You have done us all a great service by publishing a very important story about the oak woodland and the sediment dump (HCN, 5/14/12, “Los Angeles Against the Mountains”). I consider myself a member of the “environmental” community in Southern California, and I am an avid HCN reader. It is good to see a piece […]
Three cheers for Emily Green
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
On the hunt for abalone poachers in Northern California
Last spring, Don Powers steered his government-issue pickup down Highway 1, the thin ribbon of blacktop that hugs California’s North Coast. The sun shone bright, the scent of salt hung on the wind, and the world felt rapturous. In fact, a crackpot preacher Harold Camping had prophesied that the Rapture would actually take place then […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Let gravity do its thing
This round of the sediment management plan won’t provide a sustainable solution to the problem (HCN, 5/14/12, “Los Angeles Against the Mountains”). But now is a good time to make the case for long-term solutions. For that, we’re going to have to rethink the flood control system, or rather, remember it as a functioning riparian […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Learning a landscape by tracking its rivers
I follow a blue thread on my atlas. The line labeled “Clark Fork” appears to end at Lake Pend Oreille. To confirm it, I turn from my atlas to my computer and consult Google, Wikipedia, the Clark Fork Coalition’s website. I feel guilty; it seems like cheating to use a computer screen to learn about […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
L.A.’s wild underbelly
By publishing such an indispensable, comprehensive account of an issue that has been all but forgotten by local news organizations, HCN has filled a critical role in keeping an accurate narrative of the sediment management issue in Los Angeles alive and well (HCN, 5/14/12, “Los Angeles Against the Mountains”). As Emily Green so eloquently explained, […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Keep what’s public public
One of the very best things about the West is the availability of public land for all kinds of outdoor recreation (HCN, 5/14/12, “Sagebrush skirmish”). Conversely, a major shortcoming of the East is the lack of the same. Unfortunately, some of the very best public land has been misused and abused for decades by grazing, drilling, […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
High Country News gets visitors and a new employee
Angela Caldwell started as HCN’s new circulation assistant in May. She’ll help us keep track of new subscriptions and renewals here at our home office in Paonia, Colo. A resident of the North Fork Valley for 14 years, Angela says she doesn’t miss the hustle of her hometown, Aurora, on the state’s busy Front Range. In […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Helping hikers before they get hurt
“Search and rescue” conjures up adrenaline-pumping images: rescuers rappelling down cliffs, stretchers dangling from helicopters. But it rarely evokes rangers simply offering advice, e.g., “That 12-ounce water bottle may not get you through an 18-mile hike in 110-degree heat. But there’s another great trail. …” About 20 national parks however, have added such preventative search […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Fantasy politics
“Over the last 30 years,” says (Arizona state Sen. Al) Melvin, “mining, lumbering and grazing have come to a screeching halt, snuffed out by the so-called environmental practices of the Forest Service and BLM” (HCN, 5/14/12, “Sagebrush skirmish”). Is there any chance that reality could enter into this debate? The first 10 of those 30 […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Calling for a crackdown on polygamous crime
Once, on a rural Western highway, my wife and I came upon a small settlement we’d never noticed before. Curious, we turned off and discovered an unusual place. Many of the houses were huge — almost like dormitories. The women wore bonnets, long braids and pioneer-style dresses over homemade-looking pants; even their ankles were covered. […]
Posted inMay 28, 2012: The Gila Bend Photon Club
Dancing with wolverines
When a wolverine splayed his huge clawed paw onto my shoulder, the tip of each powerful nail pressing firmly, I was filled with a reckless elation. But I remained still, because I recalled that wolverines have a special molar angled sharply inward that allows them to tear muscle and hide from carrion, pulverize bone. A […]
Posted inWotr
Life among the Bluffoons
It’s not a well-traveled road in southeastern Utah, not far from the Arizona line, so chances are you haven’t seen two new, brick and stone signs close to the quiet town of Bluff that proudly say: “Bluff, Utah, established 650 A. D.” And you assumed that the Mormons settled Utah! No, local history for this […]
Posted inGoat
Firefighting pilots deserve better
Last Sunday, an aging P2V air tanker, T-11, flew low over the White Rock fire on the border of Utah and Nevada, dropped 2,000 gallons of retardant and crashed into the mountainside. Pilot Todd Tompkins, who loved fighting fires, died alongside his co-pilot, Ronnie Edwin Chambless. Iron County Sheriff’s detective Jody Edwards told the Missoulian […]
Posted inWotr
The Black Hills await justice
Every now and then a bombshell of a story comes along that screams for a reasonable amount of historical context. Why? Because it doesn’t make sense without it. But given a citizenry as poorly informed about its own history as ours is, our gross national product may best be measured in foolishness. For instance, the […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Rattlesnakes in Walmarts, deer in malls
WASHINGTON AND IDAHO There are many things to expect when pushing a shopping cart around the outdoor garden department of a Walmart, but a poisonous snake is certainly not one of them. So when 47-year-old Mica Craig of Lewiston, Idaho, saw what he thought was a stick lying in the aisle of Walmart in Clarkston, […]
Posted inRange
Don’t be too self-righteous
Many years ago, in an interesting turn of events, I found myself in the same truck (mine) as a famous environmental writer. I can take no personal credit for her presence there; she was speaking that evening at a literary event sponsored by a local college. A good friend of mine was organizing the event […]
Posted inMay 28, 2012: The Gila Bend Photon Club
Do subdivisions designed for conservation actually help wildlife?
For millennia, Colorado’s Yampa River Valley has followed the rhythms of wildlife mating and migration, the habits of elk and grouse and bear. The arrival of ranching in the 1880s altered the pattern a little, but radical change didn’t occur until the last half of the 20th century. That’s when the big ranches began to […]
Posted inRange
Water to the people
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I hadn’t realized until I got an (en masse) email from Senator Mark Udall recently, that we’re celebrating water in Colorado this year. He and Sen. Michael Bennet introduced a resolution in May recognizing 2012 as the “Year of Water.” The declaration piggybacks on governor Hickenlooper’s “Colorado Water 2012” initiative which, […]
Posted inGoat
Search and … inform
In this world of extreme sports, 100-mile ultramarathons and ever-decreasing record times, a 21-mile trail run probably doesn’t seem like all that big a deal anymore. And indeed, you’d never guess, reading about a recently-broken record, that there’s anything unusually taxing about what’s known in running and hiking circles as the “rim to rim,” where […]