BackstoryCoal companies, frustrated by environmental regulations and growing competition from natural gas producers, have long hoped to expand their market by exporting coal to Asia. So far, however, they’ve been stymied by Western opposition, from Montana ranchers battling new rail lines to Washington residents fighting coastal terminals (“Coal-export schemes ignite unusual opposition, from Wyoming to […]
The Latest: Coal companies seek export terminals beyond the Northwest
Posted inArticles
The National Park Service’s diversity problem
From Yosemite to Glacier National Park to the Harriet Tubman National Monument in Maryland, the 400 parks that make up the U.S. National Park system are supposed to be the shared heritage of all Americans. Yet as Jodi Peterson reports in the current issue of High Country News, the vast majority of people who visit […]
Posted inGoat
ESA changes could help protect sage grouse on private land
In an increasingly subdivided and trailblazed West, southeastern Oregon’s Harney County is a place that can still make you feel small. From the empty blacktop two-lane highways 78 and 20, broad grasslands rise to sagebrush-studded mesas and hills that crest and break to the blue horizons like the landlocked waves of a parched sea. Drive-fast-with-your-windows-down […]
Posted inWotr
The Colorado River’s reunion with its usually bone-dry Delta
They kissed. Like two long-lost lovers who had been cruelly kept apart for 20 years, the Colorado River and the Sea of Cortez finally embraced. The historic reunion occurred this May as the United States and Mexico worked together to restore the Colorado River Delta. The “pulse flow” of water raced down from Lake Mead, […]
Posted inGoat
Feel-good salmon farms
Standing on a grated metal platform above a fiberglass tank, I’m entranced by silvery salmon gliding through a current of recycled freshwater. The salmon are lively and occasionally jump when a large feed bin, meticulously set with a timer, rains down an exact amount of feed pellets. Everything is designed to help the fish grow […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Parks for all?
The National Park Service struggles to connect with a changing America.
Posted inGoat
Against all odds, wolf OR7 may have found a mate
On May 3, a wolf slipped through the frame of a remote camera in southwestern Oregon, a blur of black and brown. The next day, under the cover of darkness, it stared directly at a camera, eyes aglow, and did something ordinary that, under the circumstances, was an extraordinary sight: It squatted and peed. This […]
Posted inWotr
A coffee entrepreneur’s unlikely success story
This is not a eulogy, just a slice of life, or in the case of Randy Wirth, 67, a fine cup of coffee with a good man. I can’t claim to have been a longtime friend, but I was a longtime acquaintance. We were both members of The Old-Guys-in-Speedos-Eeewww Club. We were fast and still […]
Posted inGoat
What ‘unstoppable’ Antarctic ice melt means for Western cities
Save for a freak May snowstorm, the other day started off normally. I woke up, made a giant mug of coffee and walked to work. But May 12 was no ordinary Monday. “Today,” said Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, “we present observational evidence that a large sector of the West […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Learning Forestry 101 in the Cascades
A novice logger helps thin the forest in Washington.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Look, Ma – a real Indian!
A performance artist tackles stereotypes of Native Americans in public.
Posted inGoat
Making sense of the latest National Climate Assessment
Earlier this month, I traveled to northern Washington for a friend’s wedding. Weary from wandering the drought-racked farmlands in California’s Central Valley, I was kindly given permission by my wife to stay an extra day and revel in the green lushness of the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas. I set out early from my hotel in […]
Posted inGoat
Utah denied claim to road in Canyonlands National Park
High Country News has been around for 44 years now … and sometimes it feels like we’ve been covering certain stories for darn near that long too. Like the Animas-La Plata water project in southern Colorado, meant to fulfill the Utes’ water rights, or the Central Arizona Project, which supplies Phoenix, Scottsdale and other major […]
Posted inWotr
What the president can do right now for conservation
When a racist rancher in Nevada and his armed supporters can command headlines by claiming to own and control publicly owned lands, perhaps it’s time to remind Westerners about the history of the nation’s public-land heritage. Recall that it is we, the American people, who own the public lands that make up so much of […]
Posted inArticles
A reluctant rebellion in the Utah desert
For ATVers at Recapture Canyon, realpolitik meets out-of-town zeal.
Posted inGoat
Unlikely partnership seeks to end turf wars in western Colorado
The room was a brawl waiting to happen. Horseback riders sat next to mountain bikers. ATV, jeep and motorbike enthusiasts took their seats across from wilderness, hiking and “quiet trail” advocates. Even a survey of peoples’ heads revealed the potential tension: There were cowboy hats and shiny, banker-like pates; spiky mullets and hair flattened by […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
This is our land – until it’s privatized
It’s 6 a.m. on April 8 as I head out for a hike on Mount Lemmon, in Arizona’s Coronado National Forest. Today, the temperature in Tucson will break 90 degrees, so I’m looking forward to the cooler, higher elevations. Passing Rose Canyon, I notice that the campground is still closed. Making a quick decision, I […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The vital diversity of our parks
It’s appropriate that this issue’s cover story on diversity in the national parks opens in Mesa Verde, Colorado. Mesa Verde represents one of the Park Service’s earliest attempts at increasing racial and ethnic diversity, by showcasing and preserving Native American culture. Yet its history also demonstrates the challenges public lands face, both in hiring minorities […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Timeline: The BLM vs. Cliven Bundy
A detailed history of the conflict, starting in 1953.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Rock Art of the Grand Canyon Region
Rock Art of the Grand Canyon RegionDon D. Christensen, Jerry Dickey, and Steven M. Freers,248 pages, softcover:$24.95.Sunbelt Publications, Inc., 2013 Hiking the Grand Canyon is a journey through geologic time: The pink sedimentary layers, the limestone left by antediluvian seas, and the river-carved gorge are stunning reminders of our planet’s age. But as Rock Art […]