Last Monday, I drove over McClure Pass to Carbondale, Colo., to join NPR reporter Jeff Brady, Rocky Mountain Community Radio correspondent Bente Birkeland, Aspen Times columnist Paul Anderson, and KDNK community radio News Director Conrad Wilson for a lively (and live) discussion of Western issues and how they play out in Colorado. You can find […]
The changing face of the West
Posted inWotr
Blame it all on my crazy biology teacher
With fall in the air, I get this funny feeling that my homework isn’t done. It is true I was one of “those” students who tested patience, strained policies, broke rules and spent quality time on a chair in the hallway. I guess it was a natural aptitude, like yodeling. My parents urged me to […]
Posted inGoat
Harvesting grievances
All summer long, farmers in California’s Central Valley have complained about their parched fields—one even likened their communities to tumbleweeds about to blow away—and they blame their thirsty crops on fish. Endangered Species Act protections for smelt and salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta limit the amount of water pumped out of Northern California, much […]
Posted inWotr
Libby is not what you think
Libby, Mont., is a strange place. In the morning, the Cabinet Mountains sparkle, sporting new snow way up on the highest peaks. Folks arrive at work, open the front doors of their businesses and shout out “Mornin’” from across the street. Joggers pass by my house, dodging a stray doe that lingers after a night […]
Posted inRange
Wolf victory still elusive
A recent opinion piece by Mike Medberry wisely suggested that there needs to be a reasonable middle ground in the deeply polemical attitudes toward managing wolves in the West. Unfortunately, this encouraging argument was followed by much of the same tired, politicized and oversimplified rhetoric, pitting environmental groups against the government and mischaracterizing the premise […]
Posted inArticles
Place-based Forest Law
Questions and Opportunities Presented by Senator Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act
Posted inWotr
Con: The cult of canning exposed
I hate this time of year. The leaves crackle underfoot like the bones of tiny children. And the light takes on a certain harshness that reminds me that, even as I grow closer to death, I have gotten no closer to realizing my dreams. Most of that is made tolerable with a dose of self-medication, […]
Posted inGoat
Snowpacks melting sooner
Why are mountain snowpacks melting sooner these days? Part of it may be climate change associated with increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there’s something else in the air — dust (a/k/a airborne particulate matter). Snow reflects sunlight quite well, as evidenced by the blinding glare it produces and […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
When reverence isn’t enough
A visit with philosopher and writer Kathleen Dean Moore
Posted inGoat
California’s State Parks: No New Closures
In July, after $14.2 million was cut from the California State Parks’ operating budget, it looked like up to 100 parks might have to close to make ends meet. Park supporters have thus spent the last few months anxiously speculating about which parks would fall to Governor Schwarzenegger’s death panels. But today they got a […]
Posted inRange
Center for Biological Diversity shows the way
Thank goodness that the Center for Biological Diversity has given us an example of what a forest partnership worthy of the name looks like. A real forest partnership is NOT about giving up rights under the law; suspending duly established government process or excluding the public from important decisions about the public lands. Real forest […]
Posted inWotr
Pro: Gold in a canning jar
All weekend it was food, food and more food. Digging beets, cooking beets, pickling beets, canning pears and peaches, blanching and skinning and freezing tomatoes. I made food until my back ached from standing slightly stooped, at the cutting board. I worked until the Ball jars stood in neat rows, each packed with product — […]
Posted inRange
Butte Pacific
From north to south, the pastures of the Dry Cottonwood Creek Allotment are as follows: Orofino, North Fork, Basin, Sand Hollow, Upper Hilltop, Lower Hilltop, and Butte Pacific. The last of these—Butte Pacific—is foremost in my mind today. All the other pastures are named for natural features: Orofino for a creek and a mountain; North […]
Posted inGoat
Claws out for big cat protection
Macho B’s death, contentious and untimely, could also be criminal. The capture, collaring and euthanization of America’s last known wild jaguar in March was illegal, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, who brought a lawsuit against Arizona Game and Fish Department yesterday. The Center asserts that AZ Game and Fish did not have the […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo: Dead television
This week, we’re featuring a photo by Flickr user VexingArt. It’s not only a nice shot, with plenty of depth and character and that cool old photo look, but it also captures one of those common features of so many Western landscapes: The shot out appliance. To see more High Country News Reader photos, or […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Fall break
We publish 22 issues a year, and our next publishing break is in mid-September. Look for the next installment of HCN around Oct. 12. ROMPIN’ READER POTLUCK… in Paonia. We’re bringing back an old favorite: the High Country News community potluck at Paonia Town Park! This year, our fall board meeting takes place in HCN‘s […]
Posted inWotr
Solace among the Crazies
I’ve always gone to the woods to calm or rejuvenate a spirit too easily rubbed raw by modern life. It shouldn’t have surprised me that this continued into chemotherapy. Cockeyed from surgery and early treatments for ovarian cancer, I thought I was too tired or too sick to feel alive in the woods, but found […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
UnBEARable
An adventurous bear in Snowmass, Colo., didn’t need surgery, just a ladder. Apparently hoping to do some rad riding, he dropped into the town skate park’s bowl. Unable to skate vert, he was then busted down there, with no way out. One can imagine young onlookers confusing him with some shaggy old-school skater, before realizing […]
Posted inRange
Plastic bags plague the Bay
Have you ever wondered what happens to those pesky plastic bags that blow out of trash cans and float aimlessly along city streets and through neighborhoods? Eventually, they find their way to storm drains, creeks, bays and oceans. Once in the water they become toxic food for unsuspecting wildlife or flow to join the Great […]