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 […]
Dear friends
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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
If it affects the West, it belongs in HCN
A recent issue of HCN included a letter from Ms. Kathy Crooks suggesting that the sole appropriate topic for the paper is environmental news of the West (HCN, 8/22/05: Leave sociology coverage to National Geographic). Thought I’d let you know that this subscriber at least considers your brief to be “the West.” Not just the […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
A quantum leap
The Aug. 8 issue is, in my opinion, a quantum leap for you guys, and not just graphically. The brighter newsprint and the full-color pix are super, but the “Gangs of Zion” story is world-class. Tim Sullivan is to be congratulated for solid reporting; HCN is to be congratulated for running an exceptional and unusual […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Don’t ‘dumb and numb’ readers
I’m responding to your request to let you know what I think about color photos (HCN, 8/8/05: Dear Friends). I appreciate HCN for in-depth journalism on natural environmental issues in the West. I think you’re spending money unwisely on color photos when it could be better spent on content. Black-and-white photos illustrate people, tattoos and […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Boulder gets the gas-drilling blues
Energy companies are drilling holes straight through efforts to preserve open space on Colorado’s Front Range. Boulder County has saved about 76,000 acres from development by buying property and creating conservation easements. However, the county doesn’t always control the mineral rights underneath that land — which leaves the surface property open to drilling. Previous landowners […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
The Latest Bounce
During President Bush’s 2000 election campaign, he promised that any decision about whether to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would be based on “sound science.” Now, his administration seems to be junking science altogether. In August, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it will cut the U.S. Geological Survey’s budget […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Heard Around the West
WASHINGTON A duck named Gooey has brought Diane Erdmann, a manager for Northwest Territorial Mint, a whole lot of attention, along with a possible charge of illegally harboring wildlife. The mallard had been attacked by a crow, and Erdmann took over its care from a friend, nursing the bird back to health and consulting a […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Be a patriot — get your hands dirty
While foraging through my backyard garden the other day for cucumbers, peppers and hot-to-touch chiles, a slogan occurred to me: “Support Our Troops — Plant a Garden.” Gardening was as distant from my life as Afghanistan until I bought a house seven years ago. My newly acquired yard had bluegrass in the middle and a […]