In the dog days of this August, the ashes of “gonzo” writer Hunter S. Thompson are to be blasted out of a cannon from the top of a 150-foot tower, over the beauty of his mountain home near Woody Creek, Colo. Just a few weeks ago, while I was working at the Black Canyon of […]
Park ranger presides over the meeting of heaven and earth
Posted inWotr
Northwest’s dam breaching gets a surprise endorsement
When Don Chapman, a biologist and longtime consultant for the hydro industry in the Pacific Northwest, suddenly said four dams in Washington needed to be breached to save Idaho’s salmon, it shook the region. Until now, Chapman had staunchly defended technological fixes for hauling salmon from their spawning grounds past the dams to the Pacific […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Industry walks a fuzzy line between preservation and extortion
Gas company offers millions for permission to maximize drilling
Posted inWotr
The beginning of everywhere, as seen on Lolo Peak
I have no doubt that I stand here at the very center of creation. Every fir tree, each of its needles, the movement of wind, all that I perceive and even more that I don’t, all resonate with a vital hum. It is the hum of the universe, what the Chinese call the ten thousand […]
Posted inWotr
Dead birds off the coast tell us what we don’t know
Just 26 miles from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, Northern California’s rugged Farallon Islands are a perfect backdrop for a mystery. Home to the largest seabird colony in the continental United States with about 250,000 birds, the islands are the Manhattan of the bird world. Yet things are far from normal in this avian city: […]
Posted inWotr
County Fair: ‘I hope he is good eating’
In the rural West, July and August are months of heat broken up by haying, a wedding or anniversary celebration and the county fair. It’s the time when 4-H projects ripen and months of work culminate in a coveted ribbon. I was raised on a northern Montana cattle ranch and participated in 4-H despite my […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
High Country
High Country by Willard Wyman, 160 Pages, hardcover $24.95: University of Oklahoma Press, September 2005. If by now you’ve tired of the summer-reading crop of spy thrillers and cheesy romances, try this Depression-era novel about a boy, Ty Hardin, who leaves the family ranch in Montana to become a mulepacker. After being wounded in World […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism
The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism by Robert W. Righter 277 pages, hardover $30: Oxford University press, 2005 Robert Righter, a history professor at Southern Methodist University, chronicles the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. Although the water needs of San Francisco […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Crazy like a fox, or a fish, or a bat…
Field biologists are a rare breed. If you have any doubt about this, Jennifer Bové’s book, The Back Road to Crazy, will change your mind. Field biologists find pleasure in wading, chest-deep, against a fast current of sub-zero water before the sun has even considered rising — all to net and count tiny fish no […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
A refreshing take on Wal-Mart vs. The World
“Unless you’ve been residing in a national wildlife refuge, you probably hear a lot about Wal-Mart,” begins The United States of Wal-Mart, by Denver writer John Dicker. Being anti-Wal-Mart is so popular these days, it can be hard to separate the good criticism from the bad. But Dicker’s book clearly qualifies as good. It is […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
A balanced story on an unbalanced man
Matt Weiser’s profile of Rep. Richard Pombo was a reading experience I will long savor (HCN, 7/25/05: Will the real Mr. Pombo please stand up?). While the content is extremely depressing to anyone who gives a damn about the environment, the depth of research that went into the piece is worthy of high praise, as […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
A return to feudalism
The BLM’s new grazing rules are a farce (HCN, 7/25/05: New grazing rules ride on doctored science). Tony Davis’ article says the new rules allow extended rest. The opposite is true; I believe the new rules prohibit more than one year of rest. The people I knew before I retired from BLM were in on […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Sasquatch in Seattle?
I read the Yeti article with interest (HCN, 7/25/05: A most unusual sanctuary, where the Yeti roams free). I thought you might like to know that we here in King County, Wash., have Bipedus giganticus (Sasquatch) listed in the King County Wetlands Folio as a species known to inhabit wetlands. This is a science-based three-volume […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
The cowboys are winning
I read the story about the BLM’s new grazing rules and Erick Campbell with great interest (HCN, 7/25/05: New Grazing Rules Ride on Doctored Science). It was essentially the same story that HCN wrote about me seven years ago (HCN, 6/22/98: More internal fire at the Forest Service). The last paragraph says it all: “the […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Smithsonian serves up Forest Service Lite
On a recent visit to this year’s U.S. Forest Service display at the Smithsonian’s annual Folklife Festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C., I saw some disturbing gaps in its representation of the Forest Service “culture” — the timber program was nowhere to be found. I asked a few uniformed Forest Service folks at tables […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Engaging essays on a changing West
Just a quick note to say how much I loved the June 27 issue with the three essays on the West. Each of them was fresh, engaging, and disturbing. (Perhaps Jesse Wolf Hardin’s was more triumphant than disturbing.) I was moved. Our West as we have thought of it is really changing. Thanks to all […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Birds get a break from blades
This winter, the whirling blades of half of the more than 5,000 windmills perched atop Altamont Pass will grind to a halt for two months. That plan will allow migrating birds to fly safely through the area. Under new county permitting rules, the windmill companies, which supply power for 120,000 homes, will halt their turbines […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Domenici clobbers cooperation on the RioGrande
New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, R, wants to give more money — nearly $13 million annually — to a five-year-old program dedicated to endangered species on the Middle Rio Grande. He also plans to put the Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Act Collaborative Program under federal authority and trim its membership. But not all the […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Horn hunters face hard times
For centuries, Asian men have consumed powdered antlers to try to boost their sexual performance, a tradition that’s helped fuel today’s demand for deer and elk antlers. Recently, though, the rising popularity of Viagra has “just about finished off” the Asian market, says Mike Aldrich, of Pinedale, Wyo., who buys and sells antlers. But more […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Primrose focus of legal dustup
This summer, no one is enjoying the dusty trails of central California’s Clear Creek Management Area: The Bureau of Land Management has temporarily closed 30,000 of the area’s 75,000 acres. George Hill, the BLM’s Hollister assistant field manager, says the agency shut the area down to protect people from naturally occurring asbestos dust. But environmentalists […]