My family and I just got back from Sedona, Ariz., land of pinon-juniper forest, redrock spires and vortexes said to be spiritual. The only vortex we found, though, was the one our credit card number went into. We headed down to the self-proclaimed “New Age” capital of the West, thanks to a friend who gave […]
How I turned into a time-share sucker
Posted inWotr
Idaho wilderness bill is another Teapot Dome giveaway
It sounds like a paradox, but a congressional designation of wilderness can actually harm what is wild. I believe that will come true if Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson’s bill, the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act, becomes law. Whether we like it or not, once that law is passed, the law of unintended […]
Posted inWotr
Wilderness bill is a test for common-sense conservation in Idaho
For solitude and inspiration, we seek out wilderness on our public lands, where the road ends and the trail begins, where, by law, we leave our mechanized contrivances and walk, float or ride in on horseback. Wilderness, a gift of nature, remains today because of laws, and where protective laws don’t yet exist, the values […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
‘Water bank’ drags river basin deeper into debt
‘Win-win’ water solution only worsens tension over scarce resource
Posted inWotr
Is how we’re living gross?
I lapse into smugness when someone visits me early in the summer. The mountains around Bozeman, Mont., are dazzling white, the fields emerald, the rivers boisterous, the air clear. I first came here in the spring. I remember how staggering it was. It happened again recently. A friend who had never visited passed through and […]
Posted inWotr
Why I Cherish the Road to Nowhere
When I was a kid, I hated roads that went to nowhere. Lonely and, to a first-grader’s eyes, completely featureless, the high desert of my childhood had plenty of them. Roads to nowhere meant frustratingly long rides in a station wagon without air-conditioning, whizzing along flat open spaces with tumbleweeds blowing across the highway, the […]
Posted inWotr
The day they close the pass
Old-timers still remember when winters in mountain towns meant something more than just catering to hordes of skiers. Sure, those winters were tough; the days were short and cold, and drifting snow restricted outdoor activities and even closed some businesses and high mountain roads. But mountain winters had a positive side, too, for they were […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Fighting the Las Vegas ‘water grab’
Matt Jenkins’ excellent article on what we here in Snake Valley refer to as “the water grab” explains the long-range scientific concerns that we share (HCN, 9/18/05: Squeezing water from a stone). But as Jenkins points out, the “money and power” reside in Las Vegas. Indeed, the Southern Nevada Water Authority is paying the costs […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Spirits in the stream
This letter is regarding Paul Zaenger’s essay about ashes (HCN, 9/5/05: The meeting of heaven and earth). My mother and grandmother were both strong advocates of women’s rights and the Democratic Party in Utah. It was fitting that we broadcast their ashes into the stream up Emigration Canyon in Salt Lake City, allowing their liberal […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Grasses to grasses, dust to dust
My husband and I apply Allan Savory’s range management principles to our small acreage west of Boulder, grazing horses in early summer (HCN, 9/5/05: Rangland Revival). We move fences constantly, but the results, after about four years of doing this, are obvious to us, even in drought conditions. Our grasses are thicker and healthier than […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Let ranchers restore the land
With regards to the Quivira Coalition and the New Ranch movement, the question is not whether ranchers managing land and livestock under such principles can actually restore landscapes (HCN, 9/5/05: Rangeland Revival). Dedicated individuals such as Sid Goodloe of Capitan, N.M., working with the freedom and flexibility afforded to private land, have already demonstrated an […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Quivira Coalition needs science-based grazing
I was pleased to see in your recent article about Courtney White and his Quivira Coalition that there are serious questions about the scientific soundness of the livestock-grazing strategy he promotes (HCN, 9/5/05: Rangeland Revival). I fear, however, that your reporter’s use of the term “rest-rotation” to describe this grazing scheme will produce more confusion. […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Biodiesel is not the answer
Michelle Nijhuis’ ode to biodiesel and her American-sized Mercedes is well-intentioned but misinformed (HCN, 8/8/05: The American dream, sans gasoline). Biodiesel aficionados claim that burning vegetable oil drastically reduces overall emissions of globe-warming carbon dioxide because the carbon in plant oils is already part of the natural carbon cycle. But the carbon in vegetable oil […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Bring back the great little car
Biodiesel is a great idea (HCN, 8/8/05: The American dream, sans gasoline). But how long can we ferment potential food? Yeast exhales carbon dioxide, as do tractors, and those nasty artificial fertilizers are made from oil. Used cooking oil will not be readily available for long, as biodiesel fans burn it up. Some long-term solutions […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Salvage logging speeds up
The timber industry and environmentalists can agree on one thing: The Forest Service’s Biscuit Fire salvage logging program has been a fiasco. Despite accidentally allowing logging in a botanical reserve, the agency has sold just one-fifth of the timber it promised (HCN, 5/16/05: Unsalvageable). Now, two Oregon Republicans have a plan to prevent similar […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Restoration-by-poisoning plan shot down
Just hours before the California Department of Fish and Game was to poison a stream in the Sierra Nevada — part of an effort to restore a threatened trout — a federal court halted the project. The plan called for killing all fish in an 11-mile stretch of Silver King Creek and Tamarack Lake, then […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
His photographs trace the passage of time
NAME Mark Klett VOCATION Photographer and regents’ professor of art at Arizona State University AGE 53 KNOWN FOR Documenting our changing relationship with Western landscapes HE SAYS “Photos always seem to exist as sort of stuffy, unnecessary antiques that we put in a drawer — unless we take them out, put them in current dialogue, […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
The Ghosts of Yosemite
Scientists from the past bring us a message about the future
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Handling griz: How much is enough?
At least 5 percent of the West’s grizzly bears should wear radio collars, researchers say
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Pombo takes on the Endangered Species Act
‘Critical habitat’ is likely a thing of the past