HCN takes a holiday break

With sub-zero lows and nearly a foot of fresh snow outside our Paonia, Colo., offices, it's finally looking – and feeling – like wintertime. That means it's time for another publishing break in our 22-issue-per-year schedule. The next HCN appears Jan. 20, but meanwhile, you can visit hcn.org for fresh news, features and opinion. Here's wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season!

Visitors
We're still catching up on our visitors – so many of you came by this fall! We're delighted, as always, to get to know the terrific folks who read and support us.

In late September, Clyde Burnett and Leslee Schmitt drove over from the wonderfully named Lump Gulch, Colo., southwest of Boulder. Clyde, a retired physics professor, moved to Colorado to become a visiting scientist with NOAA. Now, he makes climate science more accessible by writing novels. Leslee, who lived in Teton Valley, Idaho, before moving to Colorado, is a quilt-maker and writer. Kiri, Clyde's Landseer Newfoundland, joined the party; HCN staff appreciated the "canine therapy."

Another canine companion, One-Eyed Joe, accompanied his Taos, N.M.-based humans, Bonnie Golden and Beau Shoen, on a visit to HCN. They decided to "take a week to get dirty and camp," and hunt mushrooms. (This was before the recent snowstorm, which made it much harder to locate fungi, especially white-capped ones.) They liked Paonia: "It's not all polished and perfect, it's a real town." Bonnie works at a nursing home; Beau, a contractor, builds solar homes.

When Keith VanHoutan cruised slowly up Paonia's main drag, seemingly searching for something, his road-tripping partner Amy Pape wondered what he was up to – some kind of "secret plan," she surmised. Then she saw the High Country News sign on our building. The Englewood, Colo., couple, who've subscribed for three years, say HCN is the only magazine they're willing to pay for. Amy, a zookeeper-turned-nursing student, particularly likes our wildlife stories, while Keith, a four-wheeling enthusiast, appreciates our balanced coverage of public lands.

Corrections
Our Nov. 11 story, "Forbidden Waters," stated that Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks have "blanket bans" on kayaking. However, as several readers noted, the bans are by no means comprehensive: A calm three-mile channel of the Lewis River in Yellowstone is legal to paddle, as is a much longer section of the Snake River in Grand Teton. The story also identified Mark Pearson as head of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition's conservation program, but he is the former director – Scott Christensen is currently in charge. Furthermore, American Whitewater has 5,500 members, not 4,500; and the story incorrectly stated that the Merced River's wild and scenic designation compelled Yosemite to ease boating restrictions there. Park officials are currently considering doing so. Naughty children worry about getting coal in their stockings; at HCN, we fear we deserve a whole oil spill in ours. We regret the errors.

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