A couple of years ago, I returned with my family to live in Fort Collins, Colo., a college town I knew well as an undergraduate 21 years ago. In the heyday of my college years, the Grange in the nearby tiny town of Bellvue was the place to dance, and I remembered renting the place […]
Preserving the past at the Bellvue Grange
Posted inWotr
We bought an SUV, and we’re proud of it
To the horror of our environmentally conscious friends, my husband and I just bought a big honkin’ SUV. After spending 20 years with our pickup truck, which was working on 250,000 miles and its third rear-end gear, we decided it was time. Our in-town car is 10 years old, with great ground clearance and room […]
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A Utah resort town welcomes 300,000 foreigners
In Moab, Utah, a town constantly visited by jeepers and hikers from all over the world, the arrival of 300,000 beings from Kazakhstan hasn’t received much press. But as the newcomers flutter in and make themselves more at home, people are starting to take notice. Diorhabda elongata is their sexy name, and most of us, […]
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A little flash flooding can be a wonderful thing
I took a sentimental trip to Arches National Park a few weeks ago. I haven’t worked as a ranger at Arches outside Moab, Utah, for 20 years, but I still remember it fondly and sometimes visit my favorite places. Perhaps the most dramatic change is the Delicate Arch road. It was always something of a […]
Posted inWotr
Big stakes surround South Dakota’s abortion ban
On the outskirts of rural Menno, S.D., past acres of sunflowers, there’s a wooden sign nailed to a post. It reads: “Abortion, America’s #1 Killer.” Similar signs dot roads throughout this conservative state, which is populated by 775,000 people and where just one clinic, based in Sioux Falls, performs about 800 abortions a year. Depending […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Heard around the West
UTAH AND IDAHO Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Forest Service employees from Utah, that’s who. Two staffers from the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Ogden were working in Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness Sept. 23, when they spotted wolves chasing a bull elk across a meadow. They weren’t frightened by the sight of the running […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Just another giddyup
It’s a lot like any other rodeo, on an August weekend in a fairground arena as folks hide out from the monsoon rains. Friday-night cowboys with mustaches stroll past women wearing baggy-in-the-seat jeans and plaid flannel shirts. Tall men with big hats hug one another, catch up on circuit gossip, and check out newcomers. Pungent […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Idaho’s permissiveness leads to elk on the lam
Sometime in August, 100 or more domestic elk escaped from a game farm near Rexburg, Idaho, through a hole in the fence. The elk were bred for their huge antlers, and are known as “shooter bulls,” meaning they’re destined to be shot with bow and arrow or rifle, by clients engaged in an elaborate fantasy […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Hug a mountain biker
By any measure, the outdoor education and indoctrination of mountain bikers has been a story of unparalleled success. In less than 20 years, mountain-bike advocacy groups like the International Mountain Bicycling Association have accomplished what other traditional user groups have had centuries, if not millennia, to address. And as the article in your Sept. 18 […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Labor of love
Imagine my surprise when I discovered the article “Our Green Mountain” by The Old Crock, Jaime O’Neill, in your Oct. 2 issue. The Green Mountain Gazette was a labor of love of many in an isolated mountain community dedicated to bringing a difference in the lives of its readers. We struggled to publish an alternative […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
The other side of the story
Being a faithful subscriber to the High Country News, I read your Oct. 2 article about The Horse Fly. It contains many inaccuracies. For example, the article talks about Taos Pueblo’s proposed casino at the Kachina Lodge near downtown. It quotes Bill Whaley, proprietor of The Horse Fly, as saying: “The Taos News wouldn’t touch […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
The de-conglomerating media
I was a bit disappointed with the Oct. 2 issue of HCN devoted to grassroots journalism in the West. For starters, it neglected to mention that some evidence suggests the long trend toward conglomerate takeover of local papers, a great rallying point for the alternative press, may be starting to reverse itself. It also omitted […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
How vain, how self-absorbed
The cutesie photos of the “indie news” types and a self-absorbed article about self-absorbed people writing news make me realize that unless you have a certain “look” and immodest attitude about how “unique” you are, reading HCN really has no meaning (HCN, 10/2/06: From the ground up). Could you tell me if the staff members […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Chappaquiddick vs. Three Mile Island
After reading Jonathan Thompson’s article “Reborn” in the Sept. 4, 2006, issue, I wondered if anyone recalls the 1979-’80 statement: “More people died at Chappaquiddick than died at Three Mile Island.” C.C. Michel Odessa, Texas This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Chappaquiddick vs. Three Mile Island.
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
In search of greener pastures
Name Laina Corazon Coit Age 55 Vocation Hemp ice cream maker Home Base Near Briggsdale, Colo. Noted for Working to create Colorado’s first green burial grounds, on the eastern prairie She says “I’m for earthworms. We intend to use every possible way to make sure the land remains sacred to the grave sites and the […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Pueblo water battle nears its end
Aamodt case tries to untangle centuries of water use in northern New Mexico
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Can the West become the new South?
Western primary could give the Rockies a louder voice in Washington
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Two weeks in the West
“It won’t be serving the Wal-Mart and Kentucky Fried Chicken crowd.” — Jeania Joseph, town clerk for Big Water, Utah, referring to the $200 million Amangiri resort slated for construction near Lake Powell. It will boast $6 million villas, $1,200 a night rooms, and a 100,000-square-foot-spa. EPA boots soot, sort of. Fine particles of soot […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Life in the transition zone
The last time I knocked on Luis Torres’ front door in San Pedro, N.M., he was inside on the phone, talking and joking in a rapid-fire combination of Spanish and English that made my head spin. On the other end of the phone was Alfonso Chacon, a forest contractor featured in this issue’s cover story. […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Biomass: What to do with all that wood
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico’s Forests.” SANTA FE, New Mexico — Driving through the thickly forested mountains around New Mexico’s state capital, Mark Sardella doesn’t daydream about his next camping trip. Instead, he thinks about the untapped heat locked up in all those […]