It’s been a knuckle-chapping, post-holing, white-out freeze of a winter in the West, prompting many a global warming naysayer to crow about buying Al Gore a snow shovel. Not so fast though, weather weenies. A recent report based on long-term data from about 2,000 sites around the West shows that the region has warmed 70 […]
Two weeks in the West
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Dear friends
MORE KUDOS FOR RAY Senior editor Ray Ring‘s cover story “Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields,” April 2, 2007, received an Honorable Mention in this year’s Heywood Broun Award contest. The top winners were Dana Priest and Anne Hull of the Washington Post. The award, from the Newspaper Guild, recognizes journalism that helps […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
The hazards of the leasing game
Driving over our local mountain pass these days is a bit like playing that video game where you, as the driver, have to navigate a course full of hazards that appear out of nowhere. Around every hairpin turn on the narrow highway, you’re likely to steer into a minefield of rocks, ranging from a scattering […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Taking to the Trees
After conquering rocks, trails and mountains, weekend warriors head for the canopy
Posted inArticles
Why the buffalo can’t roam
Since February, some 1,400 wandering Yellowstone bison have been killed under a controversial plan meant to prevent brucellosis – a livestock disease that causes spontaneous abortions – from spreading to cattle near the park. Five agencies are charged with keeping the park’s bison population within park boundaries, but the animals keep migrating out, entering private […]
Posted inWotr
Push, whack, shove, wallop and pound
I started with hard red wheat. Our pioneer ancestors mostly ate bread made of cornmeal until the wheat began to thrive in the arid climate and thin soil. Hand grinders like mine pulverized it fine enough for bread, even cakes. Kneading, I could see my grandmother’s strong arms working the dough on the cupboard by […]
Posted inWotr
Home, home on the cyber-range
A different kind of neighborhood news now serves parts of Colorado’s Front Range, those high-altitude communities “up the hill” from Denver. It’s paperless, free-form, relentlessly local and increasingly popular. It’s a Web site called Pinecam.com, and for people living in the towns of Conifer, Pine, Bailey and Evergreen, it has become a fact of life […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t be afraid of the big bad bears
Ah, spring: The bloom of flowers, the song of birds, the paranoia of the National Park Service. I have come to expect it just as I expect muddy boots at the door and crowded pews at Easter: If you live in the same part of the world as Glacier or Yellowstone national parks, you will […]
Posted inArticles
Return of the Teton Dam?
Updated April 7, 2008 Almost 32 years ago, the Teton Dam in southeastern Idaho failed against the force of a 17-mile long, 270-foot deep reservoir. Eight months of stored stream flow and snowmelt crashed down the valley in less than six hours, swallowing the communities of Rexburg, Teton, Newdale and Sugar City. Eleven people died […]
Posted inArticles
Primer 3: Recreation
The energy industry isn’t the only one defacing the West’s wild spaces with fresh roads and trails, trampled wildlife habitat, and fouled air and water. Unmanaged recreation, primarily the motorized sort, is one of the top threats facing the nation’s public lands, say federal officials. Other major problems, including the loss of open space and […]
Posted inWotr
An empty canyon full of everything
Lamoille Canyon doesn’t attract many tourists. It’s in Nevada’s remote northeastern corner, and that’s just fine with me. I’ve come to the Ruby Mountains for something that’s becoming rare in America: a starry sky and a generous helping of Western birds. Even the drive to Lamoille Canyon is wonderful. Telephone poles on the deserted state […]
Posted inWotr
The loneliness of the redneck environmentalist
I don’t have that many friends. I’m not a bad guy; I call my mother, eat my broccoli, and pay my taxes. But I’m a country-music-listening, PBR-drinking, rusty-Jeep-driving good ol’ boy — and I love the environment. I grew up rural in the Rocky Mountain West and Midwest, where farming and ranching still reign. It […]
Posted inWotr
A hard winter makes you think
After more than a decade of mild winters, we residents of this high-altitude town in southern Colorado got a dose of the genuine article. Not since “Remember December,” when it snowed every day in December 1983, had anyone seen this much snow. But stories from old-timers, those remnant miners who stayed on here long after […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Thinking like a fish
Chad Hanson used to wonder what music trout would listen to if they could: Brookies might like bluegrass, browns might prefer classical, while rainbows, he thought, would dig grunge tunes from the Pacific Northwest. But he was wrong, he learns. And as Hanson looks for an answer to what might seem like a silly question, […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Reasons to stay
“Wyoming,” Charlotte Bacon writes, “made you feel that an articulated reason to stay was a good thing to develop.” In Bacon’s new novel, Split Estate, that nebulous feeling drives Arthur King to leave New York City with his two teenagers, Cam and Celia, after his wife, Laura, commits suicide. He rashly moves the family west […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
The park service has the power
The “Unnatural Preservation” article, like nearly everything else in HCN, is generally excellent (HCN, 2/04/08). However, the authors miss, I think, an important element of the National Park Service management philosophy, and thus distort their conclusions about the agency. While the Park Service still holds onto the general thrust of the policy toward its natural […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Managing complexity
I feel the issues in “Unnatural Preservation” were presented in a very dichotomous way, that is, scientists versus managers, now versus never, all versus nothing (HCN, 2/04/08). Yet there are plenty of examples where we are addressing the gray area by trying different things at different scales, creating multidisciplinary collaborations, and envisioning alternative future landscapes. […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Higher wages and health hazards
The prospect of “high wage” mining and energy jobs is one reason Western communities might welcome extractive industries (HCN, 2/18/08). Indeed, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data confirm that mining and construction pay well, averaging $20 per hour, while workers in the “Leisure and Hospitality” industry make just $10 per hour. So does the […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Pinko politicians
“Havana goes West” by Nathaniel Hoffman felt like something out of a socialist trade journal (HCN, 3/03/08). In Cuba today, no more than three people are allowed to meet on the street or they can be locked up by the police. Nobody changes jobs and nobody changes where they live. Opposition writers and journalists are […]