The pearly gates to Montana’s Paradise Valley will soon open. The Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age religious sect headquartered there, wants to sell 3,000 acres of a 10,000-acre Montana ranch that spokesman Christopher Kelley calls “a kind of Mecca.” He says the sale will generate cash for “satellite churches’ growing around the world. […]
Grab your place in paradise
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
The Wayward West
Western Republicans are tightening the noose on an inland Northwest ecosystem study. Riders on the appropriations bill in the House and Senate would give the 4-year-old Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project 4 months to live (HCN, 6/23/97). “We made an endangered species list for bureaucratic boondoggles and (the project) just got listed,” Idaho Rep. […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Who will be the president?
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – Navajo Nation presidents have been playing musical chairs for the past six months, and it’s not over yet. After President Albert Hale resigned last February to avoid charges that he’d accepted gifts or loans from companies doing business with the tribe, his replacement was Vice President Thomas Atcitty. Atcitty lasted only […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Big mines leave a big mess
South Dakota has told a gold- and silver-mining company that it can’t just walk away from its operation in the Black Hills, leaving the environmental damage behind. In May, the state obtained an emergency restraining order preventing the company, Brohm Mining, from abandoning treatment of collection ponds containing sulphuric acid and cyanide. Owners of the […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Crash kills a conservation deal
Dollars have downed a landmark bid to hold together one of Arizona’s most scenic ranches. This spring, Arizona State Parks offered rancher Bob Sharp and his sisters $9 million to preserve the family’s ranch in the lush San Rafael Valley south of Tucson (HCN, 3/2/98). A conservation easement would have given the state the development […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
In wilderness, don’t phone home
A man recently fell and broke his leg while hiking in the wilderness area above Boulder, Colo. While I wondered aloud how anyone could meet this fate in such a well-worn area, it was his rescue that piqued my attention. The lost hiker carried a cell phone and a hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS), a […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Forest Service pulls anchor ban out of thin air
My skin still tingles when I recall our helplessness as the sound of thunder and flash of lightning struck our senses simultaneously. My rock-climbing partner and I had just reached the summit of a long, remote climb in California’s High Sierras, when a fast-moving thunderstorm broke over us. I yelled to my partner to start […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Heard around the West
“I’m having a ball,” says Ruth Thomas of Spokane, Wash. She may be 72 and arthritic, but that doesn’t stop Thomas from pursuing a dream. After the former middle-school science teacher sold her house and furniture and bought a bike, she began an odyssey across the United States, visiting the smallest town in every state […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Salmon plan can’t stand alone
Two years ago, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber boasted that his state could do a better job of managing coho salmon than the Endangered Species Act. The Oregon Plan, he said, was an innovative approach to endangered species management on state and private land – a collaborative, mostly voluntary approach that could replace top-down federal regulations. […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Dear Friends
Summer visitors Rick and Lucy Daley stopped in on their way to the Desert Museum in Tucson, Ariz., where he will be the new director. Rick is former director of the Denver Botanic Gardens, while Lucy was director of international students for the University of Colorado, Denver College of Business. Artist Phil Undercuffler came by […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
The high end of home economics: Aspen’s trophy home phenomenon
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ASPEN, Colo. – In 1989, the Denver-based Good Deed Land Co. bought a 10-acre mining claim on Aspen Mountain and offered it for resale at $10 per square inch. An additional $12.50 garnered a T-shirt stating “Aspen Landowner.” Nearly a decade later, a house […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
An American dream gets evicted
EDWARDS, Colo. – A luxury condominium complex is going up here – not an unusual phenomenon in one of the fastest-growing counties in the state of Colorado. But this development is affecting me. I hear voices as I drive by the construction site. Voices from this place’s past. They are not the voices of Ute […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
The trailer evolves
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. PRE-1910 Early car campers raise their tents off the ground with simple platforms on wheels, creating the first tent trailers. Since few cars top 15 mph, most people leave the tents standing as they pull their trailers home. 1913 A carriage company in Los […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Living out the trailer dream
In the West, one in six people lives in a trailer
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Blind Descent
I don’t even like it when the elevator door closes, but I like the feisty and fictional Anna Pigeon so much that I gritted my teeth and followed her down into Lechuguilla Cave. Nevada Barr’s newest mystery, Blind Descent, takes park ranger Anna Pigeon a thousand feet under southern New Mexico, into the deepest and, […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Blasting through a cathedral
When Congress established Petroglyph National Monument in 1990, on the edge of Albuquerque, N.M., its rationale was straightforward: “to protect the cultural and natural resources of the area from urbanization and vandalism.” Just a few years later another threat to the monument emerged. To accommodate the desire of developers, the New Mexico delegation backed a […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
The Wilderness Act Handbook
Though wilderness and legislation may seem like apples and oranges, the Wilderness Society makes their relationship plain as day in its updated edition of The Wilderness Act Handbook. The report fully quotes original mandates, gives historical context and interprets wilderness legislation for the uninformed reader. For a $5 copy, contact the Wilderness Society, 900 17th […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
The Colorado River: How Secure Is Our Water?
The former top water warrior for the State of Colorado will talk to the Mesa County Water Association on the subject: “The Colorado River: How Secure Is Our Water?” Speaker Jim Lochhead was executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources until recently. His talk will be Tuesday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m. at 750 […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Incentives for Conserving Open Lands in Greater Yellowstone
Incentives for Conserving Open Lands in Greater Yellowstone, a 51-page report by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Environmental Defense Fund and the World Wildlife Fund, gives landowners ideas about protecting the natural value of their land. Incentives include tax benefits for conservation easements and subsidies for setting aside conservation reserves. For a $5 copy, contact […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Restoration Days
-Mono Lake is rising, the Committee is 20 years old, and we’re celebrating,” says the Mono Lake Committee about the party they’re throwing for their 20th anniversary – Restoration Days. Join the Mono Lake Committee, supporters and friends over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4-7, in activities ranging from bird watching, guided canoe trips, volcano exploring […]