It looked almost exactly like Phil Hyde’s photograph taken in 1964, a year after Glen Canyon Dam began backing up the Colorado River — a seven-year event. Hyde’s photo revealed a stunning waterfall in a giant amphitheater with a narrow, almost slot opening at top, perfectly named “Cathedral in the Desert.” Eventually it disappeared, drowned […]
The brief but wonderful return of Cathedral in the Desert
Posted inWotr
The devil made us do it
A recent proposal to change the name of Devils Tower National Monument has fallen through, but even if it had succeeded, Old Nick would have kept a prominent place in the landscape of the West. In Wyoming, monument supervisor Lisa Eckert had suggested adding the name “Bear Lodge” to the site. That came at the […]
Posted inWotr
Why should the Arctic Refuge matter to the ski industry?
Why would the 19 million acres of wilderness that make up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the potential oil beneath it, plus its resident herd of caribou, matter at all to the ski industry? Sure, the refuge in Alaska is wild and beautiful, it’s pristine, it’s a crown jewel of wilderness. We in the ski […]
Posted inWotr
Ego gates get my goat — and that’s just the beginning
So, my neighbor finally got a ranchette. Whether it’s five acres or 40, the next step is apparently the perfect entrance gate. Rancheteers have made these huge gates the latest symbol of affluence in the West. They boast uprights bigger than my house, flanked by imported decorative boulders. The crossbar seems sometimes to be a […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
The Mountains Know Arizona
The Mountains Know Arizona Text by Rose Houk, photographs by Michael Collier 272 pages, hardcover $49.95. Arizona Highways Books, 2003. If you can tear yourself away from the spectacular photos — including some mind-numbing aerial shots (see page 14) — to read the accompanying words, you will be rewarded. In this chunky coffee-table book, Houk […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de los Rios
The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de los Rios Jefferson Morgenthaler 368 pages, softcover $22.95. University of Texas Press, 2004. The Rio Grande and Rio Conchos meet to form La Junta de los Rios, a basin along the U.S.-Mexico border where the cast of characters includes farmers, shepherds, Border […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Serafina’s Stories
Serafina’s Stories Rudolfo Anaya 202 pages, hardcover $22.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2004. Set in Santa Fe in 1680, this tale from Rudolfo Anaya is a treat. Night after night, Serafina, a 15-year old Pueblo woman, enchants the Spanish Governor with stories to free her fellow prisoners accused of plotting an insurrection. Serafina’s stories […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Getting smarter about energy use
Despite the fact that energy affects every facet of our lives — from the price of fruit to the wars we wage — most Americans give nary a thought to the topic. “People tend not to focus on energy in their lives, workplaces and decisions — they leave it to the experts,” says Howard Geller, […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Down — but far from out — in Drummond
In the early 1950s, the town of Drummond, Mont., boasted busy bus and railroad stations, 11 bars, three grocery stores and 14 gas stations. Now, you can count what’s left on one hand. The ranching families that persist are resilient and dogged, and this book of large-format black-and-white photographs with accompanying interviews grows on you: […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Buyouts doom private lands
Thank you for the recent story and comments on grazing buyouts. We were especially taken by Executive Director Paul Larmer’s evocative description of the seasonality of grazing in the Paonia area, with its blend of low-elevation private lands, where cows have their calves, and its high-elevation public lands, where cows summer. Paul’s delightful soliloquy of […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Wild horses harm ecosystems
Regarding “You want fries with that mustang?” (HCN, 4/4/05: You want fries with that mustang?): I’ve worked in the Mojave Desert of California and in eastern Oregon, and in both areas, one could find “wild” horses, “wild” burros and cattle. What these animals all have in common are the following: 1) They are not native, […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Ski snow won’t be yellow on San Francisco Peaks
I was disappointed to read the advisory that we keep our eyes peeled for yellow snow on the ski slopes because the Coconino National Forest has approved the use of treated wastewater for snowmaking at the Arizona Snowbowl ski area (HCN, 3/21/05: Arizona returns to the desert). Statements like these perpetuate misunderstandings about reclaimed water. […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Climbers not just ‘rock jocks’
Thank you for covering the recent controversy over the potential devastation of Oak Flats, a popular bouldering and camping area just outside of Phoenix (HCN, 4/4/05: Rock jocks fight a mining company). But I am increasingly frustrated with High Country News and its staff for portraying climbers in a condescending manner. This is the third […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
A little leg-pulling
The April Fool’s page was delicious (HCN: 4/4/05: The last happy agency biologist — and other April Foolery). Just sneaky enough that it took a couple of minutes to feel my leg being pulled. Bill Kent Moab, Utah This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A little leg-pulling.
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Advocates aren’t citizens, says Watson
I was surprised to learn in Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson’s response to High Country News that I am not a citizen because I am involved in environmental advocacy groups (HCN, 2/21/05: HCN has it wrong on Bush). Watson writes, “Furthermore, the term, ‘citizen-proposed wilderness’ belies the very kind of truth to which you attach […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Oil and gas opponents will have to move faster
The Bureau of Land Management is shortening the amount of time that citizens and environmental groups in Wyoming and Utah will have to protest oil and gas lease sales, and is in the process of formulating a new nationwide policy for such protests. In Wyoming, the BLM posts notices of which parcels will be leased […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Bears and bull trout may block mine
A controversial silver and copper mine that would have tunneled under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area may have just been shafted. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled on March 28 that construction of the Rock Creek Mine on the edge of the northwestern Montana wilderness area would further jeopardize threatened populations of grizzly bear and […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
On the Colorado, a grand experiment meets Mother Nature
“It’s really hard to kill fish with water,” says Joe Shannon, a professor of aquatic ecology with Northern Arizona University. But a recent experiment intended to help native fish in the Colorado River might have done just that. In November, officials from the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center released a 90-hour flood from Glen […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Wilderness wallows in rural county
After months of considering whether to support the creation of a Badlands Wilderness about 20 miles east of Bend, Ore., the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 in late March to do nothing, effectively leaving the proposal in limbo. It could have been worse, says commission chair Tom DeWolf. “They can take solace in […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Follow-up
The Montana Legislature approved a bill requiring the state’s utilities to buy 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2015. The green-power initiative was part of the campaign platform of Gov. Brian Schweitzer, D, who took office this January (HCN, 11/22/04: Election Day surprises in the schizophrenic West). Montana is the 19th state […]