Twenty years after its longtime mainstay, the Climax
Molybdenum Mine, closed, Leadville, Colo., is still groping for a
secure economy and a new identity.
Also in this issue: The Forest Service has
announced a major overhaul of the forest planning process that some
fear may cut out both environmental oversight and public
involvement, and lead to even more legal gridlock.
Mormons don’t recognize history
Dear HCN,Bigotry is an easy label to apply to Ray Ring’s piece on the Martin’s Cove land exchange (HCN, 9/30/02: This land holds a story the church won’t tell), but most Mormons don’t recognize a lot of their own history. Of course, the violence against them in their years in Illinois was terrible. One of…
Ego-pumping capitalism at its best
Dear HCN,I found the latest cover story about gated communities (HCN, 11/11/02: Behind the gate), both amusing and sad. Bob Arrigoni and the other “simple, low-key” Stock Farm residents like him exist in a different reality, and it reinforces my theory that in most cases, the more money people have, the less practical they become.…
HCN’s agenda – envy and socialism
Dear HCN, Normally, when you read the paper, you should have the feeling of becoming informed on issues which affect us all. After reading the last few papers, concerning the issues of the LDS church purchase and the gated communities, I have to say these are not issues, but agenda items of your reporters. As…
Oregon has been mis-zoned
Dear HCN, Rebecca’s Clarren article about Oregon’s 30-year-old land-use system was well-done and covered many of the pluses and minuses (HCN, 11/25/02: Shadow creatures). However, it did not include some basic statistics that reveal the widespread mis-zoning imposed on rural landowners throughout the state. The reality is that 97 percent of all rural private land…
Oregon: Love it or leave it
Dear HCN, Lynn and Janis Wood of Lebanon, Ore., display an insidious perspective emblematic of the contemporary West (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s post child grows up). Oregon formed its bedrock land-planning policies over 30 years ago. The Woods moved to Oregon three years ago. They knew — or should have known — the rules when they…
Cheap shots at Cheney
Dear HCN, Cheap-shot personal hatchet jobs such as Paul Krza’s article “What Dick Cheney might have learned in Rock Springs, Wyoming” (HCN, 12/9/02: What Dick Cheney might have learned in Rock Springs, Wyoming) are out of order for a quality publication. You need to understand that your readership embraces a wide swath of thinking united…
An ode to the Marstons
Dear HCN, Your readers are probably drowning you in Marston tributes, as they should. Here’s mine: Ed and Betsy: Thanks for coming West, And caring so much, and working so hard, on behalf of the paper and the region. You cared about the people here, and about all our prickly Western dilemmas. And you loved…
Wild tiles
More than 25 years ago, a group of wildlife-film enthusiasts started the International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Mont. This year, organizers for the event have reopened the historic Roxy Theater in downtown Missoula as a media center that will provide year-round screening of the festival’s films. To celebrate the purchase and renovation of the…
A gilded wrinkle in time
In his first work of historical fiction, planetary scientist William K. Hartmann digs into the history of the American Southwest and finds a unique and compelling mystery. The main character in Cities of Gold is the 16th-century Spanish explorer and friar Marcos de Niza, who was accused of spreading fables about the Southwest’s “seven cities…
The Latest Bounce
Cattle rustling is still a problem in the Four Corners, according to the New Mexico Livestock Board. The board has proposed a joint-powers agreement between the Navajo Nation and New Mexico that would prosecute thieves on the 17 million-acre reservation, where stolen cattle are often hidden and then sold on the black market (HCN, 8/19/02:…
Ranching conference secrets revealed!
Ever wonder what transpires at a ranch and reform conference, but lacked the chance to see for yourself? Now, you can: “Ranching West of the 100th Meridian,” a landmark conference held at Colorado State University, is available on four 50-minute videos. For three days in spring 2000, conferees chewed the cud about ranching in the…
How to go with the flow
In 1996 and 1997, the Yellowstone River in Montana surged forth in back-to-back, record-breaking floods that caused millions of dollars in damage (HCN, 3/27/00: The last wild river). Floodplain landowners scrambled to secure their property in an epidemic of bank-stabilization measures. But many river scientists believe that stabilization measures actually exacerbate floods, and can accelerate…
Building off the grid
“If you’re reading these words, it’s because you’re a dreamer. You dream of living where you don’t, and doing things you’ve never done.” Rex and LaVonne Ewing, authors of Logs, Wind and Sun … Handcraft Your Own Log Home … Then Power it with Nature, have written the book they searched for when building their…
Wayward wolf nabbed in Utah
A gimpy 2-year-old wolf that once charmed wildlife watchers in Yellowstone National Park recently gave Utahns a wake-up call of the wild. “Wolf No. 253” from the famous Druid Peak Pack in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley stumbled into a leghold coyote trap 30 miles northeast of Salt Lake City on Nov. 30. He had trekked 200…
Seattle Times is not independent
Dear HCN, Freedom of the press is eroding before our very eyes. So speaks Stephen Lyons, citing as authority, Robert Blethen, publisher of the Seattle Times (HCN, 11/11/02: Freedom of the press is eroding before our eyes). Couldn’t he have found a better example? Blethen’s idea of independence is to run full-page ads in his…
Logging for water creates a buzz
Proposals for clear-cuts emerge with the drought
Catch 22
NAVAJO DAM, N.M. – It’s a Thursday morning in October, and I count 58 vehicles in the parking lot next to the “Texas Hole” of the San Juan River. A mile or so downstream of the 402-foot high dam, this stretch of water is named for the Texans who used to fish for trout here…
Holding open the door to the good life up north
The hour was early, the high desert air was fall-frosty, and the coffee was, well, truly horrible. I’d arrived for my volunteer shift at a Catholic church in the western Colorado town of Delta, and I had a very bad feeling. Five hundred people were already waiting on the sidewalk outside, sipping the acrid coffee,…
The canyon between us
We set out in his truck on the day after Christmas, the man I loved and I, winding our way west from Colorado into Utah. We took the highway to Gateway, then the road to Paradox. The road took us through canyons where nobody else seemed to be awake, the occasional ranch as empty and…
“They want the workers to be invisible”
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bob Elder, a third-generation Leadville resident, worked at the Climax for 17 years as a mining engineer. He thinks the way people commute to resort jobs now is “exploitative.” Bob Elder: “I just have to wonder how these resort areas are going to sustain…
Open space initiative offers hope
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. LEADVILLE, Colo. – Cross-country skier Mike LeVine strides by the rusted ore car and other mining relics that decorate the Mineral Belt Trail. LeVine moved to Leadville from Chicago five years ago, looking to retire in a mountain town that isn’t a glitzy resort.…
In search of the Glory Days
Two decades after the bust, Colorado’s last great mining town still gropes for a new identity
Dear Friends
A town reborn In the last issue of High Country News we told you about a mining town – Eureka, Utah – in a death spiral. This issue features Leadville, Colo., also a moribund mining town, but one that is climbing out from the tomb of its mining past. The author, Leadville-area resident Steve Voynick,…
Forest planning gets a facelift
Critics say the new look will turn national forests into lawsuit magnets
Northwest braces itself for wolves
Wild predators are ready to reintroduce themselves to Oregon
Heard Around the West
Los Angeles Times columnist John Balzar says it’s no secret: The Bush administration “hates” environmentalists. “I cannot see another way to explain the endless string of one-sided decisions and the dripping condescension with which they are delivered,” Balzar writes. “In a feather-brained brief, the administration argued that conservationists should consider the upside of bird deaths…
Budget cuts bury paleontologists
Park Service thins program at Dinosaur National Monument