For almost a year, the world thought the final chapter had been written about the life — and death — of a young artist and poet who mysteriously disappeared in the Southwest’s canyon country 75 years ago. His name was Everett Ruess, and at age 20, he was already fed up with modern life, preferring […]
Mystery unsolved — and that’s a good thing
Posted inGoat
Snodgrass slowdown
As recently as this summer, it looked like Crested Butte Mountain Resort — a ski area in western Colorado renowned for its extreme terrain — might finally expand onto the forested slopes of uncharismatically-dubbed Snodgrass Mountain (Gusundheit!). The company has been pushing the expansion for decades, and a strong local opposition movement has been active […]
Posted inWotr
Climate change threatens our livelihoods — and yours
In the summer of 2003, one of the most legendary and fearsome mountaineering routes in the world –– the North Face of the Eiger –– fell victim to climate change. An unusually warm summer melted much of the ice that makes this route in Switzerland passable. As temperatures continue to warm, this iconic passage may […]
Posted inRange
Big Ag wins big in California
Depending on who you listen too, sweeping water-related legislation recently enacted in California is either a solution to the states water conflicts, a recipe for increased conflict and the domination of corporate water brokers, or a partial step forward that will succeed or fail depending on future legislative and administrative actions. Here’s how Lester Snow, […]
Posted inGoat
Veteran namesakes
It’s Veteran’s Day. A military post, Fort Hood in Texas, has been much in the news of late on account of a tragic mass murder. And I’m a history buff. These threads all came together when I found out that Fort Hood was named for an army veteran — Gen. John Bell Hood. […]
Posted inGoat
An impossible Shangri-la
In August of last year, we wrote about the Jenson brothers’ grand plans to turn a tiny, defunct ski hill in southwest Utah into a posh, exclusive mega-resort (see our story “An unlikely Shangri-la“). In building the Mt. Holly Club, the Jensons hoped to emulate the Yellowstone Club, the ultra-ritzy Montana ski and golf community. […]
Posted inRange
When Consensus Doesn’t Mean Consensus
A few days ago a letter [pdf] written by scientists at Brigham Young University — a traditionally conservative school — plopped onto the desks of Utah’s governor and state lawmakers. The letter is being called a “stinging rebuke” and criticizes how, in a recent session, legislators gave equal value to fringe, skeptical climate change views […]
Posted inGoat
The case of the missing binders
Central Washington’s Kittitas County, hungry for economic uplift since the fall of the timber industry, has been in the limelight a lot lately for scuffles over development. The proliferation of subdivisions there has met sharp criticism from certain corners (see Cally Carswell’s recent article “Death by a thousand wells” on the area’s over-reliance on exempt […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Weed picking
Who knew marijuana was the answer to the real estate industry’s prayers? It must be so, since the Denver Post announced in a giant headline: “Pot boom offsets real estate bust.” Voters first approved a medical marijuana amendment to the Colorado Constitution back in 2000, but the feds announced only recently that they wouldn’t prosecute […]
Posted inGoat
Bluegrass in red rock country
This past weekend, the HCN interns took a road trip out to nearby Moab, Utah, to experience some of the West’s most dramatic landscapes and hear some good ol’ tunes at the yearly folk festival. The sunset faded as we left Colorado, cruising through darkness on I-70 to the Cisco exit. On Utah State Route […]
Posted inRange
Back at the Table, Again
The creation of Washington State’s current logging regulations may have been less spectacular that the infamous spotted owl timber wars of the early 90s (the President didn’t have to intervene, for instance), but they were still righteously complicated. Ten years ago, when salmon hit the endangered species list, stakeholders sat down to create a multi-trick […]
Posted inGoat
“A deeply troubled idea from the start”
In 2000, when the federal government shelled out $101 million to buy what’s now the Valles Caldera National Preserve, it made one thing clear: The government wouldn’t be the preserve’s cash cow forever. But nine years later, the preserve isn’t close to weaning itself off federal funding, according to a recent report by the Government […]
Posted inRange
Can a border wall ever truly be removed?
It’s been 20 years this month since the Berlin Wall was dismantled, marking the beginning of the end for the Iron Curtain that once separated Eastern Europe from much of the western world. But according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, some of the region’s wildlife still hasn’t forgotten the man-made boundary that interrupted […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Confessions of a Political Spouse
If you remember Ronald Reagan as the “Teflon president,” thank Pat Schroeder, the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado, who coined the term. She served as a congresswoman from Denver for almost 25 years, arriving in Washington, D.C., in 1972, with two children — one still in diapers — and a supportive and witty […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Gone in 60 seconds
Wheelin’ & dealin’ at the world’s biggest Western art auction
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Interior scandal: Rated G(reen)
During the waning years of the Bush administration, officials with the U.S. Department of Interior got a little too cozy with — hold on to your Sierra Club card — environmentalists. So says a recent report by the department’s Office of Inspector General. The investigation looked at the National Landscape Conservation System, which was created […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
‘Yes’ to desire and an end to fear
Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing: Living in the FutureCharles Bowden243 pages, hardcover, $24.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. But as a desert man, I can only say yes to rain. — Charles Bowden Mulling over decades spent reporting on everything from border crimes to environmental destruction to post-Katrina New Orleans, journalist Charles Bowden declares an […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
The kindness of hunters
I despise guns. If a Winchester appears in a movie, I gnaw my fingernails, heart galloping. Firearms show a lack of imagination, I think; they slant the playing field, and sometimes threaten to tip the whole thing over. Recently, a student of mine penned a lyrical essay on the spirituality of hunting. I gave him […]