HCN, Andy Stahl writes that William Dwyer was nominated for the federal bench “by liberal Democrat Dan Evans and conservative Republican Slade Gorton” (HCN, 3/4/02: ‘His courtroom was a classroom’). Actually, Evans is also a Republican. Stahl is probably confused because, in 1985, a liberal Republican like Evans would be more liberal than most…
Wheels still spin after desert lockdown
ARIZONA An unforgiving expanse of Arizona desert that’s almost as big as Rhode Island is now off limits to nearly everyone except drug smugglers, illegal immigrants and the Border Patrol agents who chase them. From March 15 to July 15, dirt-road closures meant to protect the endangered Sonoran pronghorn will prevent public access to three-quarters…
Forest Service gives climbers the slip
OREGON Rock climbers are clinging a bit more tenaciously to crags on federal lands now that the U.S. Forest Service has all but outlawed climbing at a network of caves outside of Bend, Ore. To protect dwindling populations of bats and to preserve the caves, which are sacred to the Confederated Tribes of the Warm…
A road through a national monument?
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque, N.M., is growing so quickly that Petroglyph National Monument, currently on the outskirts of town, is likely to be enveloped by the city in the next 20 years. Some planners want to build a road through the monument, which now divides the west side of Albuquerque from the rest of the city…
Snowy plover predators become prey
OREGON Many creatures that forage along the sand dunes of the Oregon Coast consider the snowy plover’s cream-colored eggs a savory delicacy, and all those stolen eggs add up. Since 1993, the shy shorebird has been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Despite federal and state wildlife agencies’ recovery efforts, such as fencing…
Protests from the (tree)top down
During the late ’90s, dozens of activists camped out in the treetops of Northern California’s Headwaters Forest, protesting clear-cutting by Pacific Lumber. Their months – and even years – above the ground didn’t save the entire forest, but they managed to protect a few of the oldest groves. The tree-sits also drew intense media attention…
Letting their lights shine
They have stayed quietly in the background for decades, watching as their men vainly tried to pound the round peg of European governmental tradition into the square hole of tribal culture. But no longer: The women of Indian Country are speaking up, taking charge, and making things happen, according to a recent series by Montana’s…
A blueprint for better communities
Westerners who are fed up with polluted water and air, strip malls that eat up open space, and automobile-dependent lifestyles can look to a new book by the Natural Resources Defense Council for guidance on how to counter the poorly planned patterns of growth we now know as urban sprawl. In a series of 35…
How to handle the big cats
It’s a typical, sunny Western day, and you’re outside gardening when you notice a big cat eyeing you intently and slinking slowly towards you. What should you do? Don’t act defenseless, says Jon Rachael, regional wildlife manager in Idaho. “Almost invariably, mountain lions attack for food, so if you play dead, that only makes the…
Drought pinches Colorado River reservoirs
California’s ‘surplus’ water not in jeopardy, yet
Campaign finance reform may boost grass roots
WASHINGTON, D.C. – We all know that whoever looks too closely at the trees can lose sight of the forest. Something along this line has happened to those around here who make their living watching trees and forests, fields and streams, or mountains and deserts, either to extract resources from them or to guard them…
A new world in the woods
With some help from Congress, forest restoration may be gathering steam
Heard around the West
Forget gambling casinos and the songs of Wayne Newton; these days the state of Nevada is selling stupid tricks on public lands. Print ads in Outside, National Geographic Adventure and other publications describe Nevada “as a primal playground with more … tear-yourself-to-shreds terrain than any other place in this great nation.” The ads go on…
The ‘Niche West’ reconnects us to the land
Arguing is one of my favorite sports. I always like to participate, and often I enjoy watching, as with the latest bout between Thomas Michael Power, an economics professor at the University of Montana, and Ed Marston, publisher of High Country News (HCN, 12/17/01: Economics with a heart but no soul) and (HCN, 2/4/02: Post-cowboy…
Cleaner machines drive (slowly) toward Yellowstone
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about how snowmobilers dominate the small town of West Yellowstone. — WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana — Soon this town, as well as Yellowstone National Park and the national forest trails, will begin to get some relief from one chronic problem – the smoke and associated air pollution…
Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Note: This feature story was accompanied by two sidebars, describing the slow progress in developing “greener” snowmobiles and the difficult Yellowstone National Park winter-use planning. — WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana — On a sunny Thursday afternoon in mid-February, Glen Loomis, one of the snowmobile businessmen whose point of view dominates this small town, is telling me…
Winter-use plan lurches toward the finish line
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about how snowmobilers dominate the small town that’s the main gateway to Yellowstone National Park (West Yellowstone, Mont.). — The simplest way to evaluate snowmobile traffic in Yellowstone National Park is to flip-flop the season to summer: Imagine if most of the people touring the park…
Dear Friends
The reporter’s life There’s nothing like being on the ground to really understand a story. Just ask HCN Northern Rockies editor Ray Ring, who wrote this week’s cover piece on the turmoil in West Yellowstone, Mont., the self-dubbed “Snowmobile Capital of the World.” Ray is no stranger to digging for the deeper angle. A few…
Notes from a corporate insider: It’s not easy turning green
Don Popish’s Carhartt overalls are so infused with dirt and grease that they crackle when he walks. He’s got rings under his eyes from fixing balky Snowcats at night in Aspen Skiing Co.’s vehicle shop. Me, I’m an environmentalist in a starched shirt. But like Don, I’ve got a job to do for the company.…
April Fools
Shrub takes on pesky species By Helen Wheels Wasps, head lice and roaches to be annihilated President Gorge W. Shrub, determined to show that “we take nature as seriously as nurture,” said yesterday that his administration will exterminate all species that might possibly, some day, qualify for listing under the Endangered Species Act. “As long…
The Postal Service stamps the mythic West
Wyoming has declared war on Montana. Why? Wyoming officials say their northern neighbor has co-opted an icon behind which the state tries to perpetuate long-gone traditions. The stimulus for the feud was the U.S. Postal Service and its 50-state commemorative stamp series. The Montana stamp features a cowboy atop a bucking horse. Wyoming says it…