Outside magazine recently picked six or seven towns – mostly in the West – as great places to live. But those seduced into pulling up stakes by the glossy photos and idyllic promises in July’s cover story should first consider a few facts. Here are three days’ worth of headlines from the Spokesman-Review, the newspaper […]
Grow up, dig in, and take root
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Devastation at the center of his universe
For many of us, some places become more special than all others. One of mine is a raw asymmetrical land, lacking the scenic appeal of Colorado’s alps. It’s a quiltwork of lodgepole pine, spruce and Douglas fir, with heroic patches of alpine larch and whitebark pine hugging the highest and rockiest slopes. There’s old-growth ponderosa […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Dear readers
High Country News is put together every two weeks in much the way a Jackson Pollock-type painting is put together. And that is the approach we have taken to the ceremony marking the paper’s 25 years in the West: impromptu, short on formal presentations and long on directness. We’re thinking of Saturday, Sept. 9, as […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Heard around the West
Everyone agrees that environmentalism has been hit out of the ballpark by “Wise Users’ and Republicans. But no one knew why we’d whiffed until Glen Martin of the San Francisco Chronicle did an analysis. Deconstructing his article (it used to be called reading between the lines) shows that Greens spend too much time hiking and […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
How to get rural people to stand proud and tall
It usually takes something substantial – a dam or the earth’s 5 billion people – to annoy David Brower. But just credit him with having founded the Sierra Club and watch the scowl form. The annoyance is part vanity. The Sierra Club is now 103; Brower is a youthful 83. His reaction is also part […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
And you thought cows were bad…
I pull apart the sooty rocks, exposing wads of foil, blobs of heated plastic and paper plates. The trash goes in my yellow Woodsy the Owl bag; the ash I scatter in the bushes. This soggy alpine meadow here in Idaho offers no good burial sites for a summer’s accumulation of cinders, and I do […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Forest Service wants to play by a new set of rules
While reform of the Endangered Species Act captures headlines across the West, some conservationists say an equally important law is also in danger. It is the National Forest Management Act, or NFMA, which has governed watersheds, soils and wildlife for nearly two decades. Forest Service officials now propose wholesale changes in the regulations that implement […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
U.S. House to the environment: Die!
Attacking the environment through the yearly appropriations process is not new. But this year’s Congress may take it to new heights. No less an authority than House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., has acknowledged the scope of policy changes hooked on to appropriations bills: he called them “without precedent going back to 1933.” The attacks range […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Group tries to change how trees are cut
KALISPELL, Mont. – Strange bedfellows, the logger and the conservationist. Yet here in the Flathead Valley the two have joined forces to try to revolutionize the way America’s public forests are managed. “Our goal is to look at the entire forest,” says Steve Thompson of the Montana Wilderness Association. “Environmental goals are the prime concern […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Dear Friends
Suddenly, late summer It turned hot, and then it turned humid in this mountain valley that receives only 9 to 11 inches of rain a year. Although our swamp coolers can’t keep up, we tell ourselves to enjoy this damp and still warm August weather – slant light announces that fall isn’t far away. Lots […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
BLM land: outstanding opportunities for crowding
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook. A year ago, Bureau of Land Management rangers in southern Utah stumbled upon a remote, never-looted Anasazi ruin. To protect the site, they decided not to publicize its existence, but agency staffers’ jaws dropped recently when […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Did federal negligence help kill two hikers?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook. SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Who’s to blame when a backcountry hike turns deadly? Expert witnesses are being interviewed now for a trial next year that will ask that question. The case revolves around a disastrous […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
How the BLM killed a cow to save a canyon and stop the paperwork
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook. For 10 or more years she was an orphan trapped in a wilderness prison with no means of escape. Finally, she was spotted and a rescue launched. Within sight of freedom, she was killed. One bullet […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
For guilt-free wilderness trips
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook. For guilt-free wilderness trips Leave No Trace, Inc., is a new nonprofit group that provides information about “light on the land” backcountry skills (HCN, 6/12/95). Contact the group at P.O. Box 997, Boulder, CO 80306 (303/442-8222). […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
The road to wilderness is paved with outdoor magazines
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook. When Larry Burke first started Outside magazine, he named it after his boat Mariah, meaning “winds of change.” That was in the mid-1970s, right around the time Patagonia started making jackets out of stuff that looked […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
TORREY, Utah – J.W. Powell had returned from an extended summer vacation of camping, backpacking and whitewater boating. He found every outdoor-lover’s dream: beautiful, untouched backcountry and not another tourist on the trail. Best of all, this place was a secret, not even shown on the maps. So Powell did what many avid hikers are […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Short takes
The Montana Environmental Information Center will discuss recent state legislation that weakened water quality standards – plus mining, right-wing movements and Montana’s energy future – at its annual meeting Sept. 23 at Flathead Lake Biological Station. For more information, or to register by Sept. 8, contact MEIC, P.O. Box 1184, Helena, MT 59624 (406/443-2520). Desert […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Save the Sonoran
Save the Sonoran “After five years of watching them bulldoze the desert and pack the sardines in, those people living in Del Webb’s 1,400-home Terravita development will need a therapist,” says David Phelps. He’s a local carpenter and board member of Sonoran North, a grassroots group battling the blade in the booming communities north of […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Losing the border blues
LOSING THE BORDER BLUES Since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, exports to Mexico haven’t boomed nor have jobs increased in the United States. If you’re searching for better news on NAFTA, take a look at the summer 1995 issue of The Workbook. In its feature article, “Cleaning Up the Border: Will Sustainability […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Broads say: Take a hike
BROADS SAY: TAKE A HIKE Great Old Broads for Wilderness will head for the hills this fall to rally support for Utah wilderness. From Sept. 17 through Oct. 14, the group with the great name will schedule day hikes for supporters of America’s Redrock Wilderness Act. The Act would protect 5.7 million acres of land […]