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 […]
Crash kills a conservation deal
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 […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Not boring, not befuddling
Somewhere there is a school that teaches those who work for government agencies and environmental groups to write press releases. The school’s core curriculum consists of courses in Boasting in Print and Bad Writing; it also offers seminars in Boring and Befuddling the Reader, Grazing the Truth, and Tunnel Vision. Even in peacetime, those who […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
We can take it
As the country struggled through the Great Depression, nearly 3 million young men came together in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) with the motto, “We can take it.” Between 1933 and 1942, the CCC built 125,000 miles of roads, strung 89,000 miles of telephone lines and revegetated almost a million acres of rangeland. This year, […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Spills and secrets
Knowing what chemicals ride the rails is crucial in preparing for accidental spills, says a citizens’ coalition for environmental health in Alberton, a small northwestern Montana town. The group formed after a Montana Rail Link train derailed, exposing the town of Alberton to chlorine and leaving some residents with lingering health problems (HCN, 4/28/97). Long […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Ghostly fish swim in Idaho
Once there were thousands of sockeye salmon leaving the Pacific Ocean to spawn in Idaho’s Redfish Lake. Only one sockeye salmon made it to the lake in 1994, 1995 and 1996; and not even one bright-red fish returned to spawn in 1997. The decline of these once abundant native fish is something we ought to […]