IDAHO A border collie adept at “child-herding, intense stares and home protection” has applied for a job with the city of Boise: He wants to chase Canada geese off the playing fields. In a letter purported to be from the herd dog, named Atticus in honor of the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, he […]
Heard around the West
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Inside the fall
Flat on my back under the cottonwood, yellow leaves falling, brilliant blue above, an abandoned rake beside me. My two young children sit at my side, feeding sticks to the dog, who likes to chew them up and understands that every time he gently takes a twig and crashes it in his teeth he is […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Blood spills over a $14 camping fee
When Chief Ranger Jerry Epperson hired me to be a seasonal ranger at Arches National Park in Utah 25 years ago, I wasn’t sure what my duties were. So it seemed like a good idea to ask. Epperson smiled wryly and said, “A ranger should range.” So even though we had to endure chores like […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
States lead charge against global warming
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Ghosts of Yosemite.” From California to Colorado and from Washington to New Mexico, Western states, tired of federal inaction on climate change, are saddling up to tackle the issue on their own. Whether it means deciding that a certain percentage of their electrical […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
In the Great Basin, scientists track global warming
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Ghosts of Yosemite.” Eugene Raymond Hall, one of biologist Joseph Grinnell’s first graduate students, was “a robust, pipe-smoking, extroverted individual,” known for his stubbornness and rough edges, writes historian Barbara Stein. In many ways, he was unlike his reserved mentor, but his scientific […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Overseas drill rigs head for the West
Oil and gas drilling permits have tripled during the last five years, and every available rig has been pressed into service. Now, energy companies are looking overseas, particularly to China, for equipment and qualified crews. But as foreign drill rigs and workers arrive to tap Western lands, political red flags are starting to go up. […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
The Latest Bounce
The Bureau of Land Management recently approved a mining company’s plans to explore for gold near South Pass, Wyo., a major historic point on the Emigrant Trail (HCN, 5/16/05: Gold mining proposed in historic South Pass area). Fremont Gold will dig 200 10-by-20-foot test pits about five miles from the pass. If the company finds […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Dear friends
HELLOS AND GOODBYES The High Country News board of directors met in Santa Fe in late September, bidding farewell to two longtime members, and inviting five new people to join. Leaving the board are Emily Stonington and Michael Fischer. Emily, a state senator who raises sheep outside Helena, Mont., was one of the main forces […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Is anyone home at the parks?
Poke around the West for a while, and you’ll discover that the National Park Service does one thing better than any other agency. It’s not managing land. It’s managing people. Nearly 300 million visitors meander through the parks each year in search of that perfect scenic photo, a look at a bear, a little solitude. […]
Posted inWotr
Sacred cows in the public’s paradise
With four hours of freeways and winding mountain roads between me and San Francisco, I was finally hiking slow and easy up the first part of Disaster Creek Trail in California’s Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. I’d been waiting all summer for spring to arrive in the Sierra High Country, in a place called Paradise Valley. I’m a […]
Posted inWotr
Nature works better with us
You’ve seen the ads: Some eco-celebrity urges you to make a donation to save one of the earth’s last special places. Your generous gift will help protect this place so it remains healthy and pristine forever. Few of us bother to think that this pitch contains a huge assumption — that protecting a piece of […]
Posted inWotr
The House takes an ax to the Endangered Species Act
As former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it, the states can serve as “laboratories of democracy” by testing new approaches to see if they might work for the nation as a whole. The idea is that if a new approach falls flat, the rest of the country can learn from the mistake without going […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Meloy’s last message — from bighorn country
Author Ellen Meloy died unexpectedly at her home in Bluff, Utah, last Nov. 4. The gifted writer, illustrator and environmentalist leaves behind an impressive canon of nature writing that includes Raven’s Exile, The Last Cheater’s Waltz and The Anthropology of Turquoise, a book short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. Eating Stone, completed just before her death […]
Posted inWotr
The end of something really big
As soon as we read about the dead whale, it was clear we were about to take a field trip. “Let’s go,” said my friend Nathan, peering at a newspaper photo of a giant beached vertebrae. He’s a sculptor, so he has an artist’s appreciation for bones. Besides, his mother had recently cracked one of […]
Posted inWotr
Wildfire can make you run for your life
As we stood on a hillside in Idaho’s Boulder-White Cloud mountains watching a fire bear down on us, I told my friend Dave that this was the closest I’d been to a wildfire without getting paid for it. We’d just finished speed-hiking down from a high lake basin, after the Forest Service told us to […]
Posted inWotr
Fear and adrenaline can cause a ranger to kill
When Chief Ranger Jerry Epperson hired me to be a seasonal ranger at Arches National Park in Utah so many years ago, I wasn’t sure what my duties were supposed to be. So it seemed like a good idea to ask. Epperson smiled wryly and said, “A ranger should range.” So while all of us […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Parriott offers a fair solution
Jeremy Parriott’s idea of having private parks instead of relatively pristine public land for mechanized road-rippers represents a fair solution for tree-huggers and trail-trashers alike (HCN, 8/22/05: His playground pulls fun hogs off the public lands). Such a scheme would help save fragile plants and animals, prevent erosion, and give off-roaders a place to frolic. […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Unpaid advertisement for Parriott?
There should have been a box around the article about Jeremy Parriott’s fun-hog playground with the words “Unpaid Advertisement” at the top (HCN, 8/22/05: His playground pulls fun hogs off the public lands). Does your newspaper really believe that 320 acres will keep hundreds of off-road vehicle owners happily contained and off the thousands of […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Clovis highlights America’s eternal war economy
Clovis, N.M., won its battle to keep nearby Cannon Air Force Base open (HCN, 8/22/05: Leavin’ on a Jet Plane). This demonstrates that we are, indeed, a nation with an economy on an eternal war footing, where peace is just bad for business. The Air Force wanted to close Cannon to save money. Now we […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Stick to environmental topics
I think it would be a better service to your readers to tell about the Superfund sites left at military bases rather than the socioeconomic effects on towns with their closure (HCN, 8/22/05: Leavin’ on a Jet Plane). I read HCN for environmental, not social, topics. Cheryl ChipmanBishop, California THE EDITOR RESPONDS The West’s environment […]