The icon’s many images changed over the years alongside the Forest Service’s changing attitudes toward wildfire.
Smokey Bear: From cute to buff, and in between
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Save a chimney, save a swift
Doesn’t look like it’s going to be a great night,” Larry Schwitters says, sitting in his car outside the Old Selleck Schoolhouse, about 40 miles southeast of Seattle. It’s nearly sunset, the sky is cloudless and warm. “It’s too nice for swifts,” he grouses. “If there were going to be a lot of them, they’d […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct
Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct. Adam Duncan Harris352 pages, 302 color photos, softcover: $29.95University of Oklahoma Press, 2012 Wildlife artist Bob Kuhn passed away in 2007, leaving behind some of the finest paintings of wild animals ever created. Now, Adam Duncan Harris, curator of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyo., has collected […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Rambling horror stories
I was disappointed to see HCN join the long list of publications choosing to print rambling horror stories about polygamy in Utah and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In the future, I hope you will clearly distinguish facts about individual misconduct (i.e., Warren Jeffs’ pedophile conviction), from rumors and allegations about […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Once upon a time in a small town: A review of The Other Shoe
The Other ShoeMatt Pavelich320 pages, softcover: $16.95.Counterpoint, 2012. It’s a story as old as storytelling itself: A young man leaves his home in search of adventure before settling down to the responsibilities of adulthood. But in Matt Pavelich’s second novel, The Other Shoe, the story is less about the traveler and more about the aftermath […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Neutrality not needed
I am enormously proud of High Country News for writing about this growing menace in the U.S. I know many Mormons who would argue that their Church is not part of this fundamentalist sect, but their Church turns a blind eye, hence it is part of the problem. So many newspapers and television shows pander […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
More diversity than meets the eye
Debra Weyermann’s excavation of the hidden connections between the FLDS and mainstream LDS culture was very interesting. I wrote about this ambivalence and its reflection in The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News and in a chapter of Saints Under Siege. Overall, that book is more sympathetic to the FLDS than Weyermann, and tends to […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Legalize polygamy
I have been struggling to write a response to the story on polygamy in the June 11 issue of HCN (“The Darkest Shade of Polygamy”). I don’t condone immoral behavior, yet I am astounded by the blatantly negative attitude. While the focus of the article was on the extreme practices by this particular sect, its […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
In praise of ancient tree stumps
There used to be big trees here. Now, we have stumps. Weathered, rotting, mossy and huge, at least 20 are scattered across my family’s 14-acre farm in Snoqualmie, Wash. — hunched in the cow field and hidden in the tangles of blackberry and brushy woods. We don’t talk too much about them. Stumps are as […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Hero worship: A review of Let the Birds Drink in Peace
Let the Birds Drink In PeaceRobert Garner McBrearty152 pages, softcover: $14.99.Conundrum Press, 2011. In Colorado writer Robert Garner McBrearty’s fresh and funny new story collection, Let the Birds Drink In Peace, a boy tells his mother he plans to do something great when he grows up. “Everybody feels like that when they’re young,” she replies. […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
HCN: Preferred reading of cab drivers and geologists
We’ve had several summer visitors here at our headquarters in Paonia, Colo. From Reno, Nev., came subscriber Robert M. Martin, better known as Tobe, on a motorcycle trip to a medicine wheel site near Red Lodge, Wyo. Describing himself as a loyal fan of HCN, he added that he’d been a cab driver for 13 […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Congress thwarts effort to reduce Grand Canyon noise pollution
Helicopter noise is a fundamental — but annoying — part of most Grand Canyon experiences. In 1987, Congress directed the Interior Department to quiet the airborne sightseeing cacophony. After years of public debate, the National Park Service was due to release final recommendations for reducing noise this month. But a last-minute provision snuck into an […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Dueling Letters: Utah’s Governor versus Black Diamond’s CEO
In March 2012, Black Diamond CEO Peter Metcalf wrote an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune criticizing Utah Governor Gary Herbert for supporting legislation that would transfer ownership of federal public lands to the state of Utah and potentially open up protected wild lands to motorized recreation and energy developers. Soon after, the governor wrote […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Conservation Alliance Grants, 2011-2012
In 1989, four outdoor companies – REI, Patagonia, The North Face and Kelty – founded the Conservation Alliance to increase industry support for efforts to protect wildlands used by recreationists. Since then the alliance has grown to include more than 180 member companies and has disbursed more than $10 million in membership dues to conservation groups. […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Can capitalism boost conservation?
Last February, the CEO of Patagonia — perhaps the world’s most conservation-minded outdoor gear and clothing company — spoke to eager young business students and outdoor-industry professionals at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Casey Sheahan’s message was simple: Companies can do right by the environment and society while still turning a profit. Sheahan’s talk […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
A deep rot
Judges James Shumate and Dee Benson both had access to the rape tape mentioned in this article, solid evidence of a culture of sexual abuse in the FLDS. If they had been kindergarten teachers, they would be required to report the abuse to authorities, who would then be required to follow up. Instead, Judge Shumate […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
The ski industry, climate hawk?
Aspen Skiing Company Sustainability VP Auden Schendler, and professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones on why ski corporations and pro athletes should step up to the climate crisis — and how they can do it. Tune in to West of 100 around the middle of each month. Available via our RSS feed, or subscribe for free through iTunes. Music: “CGI Snake” […]
Posted inGoat
On droughts and fires past
At first glance, nothing about the photo seems awry. It shows a truck spraying water on the dirt streets of Silverton, Colo., elevation 9,318 feet, to keep the dust down, a regular occurrence in May or June. This photograph, however, was taken on New Year’s Day. In the background, mountain slopes that regularly see some […]
Posted inGoat
Beetle Evolution
The tamarisk leaf beetle is an unlikely citizen of Utah. And until recently it wasn’t found there. The tamarisk-munching bugs that now inhabit Utah, Colorado, and other parts of the West have their roots in Eurasia and hail from northwestern China and Kazakhstan. Scientists brought their ancestors to the U.S. in 2001 and set them […]
Posted inWotr
Floods, fire … are locusts next?
There must be a fellow named Job living in Roundup, Mont. That would explain the latest punch to the belly of this small rural community. The first punch occurred a year ago this May, when deputies drove through neighborhoods along the Musselshell River, rousting people out of their beds for immediate evacuation. Rain had fallen […]