The self-important folks of Greenwood Village need an emergency dose of irony — and quick (HCN, 12/20/10)! Continuing that ignoble American tradition of forcing the indigenous off their land, they really can’t complain when Mr. Trickster tries to take back what is rightfully his. I must say, Mr. Coyote is far more patient and understanding […]
Trickster’s territory
Posted inJanuary 24, 2011: Serendipity in the Desert
Lessons from coyote country
After reading “Trickster moves to town,” I came to the conclusion that a lot of people who live in or near coyote country have little understanding of what it means to coexist with wild animals (HCN, 12/20/10). I lived in a subdivision southeast of Santa Fe, N.M., for more than 10 years and had numerous […]
Posted inRange
An anti-wilderness knee jerk
I guess it was predictable. No sooner had Interior Secretary Salazar announced that the BLM would manage certain public domain lands for their backcountry values, than the Farm Bureau Federation and its political allies went on the attack. According to them Salazar’s decision amounts to yet another “land grab” by the Obama Administration on behalf […]
Posted inArticles
Pinon Ridge uranium mill clears state hurdle
Long-dormant industry could rise again in Colorado
Posted inGoat
Bad Omens for Arch Coal
State officials in Montana and Washington are cracking down on projects that could expand coal production and trade in several Western states. Arch Coal Inc., a St. Louis-based company with a major stake in the expansion, doesn’t seem the least bit daunted–though maybe they should be. On January 12, the company paid $25 million for […]
Posted inRange
Celebrating Martin Luther King Day
I know how to celebrate most holidays. On Independence Day, I reread the Declaration of Independence and watch fireworks after dark. To bring in the New Year, I try to stay up till midnight. On Thanksgiving I feast with family, and so on. But I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to celebrate on Martin […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: In Defense of Missiles
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. The hill from which I rant is good for many things: to hold our house up high into the teeth of the desert wind and generate an updraft on which harriers kite; to give […]
Posted inRange
Saving Montana’s trees, one ranch at a time
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House When forestry experts in Montana concluded last week that December’s cold snap did little to kill beetle larvae nestled under lodgepole and ponderosa pine bark, it was harsh news for those watching the ever-growing bands of reddish-brown beetle-killed forests across the West. It would take at least a […]
Posted inWotr
Keep a public hand on water
The history of the West is peppered with water cowboys. Just recall William Mulholland, whose role in Los Angeles’ secret grab of water from Owens Valley, Calif., was made famous in the movie Chinatown, or Colorado’s contemporary water baron, Aaron Million, who’s pushing a $3 billion, privately funded scheme to funnel water to Colorado’s Front […]
Posted inGoat
In Western water law, “first come, first serve” has limits
Three miles south of the Tongue and Yellowstone Rivers’ confluence near Miles City, Montana, an oxbow parts Roger Muggli’s alfalfa fields from the rough gray hills on the other side. Most days, Muggli walks the diversion dam from the Tongue through ditches that feed water to his flood-irrigated crops. He works the old-fashioned way: no […]
Posted inBlog
Putting the 40th Anniversary Blog to Bed
2011 marks 41 years that High Country News has been in existence. While another year is certainly noteworthy, especially in this age of disappearing print publications, it won’t carry the fanfare of the past year. This last year was anything but ordinary here at High Country News. To celebrate the organization’s 40th anniversary, subscribers hosted […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 2
Snow has the amazing ability to visually soften the land. Here, snow has transformed a small boulder field on Colorado’s Grand Mesa into a sensuous series of drifts. I shot this one in color, but like it better in black and white. For a lively and informative update of this year’s remarkable snow conditions in […]
Posted inBlog
Tree equity
The Los Angeles community Sherman Oaks sounds like a place that should be verdant and laden with leafy trees. Not surprisingly, the students of Arbol University found that to be exactly true. Yet the students, who were using trigonometry and other tools to collect data about Los Angeles’s urban tree canopy, were shocked at the […]
Posted inRange
New hope for old mines
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House For all their knowledge of the land, miners, whose legacy lives long in Colorado, had little thought of the long-term environmental consequences of their work. For over 150 years, coal, gold, silver, uranium, gypsum and limestone, among other resources, have been drilled, blasted and hauled from their hiding […]
Posted inGoat
New Mexico governor sucker-punches enviro regs
On January 1, 2011, New Mexico’s new governor, Republican Susana Martinez, took office. Nine minutes into her first day, she got right down to business with executive order 2011-001 [PDF], the innocently-titled “Formation of a small business tax force,” which not only created said task force but, more importantly, placed a 90-day hold on most […]
Posted inArticles
Foraging for fungi in the Pacific Northwest
Mushroom hunters and the science behind a bumper crop