Among publicly owned lands, state trust lands are an anomaly. Granted at statehood by the federal government, they run in patchwork patterns across the West, from the red Utah desert to the dense forests of Oregon. Their arrangement on the landscape is utterly arbitrary — generally, two square-mile sections, numbered 16 and 36 in every […]
State trust lands at a glance
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Rafters and writers come to call
In early May, subscribers John and Susan Lobonc stopped by our Paonia, Colo., office while on a driving tour of national parks. They came all the way from Naperville, Ill., and arrived just as rainstorms were dousing the region. Their spirits were undampened, though, and they were excited to see the West they read about […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Locked boxes
Post offices were among the first institutions in many frontier towns. Now, as Western outposts shrink, losing grocery stores and then gas stations, they’re among the last to leave, says Postal Service spokesman David Rupert. In 1900, there were about 77,000 post offices in the U.S.; today, there are just 27,000. The USPS is funded […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
The key player: Elling B. Halvorson
Born St. Paul, Minnesota, 1932 Education Oregon’s Willamette University, 1955 bachelor’s degree concentrating in economics and engineering Big break Founded a construction company specializing in work in difficult locations, such as remote mountainsides and the Alaska bush. That led to him building a water pipeline from the North to the South Rim of the Grand […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Two helicopters fly over the Grand Canyon
Listen to the sound of two helicopters flying over the Grand Canyon at the Dripping Springs trail. Audio courtesy Mike Garvey.
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Sounds of the Grand Canyon, followed by a quiet helicopter
The natural sounds of birds and wind in the Grand Canyon, followed by the sound of one of the newer, quieter helicopters used in overflights. Sound clip taken at Dripping Springs trail by Mike Garvey.
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Park Service finally drafts a solution to conflicts over canyon flights
Hermits Rest, Grand Canyon National Park At the end of the road along the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, past Hermits Rest, a famous rock cabin built in 1914 that’s now a rustic souvenir and snack shop, there’s an inviting rock outcropping where you can stretch out in solitude and gaze across the canyon. On a […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
How developers and businessmen cash in on Grand Canyon overflights
Tusayan, Arizona In the lobby of Papillon Helicopters’ terminal at Grand Canyon National Park Airport, Enrique Ochoa stared at his smart phone, searching for a WiFi signal. Unlike the scores of late-April tourists, who were waiting to board one of Papillon’s noisy helicopters for a $175, 30-minute Grand Canyon sightseeing flight, Ochoa was simply trying […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Chronicling a lost river: A review of Dry River
Dry River: Stories of Life, Death, and Redemption on the Santa CruzKen Lamberton288 pages, softcover: $24.95.University of Arizona Press, 2011. In the desert classic The Land of Little Rain (1903), Mary Austin described the Mojave as “a land of lost rivers, with little in it to love; yet a land that once visited must be […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
That quiet haunted place: A review of American Masculine
American Masculine: StoriesShann Ray192 pages, softcover: $15.Graywolf Press, 2011. American Masculine has already won a major literary award, the 2010 Bakeless Prize for fiction, sponsored by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Author Shann Ray is a professor at Washington’s Gonzaga University who specializes in leadership and forgiveness studies. He musters these 10 stories from the […]
Posted inGoat
Why Babbitt’s advice to Obama doesn’t quite hit the mark
It was constructed as some advice for President Obama, a call to action for the executive branch, “the best, and likely only hope for meaningful progress” on the environment. But former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s speech to the National Press Club on June 8 seemed to serve a higher purpose: To educate the press and […]
Posted inRange
Rare accord marks opening of Colorado River conference
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing HouseDespite its reputation as the “most legislated, most debated, and most litigated river in the entire world” – as Marc Reiser put it in Cadillac Desert – there was a cooperative air at the start of “Navigating the Future of the Colorado River,” a conference being held at the […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
BLM shields renewable projects from mining speculation
“Some snotty bugger went in and staked a bunch of mining claims just to make a hurdle,” says Dave Shaddrick, president of the Nevada Mineral Exploration Coalition. Four claims, actually, filed last April on the site of the contentious 400-megawatt Silver State solar power plant near Las Vegas, Nev. Some believe that locals, angry that […]
Posted inBlog
Paving over an ancient burial ground
15-acres of undeveloped landscape sits as an oasis among the undulating, cookie cutter housing developments that crowd the edges of the Carquinez Strait, a natural tidal channel in Vallejo, California. At this spot, known as Glen Cove Waterfront Park, a swath of yellow grass, dappled with the woody stems of wild fennel, leads to the […]
Posted inGoat
Northwest coal port ignites controversy
Bellingham, Washington is no stranger to industry. The seaside college town in the northwesternmost corner of the country was founded on coal and timber in the 1800s. But after the downtown Georgia-Pacific pulp mill shut down in 2007, the city has been more focused on cleaning up the toxic mess left behind than bringing big […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Dry times
ARIZONA Growth may be slow in resort towns like Aspen, but the entire state of Arizona, whose motto is “God enriches,” is burdened by more than 463,000 vacant housing units — about one vacancy for every six homes. “That’s enough housing to accommodate an entire decade’s worth of population growth — if the population were […]
Posted inWotr
Ordinary wild
The cougar looks thin, his narrow belly dragging close to the ground as he slinks along. Paws as big as saucers on the oil-spotted concrete. Mouth agape in a terrified pant below wild, shifting eyes. Shifting at cars that whoosh by, shifting at men who flicker at the edge of his vision – some pursuing, […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
A nuclear watchdog pushes feds on safety
On April 14, California State Sen. Sam Blakeslee grilled Nuclear Regulatory Commission official Troy Pruett on the seismic hazards facing California’s nuclear plants. It was roughly a month after a tsunami generated by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake swamped the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. Blakeslee, whose Central Coast district includes Pacific Gas & Electric’s Diablo […]
Posted inRange
A toothless watchdog
Since the elections last November, I (like a lot of people, I suspect) started to ruminate about the nature of our government – both state and federal – and corporatism. Governor Susana Martinez’s election in New Mexico and the tsunami of other corporate-sponsored candidates elected to Congress made me fear that corporate interests would gain […]