“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. Although I’ve written 45 of these Rants from the Hill since the essay series launched back in July, 2010, there’s one word I have studiously avoided using. It is a filthy word, one that […]
Rants from the Hill: The Moopets
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Two-wheel revolution in Gallup
Can a bunch of trails and bikes transform this down-and-out New Mexico town?
Posted inGoat
The biggest wildlife crossing you’ve never heard of
Nestled in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington, winding along a 15-mile stretch of interstate is the largest wildlife connectivity project you’ve never heard of. Deer, elk, mountain goats, bobcats, black bears, foxes, mink, otters, cougars and wild turkeys roam the region’s old growth forests, mountain meadows, streams and glacier-covered peaks. But all too often, […]
Posted inGoat
Use well water in oil & gas territory? There’s a guide for that
As oil and gas development in Western states continues to increase, from Green River, Utah to North Dakota’s Bakken, so do public fears of water contamination from spills and hydraulic fracturing. Although fracking (pumping water and chemicals underground to release oil or gas trapped within rock) has been used for decades, there’s still no conclusive […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
How we export our water to Asia
A precious resource leaves the West in the form of alfalfa hay.
Posted inGoat
A new era of clean air regulation is dawning
Court rulings are not typically repositories of poetic prose. But they occasionally contain beautiful little gems, like this quote from the King James Bible, embedded in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s majority opinion in a clean air case the Supreme Court ruled on this week: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound […]
Posted inGoat
What to expect when you’re expecting El Niño
The data are trickling in, and with each passing day it seems more certain: 2014 is going to be an El Niño year, and probably a big one. What does that mean for your Western state? First, a quick primer on the science behind The Niño. In normal years, prevailing winds in the Pacific Ocean […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Video of epic mule deer migration
Mulies on the move in western Wyoming.
Posted inWotr
This land 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 inGoat
Google’s time machine will show changes in development and nature
I like to play the “used to be” game. While walking around my hometown with friends, I point to a storefront — one of the snazzier restaurants in town, say — and say, “That used to be this weird little store that carried everything from comic books to frogs in formaldehyde, all left over from […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Genetic techniques turn up new species – and help conservation
The discovery of a small fish in Montana and Idaho may have big implications.
Posted inArticles
The growing concern about Arctic oil spills
New report highlights lack of preparation and gaps in understanding impacts.
Posted inGoat
Joshua trees may be migrating north in response to climate change
Last spring, Joshua trees put on a magnificent show in the Mojave Desert. Nearly all at once nearly all of them bloomed, sprouting dense bouquets of waxy, creamy-green flowers from their Seussian tufts of spiky leaves. The bloom was so sweeping and abundant — and such a contrast to the typical pattern, where only a […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Why we risk life and property
Dangerous places in the West are often the most desirable.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Voting down science education, world’s toughest boss, and bending over backwards for healthcare.
THE NATIONWhat if you went to your family doctor complaining about that nasty rundown blah sort of feeling and were advised to experience the joys of nature rather than those of pharmaceuticals? In a nutshell: Take two aspen and call me in the morning. Daphne Miller says it’s not a joke: Nature in general is […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
The Latest: Two energy giants forced to clean up uranium mess
Kerr-McGee and Anadarko to put billions into detoxing.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
The high price of cheap housing and falt-screen TVs
The sad and infuriating article “Fallon’s Deadly Legacy” (HCN, 3/3/14) is staying with me; I did not simply read it and move on to the next interesting article. Of course, there is no way to fully overcome the pain of the death of a child, no words that can be truly comforting. However, those affected […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Shilling for Big Oil?
In 1993, the mayor of Cordova, Alaska, committed suicide. In his final note, he mentioned Exxon. This tragedy represents the lasting shocks that continue to ripple through many communities still affected by the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill 25 years later. While Krista Langlois’ story was focused on the ecological aspects of the […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Shady dealings in the desert
SunlandDon Waters200 pages, hardcover:$25.95.University of Nevada Press, 2013. Sid Dulaney leaves his cheating girlfriend behind in Massachusetts and returns home to Tucson in Sunland, Oregon writer Don Waters’ hilarious first novel. Sid had worked as an itinerant teacher, but finds himself jobless in Tucson, where he spends his time looking after his beloved grandmother, Nana. […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Mulies on the move
Scientists discover a surprising migration in western Wyoming.