Guns are Gary Marbut’s life. A self-employed, self-sufficient jack-of-all-trades who lives outside of Missoula, Mont., Marbut says that if he didn’t cast his own bullets, he couldn’t afford to shoot as much as he does: 10,000 to 15,000 rounds per year. He shoots in both rifle and handgun competitions, teaches concealed weapons classes (he’s had […]
Montana’s top gun-rights advocate has a national impact
Posted inGoat
A walk in the (burned) woods
The largest fire in New Mexico’s recorded history, the Las Conchas, is 45 percent contained; its footprint covers 146,000 acres (not all of that land has been charred, though, since wildfires burn in patches). The blaze started on the afternoon of June 26 when an aspen tree fell onto a powerline southwest of Los Alamos. […]
Posted inRange
You don’t live in the Twitterverse
Cross-posted from The Last Word on Nothing. He surely didn’t know it, but journalist David Dobbs recently put his finger on a problem that’s been bugging me for some time. Writing in his Wired blog, Dobbs made the observation that, In my own life, many if not most of my most vital social connections — […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
For steelhead, dirty water might be better than clean
The West Fork Little Bear Creek in northern Idaho winds through sloping hills and Palouse Prairie farmland on its way to the Potlatch River. The cool, shaded stream seems like typical steelhead habitat. But just above a narrow basalt canyon sits a wastewater treatment plant, which handles 110,000 gallons of sewage and other municipal waste […]
Posted inRange
Clean coal still mostly a dream
By Paige Huntoon, Guest Writer at NewWest.net ABOUT THIS SERIES: Students from The University of Montana School of Journalism, with the help of American Public Media’s Public Insight Network, reported and wrote stories for New West on the energy economy of the Rocky Mountain region. The project originated as part of the Green Thread initiative […]
Posted inWotr
Tuning out and finding local
Global thinking has its good points; it may broaden our viewpoints or remind us that we could be Haitians or Tunisians. But in the West, the most visible representatives of the global economy are the super-stores where forklifts rearrange cartons of goods made somewhere besides America. Here in South Dakota, we specialize in local experiences, […]
Posted inWotr
Shifting gears to a brave new world of Lycra
After riding for 25 years atop my old English 10-speed with the skinny steel wheels and tape-wrapped handlebars, I finally bought one of those fancy, 21-speed mountain bikes. When I got the new bike home — they don’t call them bicycles anymore — and leaned it against the wall in my garage — where did […]
Posted inRange
It’s getting hot out here
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House The numbers are in and—it’s official—our new “normal” is warmer. Starting this month, when a day is declared colder, snowier or hotter than usual, it won’t mean what it used to. Up to this point, the U.S. Climate Normals have encompassed a three-decade period from 1971 to 2000. A […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
For the love of a job
WYOMING At 23, Kathleen Vernon is definitely young for her job as Albany County coroner in southeastern Wyoming, but she seems born to do the work. Her mother was a homicide detective in California, her father was a special agent for the BLM, and “the walls of her childhood home were decorated with framed pictures […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West — In Praise of Skunk Cabbage
On a recent trip to the Grand Mesa in Colorado, my eyes kept returning to the amazing stands of what many locals call skunk cabbage unfurling from the recently snow-covered meadows. The species, Veratrum tenuipetalum, is not related to the Eastern skunk cabbage. Other folks call the plant corn lily, though it is not a […]
Posted inWotr
A fire lookout in a wilderness speaks of our past
If monster mansions in Jackson, Wyo., or Sun Valley, Idaho, can boast million-dollar views, what’s a historic cabin in Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness worth? From this cabin that used to be a wildfire lookout, you can see a sea of summits, glaciers, a volcano and hidden lakes mostly surrounded by uncut forests. Green Mountain Lookout, […]
Posted inRange
Rural counties dying off
By Kenneth Johnson, the Daily Yonder Editor’s Note: Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, has published a study of natural decreases in U.S. communities. The full study can be found here. Below are excerpts from Johnson’s report. Carsey Institute. Data from Census Bureau and National Center for […]
Posted inGoat
Doing the unspeakable
Can the U.S. take a big bite out of its greenhouse gas emissions without muttering the words climate change? The Obama administration is betting it can. And it’s testing the political waters with a new round of vehicle emissions rules to cover cars made between 2017 and 2025. From the Washington Post’sJuliet Eilperin: Heather Zichal, […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
A fee-dodging retiree forces a national forest to rethink access charges
Soft-spoken, bespectacled Jim Smith makes an unlikely activist. The former Mobil Oil geophysicist retired to Sedona, Ariz., about 10 years ago, drawn by the spectacular red-rock scenery. In November 2009, Smith drove five miles of rough road to the Vultee Arch trailhead and backpacked in for a night. When he returned, he found the Forest […]
Posted inArticles
The growth of newspapers across the U.S.: 1690-2011
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Posted inArticles
Rural papers doing better than their city counterparts
Walk in to a town council meeting in Pinedale, Wyoming, and you’re likely to find as many as three local reporters scribbling notes and asking questions. That news in a town of 2,030 residents is covered by two newspapers and a website is partly explained by the abundance of mineral wealth in surrounding Sublette County, […]
Posted inRange
An idea of Eden
I’ve been lucky enough to spend the past several days in paradise, which for me is the rough, unforgiving backcountry to southeastern Utah. Everyone has their own idea of Eden, shaped by individual as well as cultural ideals. These can shift and evolve due to circumstance, inclination, and, sometimes, tragedy. I haven’t always appreciated pinyon/juniper/sagebrush […]
Posted inGoat
Can YOU carry a concealed weapon without a permit?
“Starting Friday, Wyoming will join three other states in allowing individuals to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.” Which inspired me to make this flow chart to help you decide if YOU can carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Can you? Read the flow chart to find out… View the flowchart in its […]
Posted inRange
Out of their mines
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House In a narrow canyon, not far above where I live in Boulder, is the old, abandoned Captain Jack Mill. In its heyday in the late 19th century, gold and silver were processed there, after being blasted from their hiding places in several area mines. Nowadays, contaminants from those efforts, including […]
Posted inWotr
Why the Southwest is burning
No big thing happens for just one reason. This season’s fires, cutting broad swaths across the Southwest, result from the convergence of three powerful forces: climatic drought, institutional tunnel vision, and old-fashioned human frailty. On the face of it, the drought is simple: There hasn’t been much rain or snow across much of the region, […]