Colin Glover of Denver stopped by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters on a seven-day fly-fishing trip that had already taken him and his friends to Durango, Buena Vista and Ouray. When asked what stretch of the Gunnison’s North Fork, which passes through Paonia, he planned to fish, he shrugged and said he wasn’t sure. Fortunately, the […]
Fishermen, writers and cyclists come to call
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts
In magnitude and complexity, this Utah wilderness deal sounds less like the Washington County bill than the San Rafael Swell land deal that melted down when exposed as a multimillion-dollar rip-off of the American public (“Red Rock Resolution?” HCN, 7/22/13). The legislative language swore up and down that no threatened and endangered species habitat, wetlands, […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
A review of Landscape Dreams, A New Mexico portrait
Landscape Dreams, A New Mexico portrait photographs by Craig Varjabedian, essays by Marin Sardy, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and Hampton Sides, 140 pages, hardcover: $50, University of New Mexico Press, 2012. Contemporary landscape photography often looks too pristine and over-saturated to feel authentic. But Craig Varjabedian’s monochromatic images of New Mexico transcend that. In place of […]
Posted inGoat
Is big desert solar killing birds in Southern California?
The threat large-scale solar developments pose to tortoise in the desert Southwest has been well established, but what about the technology’s effect on birds? The question has been asked before — David Danelski of the Riverside Press Enterprise reported on it in Feburary of 2012 — but it emerged most dramatically last winter during the […]
Posted inGoat
Kuwait’s ‘solar leaders’ study renewable energy in Colorado
It reached 115 degrees on Monday, in Kuwait City, Kuwait, which is typical for the desert city whose summer highs regularly peak well above 120. In the relatively cool 90 degrees of Colorado’s Western Slope on the same day, 15 Kuwaitis wearing neon-yellow vests embroidered with “solar leaders” on the backs, gathered around photovoltaic demonstrations […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
What’s in the water in Woods Cross?
A Salt Lake City suburb weighs environmental risk as it grapples with drinking water contamination.
Posted inGoat
The future of the West’s largest coal-fired plant remains in jeopardy
The West’s largest coal-fired power plant, the Navajo Generating Station in northern Arizona, is in transition. It provides 520 jobs—85 percent of which are held by Navajos—supplies the juice that pumps Arizonans’ share of Colorado River water, and keeps the lights on for millions of people in three states. But the plant also churns out […]
Posted inWotr
Time to let go of the “Redskins” mascot
“Stupid political correctness is killing us!” was one longtime local’s response after the school superintendent of Teton County, Idaho, sacked the “Redskins” as the school’s mascot. As a fifth-generation resident and Teton High graduate himself, Superintendent Monte Woolstenhulme said he figured that the move would distress some people. Yet nothing could have prepared him for […]
Posted inGoat
Impressions of a county fair: heifer rituals, deep-fried pickles and all
It’s so noisy at the fairBut all your friends are thereAnd the candy floss you hadAnd your mother and your dad. — Neil Young, Sugar Mountain. His face was like leather, so much so that the only expression that showed up behind the utterly opaque mirrored sunglasses was a sort of perma-smirk that reminded me […]
Posted inWotr
When young falcons take their cliff jump
People who study peregrine falcons wake up early. It’s hard to roll out of the sack at 4 a.m., well before the summer sun comes up, but over the years I’ve done so gladly, privileged to join several early-bird researchers in western Colorado’s Black Canyon National Park. In July, the eggs have long since hatched […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
The Blue Window
Journeying from redrock desert to an icy wasteland: an essay.
Posted inGoat
Methane emissions are still a thorn in the side of natural gas production
Burning coal belches about twice as much carbon dioxide as burning natural gas, but the question of whether natural gas is a bridge to renewable energy or just a bridge to nowhere hinges on how much greenhouse gas escapes before it is used. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is 21 times more potent […]
Posted inArticles
Identifying ‘killer trees’ in Sequoia National Park
In the middle of August, I visit a backcountry campground in California’s Sequoia National Park to survey trees. Two teenage boys nap while their fathers roam the nearby woods, looking for firewood. I introduce myself as a forestry technician and mention that a dying white fir is leaning over one of their tents. Dropping my […]
Posted inArticles
The Latest: battles in the West’s bitter wild horse wars
BackstoryThe 37,000 wild horses roaming the West’s public lands strain ecosystems, ranches and taxpayers alike. Despite fertility drugs designed to lessen their numbers, today, more mustangs live in captivity than in the wild, costing the Bureau of Land Management about $76 million annually. Slaughter and hunting may be the clearest solutions, but public outrage makes […]
Posted inGoat
Can the oil and gas industry fix its public image in Colorado?
Last week, I drove over the mountains from High Country News HQ in Paonia, Colo., to Denver to attend the Rocky Mountain Energy Summit, an annual confab for the oil and gas industry – complete with a balloon drop wherein suited attendees throw elbows as they jockey for prizes — hosted by its powerful state […]
Posted inWotr
An Idaho land trade that should go nowhere
When I started monitoring federal land exchanges in 1996, some of the biggest projects involved so-called “checkerboard” lands. Created by the railroad land grants during the 19th century, they made for a confusing array of public land mixed with private land. Often, the exchanges that the Forest Service proposed to consolidate checkerboard ownership seemed logical […]
Posted inGoat
Wildlife agencies face the limits of sportsmen-funded conservation
June’s edition of Wyoming Wildlife magazine describes how mule deer have been declining in parts of the West for decades. For the Wyoming Range herd, poor habitat conditions, drought, harsh winters, and energy development may all be to blame. But pinpointing exactly what’s harming one of Wyoming’s largest herds requires capturing them by shooting a […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Can we save Mojave desert tortoises by moving them out of harm’s way?
Feds aim to save threatened tortoises by relocating them away from development
Posted inGoat
Bear hair study in Banff proves animal highway crossings work
For three years, researchers from Montana State University spent their summers collecting bear hair. The samples, collected on both sides of the 50 mile stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway that cuts through Banff National Park, prove what the researchers had suspected: wildlife underpasses and bridges were helping enough bears move back and forth across the […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
The Bakken oilfields: ‘No place for a woman’
One woman’s effort to survive the Great Recession in booming North Dakota.