From the Animas to Washington wildfire, here are the stories that our readers spent most time on in 2015.
Which stories held your attention this year?
Posted inArticles
The obscure music where wild animals sing from the heart
In a small corner of popular music, there are songs that have been written and sung in the haunting voices of animals, and the Canadian singer-songwriters Gordon Lightfoot and Ian Tyson have written what I think are the best of them. In Lightfoot’s “Whispers of the North,” a loon speaks: whispers of the northsoon I […]
Posted inArticles
In Idaho, rancher buyouts take a big step forward
Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains seem like an unlikely place for the beginning of a positive shift in public-land management. They gleam high and cold above the seemingly endless sagebrush plains of southern Idaho, one of the most conservative states in the West. Yet it was here last year that Republicans worked with environmentalists to plant […]
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: Year in review at Triangle P
Coconut the elk, Clem the colt and big dreams for next year.
Posted inArticles
Economic diplomacy in Sagebrush Rebel country
A new science and education center gives rural Utah a boost.
Posted inArticles
5 things I learned about managing my money from covering the oil bust
A reporter relays tips from her time in the field.
Posted inArticles
12 stories from the archives you should read now
A look at our writers’ favorite stories of all time, as our 45th anniversary draws to a close.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Western nativism has a rotten odor
Back in my railroad days, we often said that something had “a bad smell.” “I smell a bad order!”— lingo for a car that was rolling wrong and needed to be removed from the train. The alarm was shouted down from the conductor up in the “angel’s seat” in the caboose, back when a person actually […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Tools for trails
Thank you for your Nov. 9 article on guerrilla trail work. As a former U.S. Forest Service trail crew foreman, trail contractor and now fire lookout, I’ve done my share of clearing “official” trails and trying to keep others open that have been neglected. Richard Coots’ spirit is laudable. I’ve also seen the results of […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
To save a pine tree, researchers fight fungus with fungus
White bark pines are dying from infection across the Northern Rockies.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
The mysteries of the everyday
A writer and her family court the unknown.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
The Corps of Discovery, after the apocalypse
Review of Benjamin Percy’s “The Dead Lands.”
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
New clues to the past in Nevada’s desert fossils
Scientific inquiry is a process of constant revision. And revision is where the most intriguing discoveries happen.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Searching for the good fight in the Nez Perce War
A review of William T. Vollmann’s “The Dying Grass”
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Pet the nipping pup and hide your newcomer roots: tips from a failed campaign.
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Latest: Gila River diversion inches forward
The project will start environment reviews, but it’s far from a done deal.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Latest: Arizona forest restoration project falls short
The Four Forest Restoration Initiative was supposed to be the largest such project ever attempted.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Two visions collide in Utah’s Wasatch Range
As ski resorts push for a mega-connection, backcountry skiers try to save some wild.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
The story behind a saved cienega in New Mexico
A rancher fights to protect a restored wetland against torrential rain and other threats.