They might not know it, but golfers in Los Angeles, farmers in the Imperial Valley and retirees in Phoenix are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on cloud seeding in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Until I attended the Colorado Water Workshop in Gunnison, Colo. this past July, I had no idea either. Making rain may […]
The cloud seeding believers
Posted inWotr
No longer the safest place
My little corner of the West — southern Oregon, between the Pacific Ocean and the high Cascades — achieved a brief notoriety during the height of the world’s Cold War anxieties: It was listed as one of the safest places in the United States in the event of nuclear attack. Distant from population centers and […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Goat man in the forest
Utah: is it too late to back up? Photo by Lillian Houghton. THE WEST It was such a sweet story at first: A man in a hairy white goat suit with fake horns who appeared to be trying to join a mountain goat herd in the Wasatch Mountains some 40 miles north of Salt Lake […]
Posted inGoat
Global warming, local politics
“I was a victim of the snow,” former Chicago mayor Michael Bilandic told Chicago Magazine in 2000, referring to his failed 1979 reelection bid. Bilandic replaced the first Mayor Daley, who died in 1976, in the midst of his sixth term, and he was expected to glide back into office. He was the Democratic “machine’s” chosen one post-Daley, […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
What the High Park wildfire can teach us about protecting homes
RIST CANYON, Colorado Dave Cantor’s house in the hills outside Fort Collins usually draws friends for barbecue, horseshoes and recreational shooting on July 4. This July 3, though, Cantor sifts through its ashy remains, tripping over a downed power line and catching rotten whiffs from a freezer pried open by black bears. Cantor, who co-owns […]
Posted inGoat
Talking mean with Hugh B. McKeen
While on assignment for a story on wildfire in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, I called up Catron County commissioner Hugh B. McKeen to see if he’d meet up and discuss the recent 297,000-acre Whitewater Baldy Fire that burned through the wilderness and forestland nearby. I had heard a bit about Catron County’s anti-government charm, […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Beauregard puppy
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Rants from the Hill is now a FREE podcast! Listen to an audio performance of this essay, here. You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or through Feedburner for use in another podcast reader. […]
Posted inGoat
Report from Outdoor Retailer
The Summer Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City is a gearhead’s dream. I wandered through its hundreds upon hundreds of booths on Thursday, Aug. 2 in a breathable waterproof daze, along with 27,000 other people ogling the very latest in toys and accoutrements for every kind of outdoor adventure. The goods on display ranged […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Paul Larmer’s editor’s note and the feature article by Greg Hanscom each present a valid point: The multibillion-dollar outdoor industry makes a minuscule contribution to conservation (HCN, 7/23/12, “The Hardest Climb”). But take a look on the other side of the fence: The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, passed in 1938 in the middle […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
We cannot drill our way out of this mess: A review of Arctic Voices
Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point Subhankar Banerjee, editor. 560 pages, hardcover: $35.95. Seven Stories Press, 2012. In 2001, on the U.S. Senate floor, one of Alaska’s pro-development politicians held up a blank white piece of posterboard. “This is a picture of ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) as it exists for about nine […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
The Continental Divide Trail gains new protectors
At 3,100 miles, the Continental Divide Trail is the most rugged and least used of the country’s three major long-distance hiking trails. In January, when financial troubles forced the Continental Divide Trail Alliance to close its doors, it also became the only long-distance trail without a formal advocacy group. Since then, nonprofits throughout the Rockies […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
A ride with a Bakken water trucker
Reporter Nicholas Kusnetz spent a day riding with Mike Reynolds, who left his logging business in eastern Washington state in order to earn money as a water trucker in the Bakken. Reynolds is pleased with the job, but eager to return to the work — and the home — he loves.
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
The Bakken oil play spurs a booming business — in water
The first thing you notice in North Dakota’s oil patch are trucks. They dominate a landscape defined not long ago by cattle and wheat, and not long before that by bison and grass. Trucks groan through Watford City all night. They pile up traffic on highways designed for the occasional car or combine and whip […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
Practical pyromania: A review of The Flamer
The FlamerBen Rogers257 pages, softcover: $14.Aqueous Books, 2012. Ben Rogers’ engaging first novel, The Flamer, is the coming-of-age story of a young Nevada pyromaniac named Oby Brooks. Oby discovers his love for conflagrations when his father donates the family’s dilapidated house to the Reno Fire Department to burn “for training purposes.” The boy watches the […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
‘Postmortemism’
Your issue covering off-the-beaten-track Western places of interest is very appealing to those of us who prefer reality travel over canned tourism (HCN, 6/25/12, “Touring the Postmodern West”). It seems more honest than the usual “family vacation” photo ops. I also found the descriptions of land art and industrial landscape art interesting. While some of us would […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
Political pawns
Posted in response to Emily Guerin’s blog “Grand Cacophony National Park?“, at hcn.org, an expanded version of the snapshot “(Not so) quiet canyon,” which ran in our 7/23/12 issue. I was backcountry packing in the Grand Canyon in 2010 and subjected to relentless fixed-wing overflights echoing off the canyon walls (HCN, 7/23/12, “(Not so) quiet […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
Of balloons, littering and birthday parties
Here in the western Great Basin, the high desert is rough and remote. This topography tends to keep out the common detritus of the dominant endemic species, Hillbillicus Nevadensis (var. Redneckii). So while the dusty BLM roads in the sage-filled valley bottoms are beribboned with spent shell casings, Coors Light bottles and empty cans of […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
Not “pristine”, but still wild and unpredictable
“Nature is almost everywhere,” wrote environmental journalist Emma Marris in her buzz-generating 2011 book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. ” But wherever it is, there is one thing that nature is not: pristine.” Humanity’s imprint is unavoidable, even deep in the backcountry. Smog frequently blankets Sequoia National Park, yellowing the needles of […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
Historic plant cultivation in Northwest native tribes
The idea that the Coast Salish and other Northwest Native Americans cultivated plants was disputed until relatively recently. Famed anthropologist Franz Boas and his disciples argued that Native Americans didn’t need to cultivate plants thanks to abundant salmon runs; they could subsist on wild forage instead. According to Doug Deur, an anthropologist at Portland State […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
High Country News gets new interns
It’s that time of year again — when two fresh-faced interns join us in our Paonia, Colo., offices for six months of “journalism boot camp.” We’re also delighted to announce that the talented and diligent Neil LaRubbio, intern from the last session, will remain with us for another six months as our editorial fellow. It’s […]