Recently, at mid-afternoon on a rainy day, I looked up at the cloud-burdened sky and missed the stars, truly missed them. I felt the kind of wistful pangs that you might when you remember a long-gone but beloved grandparent, or a teenage sweetheart who misunderstood you long ago. I knew they were up there — […]
Stars in our eyes
Posted inWotr
Water pounds through our towns and our dreams
The water in the mountains has decided that enough is enough: It’s time to come down. And down it has come, in a swell of white, tumbling magnificence the likes of which I haven’t seen around here in my 28 years in the West. It’s an all-or-nothing kind of flood that is washing through our […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Wild Echoes: Encounters With the Most Endangered Animals in North America
Wild Echoes: Encounters With the Most Endangered Animals in North America Charles Bergman, 325 pages, softcover: $21.95. University of Illinois Press, 2003. Biologists know that human activities are causing thousands of species to go extinct. According to Bergman, our attitudes contribute to extinction just as much as our automobiles do. By imagining animals as separate […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Little Things in a Big Country: An Artist and Her Dog on the Rocky Mountain Front
Little Things in a Big Country: An Artist and Her Dog on the Rocky Mountain Front Hannah Hinchman, 176 pages, hardcover: $25.95. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. This hand-lettered, hand-illustrated book tells of Hinchman’s travels with her dog in western Montana. Her charming yet refreshingly unsentiminetal descriptions, sketches, and paintings illustrate the changing seasons, her […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
The Singing Life of Birds
The Singing Life of Birds Donald Kroodsma, 482 pages, hardcover: $28.00. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Have you ever wished you could distinguish the song of a wood thrush from that of a hermit thrush? Kroodsman’s new book combines his personal observations of birds with scientific descriptions of how they develop their songs. Accompanying diagrams show the […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
A view of the West from on high
What does a newpaperman-turned-professor who spends the better part of 168 pages reminiscing about life in the spliff-puffing ski town of Crested Butte have to say that’s relevant to anywhere else in the West? Well, it turns out, a lot. If you ever wonder whether the West will create that mythic society to match its […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Bringing back the wolf = bringing back the habitat
The wolf today inspires polarized emotions. It is viewed by some as a slavering, rapacious killing machine; by others, as the noble symbol of a lost wilderness. In the fascinating Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone, biologist Douglas Smith and nature writer Gary Ferguson seek to sort myth from reality. They describe […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Foreman alienates tomorrow’s leaders
I am writing in response to your coverage of Dave Foreman’s essay (HCN, 4/18/05: Dear Friends). Although I respect what Dave Foreman means to the environmental movement, the tactics of his finger-pointing are destructive, shortsighted, ill-timed and wrong. It is critical for the environmental movement to build bridges, re-think strategies, and appeal to the younger […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Environmentalists show their elitism
I am writing to congratulate Ray Ring on his analysis of the Libby disaster and how it relates to the environmental movement (HCN, 2/21/05: Where were the environmentalists when Libby needed them most?). He has unearthed the arrogance and elitism that are so pervasive in the “environmental activist” movement. It’s easy to fight “evil” corporations […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Better technology for harnessing wind
The inherent variability of wind energy makes it hard to integrate into the grid (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). Coal, gas, nuclear, biomass, geothermal and hydro plants can all be dialed up or down to meet the constantly fluctuating electricity loads. With wind, you get what you get. At 1 percent of production, as […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Wind doesn’t turn this reader’s crank
I’m having a hard time getting too enthused about wind energy (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). The idea of solving our energy woes by harnessing wind sounds wonderful, but the reality is less appealing. The California Energy Commission lists wind power as 1.5 percent of its total electricity production for 2003. The sprawl of […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Settlement won’t reduce pollution
Readers of HCN’s excellent story on the effort to bring more clean, renewable energy to the West might think that the settlement agreement on the proposed coal plant in Pueblo, Colo., will somehow reduce pollution (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). While it is true that the agreement will reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Tax credits make eco-logging pay
The trouble with logging these days is that it’s hard to make a profit while still looking out for forest health. That may change, at least in some depressed Northwest timber towns, thanks to a federal program that usually helps blighted urban neighborhoods. In May, the U.S. Treasury Department gave $50 million in federal tax […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Revamped road to Chaco may be the park’s ruin
It takes an intrepid visitor to reach the ancient sites at Chaco Culture National Historic Park. After leaving the highway, archaeology aficionados travel a tooth-rattling 16 miles over a washboard gravel road. The road is passable, even to low-clearance passenger vehicles, but it isn’t the most comfortable drive. And that’s just the way the park […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Mountain bike association wheels into national parks
Mountain bikers scored an access victory last month when the National Park Service agreed to explore opening the long off-limits national park system to knobby tires. But riders won’t be hitting singletrack in Yellowstone or Yosemite anytime soon, says International Mountain Biking Association spokesman Mark Eller. The association signed a five-year deal with the Park […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
State takes another shot at land swapping
After several failed attempts at land exchanges, Utah is giving the idea another try. In early May, Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, reintroduced the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act. The bill would give the federal government 46,000 acres of land in southeastern and northeastern Utah, while the state would receive 40,000 acres in the northeast. The […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Follow-up
Sea lice are on the move — and they’re spreading, courtesy of fish farms (HCN, 3/17/03: Bracing against the tide). According to a study published in the British Proceedings of the Royal Society, wild seaward salmon passing a fish farm in the Pacific were 73 times more likely to contract sea lice, a parasite that […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Reid Rosenthal Responds
Editor’s Note: Mr. Rosenthal had a lengthy response to our story, Write-Off on the Range. In the interest of allowing him to fully express his thoughts, we include below a letter from Mr. Rosenthal and the edits that Mr. Rosenthal would have made to the story if he were the editor. High Country News stands […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
How to Examine Conservation Easements
How to learn more about conservation easements and land trusts in your area
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Heard around the West
UTAH Some snowmobilers have been known to skim their machines over water, striving for distance. Not surprisingly, sinking happens, not to mention at least one drowning. But how about vrooming a snowmobile over dirt? How far could you get? A 35-year-old man found one answer recently, when he gunned his snowmobile down an unpaved parking […]