During a symposium on natural resources and sustainability last Friday at University of Colorado, Boulder, law professor Charles Wilkinson took a look at a group of panelists that included two former secretaries of Interior, and in a moment of appreciation for their service, declared them “Western royalty.” No one said anything particularly groundbreaking at the […]
What I learned from Western royalty
Posted inWotr
Utah can boast of a living work of art
Visiting a remote work of art at the Great Salt Lake –– Robert Smithson’s brilliant Spiral Jetty.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The geoglyph guardian
Alfredo Figueroa fights to protect ancient land art in southern California.
Posted inGoat
Durango: The Best … town for those with lots of cash
For the third time in less than two years, I’ve been perusing the classifieds for a place for my family to rent in Durango, Colo., the town in which I grew up. Each time the pickings get slimmer, the prices get higher, and the process gets more agonizing. We’ve been driven to this masochistic ritual […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art: 1775-2012
Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2012Barbara C. Matilsky, 144 pages, paperback: $39.95. Whatcom Museum, 2013 When intrepid artists first ventured to the poles two centuries ago, they returned with paintings and sketches that made the region’s otherworldly starkness seem elegant and timeless. More recently, artists portray a landscape that is running out […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The little fish that could
An endangered Oregon minnow recovers, while many native fish still struggle.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The legend behind Salvation Mountain
At the entrance to the self-proclaimed “last free place on earth” – Slab City, a squatter camp in California’s Imperial Valley – stands Salvation Mountain, its slopes painted with biblical quotations and its peak topped with a giant white cross. The candy-colored hill is just a few stories high, but to the drifters, dreamers and […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The Latest: New EPA rules for diesel in fracking
BackstoryHydraulic fracturing – the injection of water, sand and chemicals into the ground to extract oil and natural gas – has sparked fears of groundwater contamination in rural communities like Pavillion, Wyo. (“Hydrofracked: One man’s quest for answers about natural gas drilling,” HCN, 6/27/11). Diesel is one of the more controversial ingredients used in some […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Silver (state) bullet
A proposed Mexico-to-Canada highway gets mixed reactions.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Not the Hanford I knew
I worked at Hanford for a few years in the late ’50s and early ’60s (“The Hanford Whistleblowers,” HCN, 2/3/14). Some days, as we traveled to the reactor areas, you could see Nike missiles on the ridge across the Columbia River. The missiles were there to protect the site from air attack. We would have […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
My time on the tank farms
In the early ’70s, I landed a job with ARCO, a contractor at the time overseeing tank farms (“The Hanford Whistleblowers,” HCN, 2/3/14). Working at the nukes was the best paying job around and it was what our dads did. Growing up in Richland, we walked our dads to the bus stop, and watched them […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Looking after we leap
In early January, the Elk River near Charleston, W.V., began to smell of licorice. The source of the strange odor was a steel tank with a small hole that leaked thousands of gallons of crude 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, a chemical used in coal processing, into the river, just upstream of an intake for Charleston’s municipal water […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Hope and history
In The Light Of JusticeWalter Echo-Hawk325 pages, softcover: $19.95.Fulcrum Publishing, 2013. It’s unthinkable that kids in America would ever be allowed to play “slaves and masters,” writes Walter Echo-Hawk, but we don’t see anything wrong with Junior strapping on the trusty ol’ cap-shooters for a game of “cowboys and Indians.” Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee tribal member […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Goodbye, Hello
In January, our board of directors gathered by phone and Web to talk with staff about High Country News‘ progress over the last four months. There’s good news: Print and digital subscriptions are up 1,000 from last year, our coffers are bursting with end-of-year donations (thanks to all who contributed!), and our redesigned website should […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Cows are not a ‘tool’
When I read “The Odd Couple,” I saw my career flash before my eyes (HCN, 2/17/14). From 1984 to 2006, I was the hydrologist on the Beaverhead National Forest, and for most of that time, my fellow “ologists” and I were involved with the grazing issue. Occasionally, we would get the right combination of permittee, […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Brutal frontier
The SonPhilipp Meyer592 pages, softcover: $16.99.Ecco, 2014. “The land was hard on its sons, harder yet on the sons of other lands,” writes Philipp Meyer in The Son, a masterful, gripping portrait of America’s Western expansion told through the lives of one Texas family. The Son braids together the stories of three members of the […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
A 100-pound pet tortoise wanders away, and cats are still killing birds.
Mishaps and mayhem from around the West.
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: IH8 DMV
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. I’ve always been impressed by vanity license plates—at least when they’re genuinely clever or funny—and have long thought that a little back bumper wit on my part might help my fellow Silver Hillbillies endure […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Pacific Crest Trail: A Journey in Photographs by Chris Alexander
We recommend using the gallery view to enjoy these photographs. Pacific Crest Trail: A Journey in Photographs Chris Alexander, 120 pages, hardcover: $49.95. wanderingthewild.com, 2013. At 2,660 miles long and with over 400,000 total feet of elevation change, the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches from Mexico to Canada, is not for the weak-legged. Chris Alexander’s […]
Posted inGoat
California’s drought is not about “fish versus farmers”
If there was a moment when the California drought fully entered the national media spotlight, it came earlier this month when President Obama swooped into California’s parched Central Valley and announced $200 million in federal emergency aid. The president’s visit came days after the announcement of a bill from California Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and […]