The West is heating up — and bark beetles are moving in for the kill
Global Warming’s Unlikely Harbingers
Posted inWotr
Just push it
When I was 10 years old, my mother’s boyfriend had a push mower. Every weekend during the summer, he’d drag the rusty thing off the porch and shove it around our weedy lawn. It scraped, jammed on every twig and left dandelions still waving tall and insolent while he sweated and struggled to make muscles […]
Posted inWotr
When does our garbage become archaeology?
A rusted cooking pot, an old stove top, bits of china and pottery. Exploring in the woods around a backcountry chalet in Montana’s Glacier National Park, we poked through the remains of garbage–everything from glass chips to bed springs. We prodded these remnants of the past: Historic rubbish. Knowing the National Park Service classifies these […]
Posted inWotr
One significant step toward reining in those pesky all-terrain vehicles
For years, environmental groups like the Bluewater Network have warned of the coming plague of Jetskis, snowmobiles and the many versions of all-terrain vehicles on our public lands. Now, the plague is upon us, and while the impacts of these machines have been documented in countless studies, more and more people are witnessing the damage […]
Posted inWotr
Backpacker beware: don’t boldly go where you don’t belong
I was dismayed when I read Backpacker magazine recently. I worked for the National Park Service for eight years, and I’ve been a guide in Yellowstone National Park. I know there are some places we can hike to and camp at safely, and some places we should leave alone. But now we have Backpacker magazine, […]
Posted inWotr
John Muir, go home
Any experienced summer traveler through the West might have pointed to my wife and me as classic examples of clueless tourism: “See what you get when you travel without an itinerary? When you think camping has something to do with owning a tent?” I can hear them stifling their snickers, trying to sound sympathetic but […]
Posted inWotr
Free advice for tourists traveling West
The West’s drought has made us so desperate for moisture, we go outside to sweat. Even sagebrush, a Western icon, is in danger. Experts estimate that 600,000 acres is dead or dying in Utah alone. But come West, Podnuh! Step up to that gas pump, pretend that nozzle is a Colt .45, and pump away […]
Posted inWotr
Enough is enough
The announcement this June that Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal opposed new oil and gas leases in the Upper Green River Valley startled both conservation groups and the oil industry. After all, Wyoming is one of the few states fortunate enough not to face a budget crisis because of oil and gas royalties. Yet, in the […]
Posted inWotr
Living with wildlife in an urban setting
The good news is, there are foxes in my neighborhood. The bad news? There are foxes in my neighborhood. Bad news for my cats, anyway, because I allow them to cruise outside for a few daylight hours on warm weekend days. Recently, like an overanxious mother, I panicked when my favorite lap cat, Sonar, failed […]
Posted inWotr
Lake Powell: When drought becomes opportunity
Drought is a rude reminder that in any given year the interior West is but a storm or two from that hydrological tipping point where farming, ranching and the presence of cities become not merely ill-advised but — impossible. The region is being reminded of this now in a big way: Five consecutive years of […]
Posted inWotr
The risky business of fighting fire in the West
The 2004 fire season has not yet truly begun in the Rocky Mountain West, and already three fire-fighting pilots have died in crashes. While investigations into the causes of the accidents are under way, the U.S. Forest Service finds itself crushed between a rock and a hot place. On May 11, with aerial tanker-training in […]
Posted inWotr
Why I won’t tell the BLM what I think about Otero Mesa
There’s going to be a decision soon about how much of our publicly owned land the Bureau of Land Management will lease to the oil and gas industry on Otero Mesa in New Mexico, but I don’t think I’ll be among those sending public comments. I’m thinking, instead, about writing a private letter to Linda […]
Posted inWotr
Roadkill is a right and privilege, and don’t forget it
Driving through northern Idaho this summer? Bring a fork. A judge in Bonners Ferry recently stood up for the right of people to eat roadkill that even other roadkill fanciers might find inedible. It sounds like one of those jokes bluegrass musicians tell: “How many banjo players does it take to eat a possum?” The […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
How agriculture ate the earth
The next time you drink a Coke, take a second to consider that you’re suckling from the teat of evil. The culprit is not, despite what you’ve been taught to think, a soft-drink-peddling Fortune 500 company, but agriculture itself. And Richard Manning goes after it with a vengeance in his book Against the Grain: How […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Food on every plate, art on every wall
If I were asked to state the great objective which Church and State are both demanding for the sake of every man and woman and child in this country, I would say that that great objective is “a more abundant life.” —Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933 What would New Mexico be without its wind-worn mesas, without […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Perspectives on change — climate change
On the northern edge of Alaska, says journalist Charles Wohlforth, the impacts of human-caused climate change have become part of daily life. Spring is coming earlier, and Iñupiaq whaling crews are making ever-narrower escapes from cracking sea ice. In The Whale and the Supercomputer, Wohlforth looks at such changes from the perspectives of two very […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Avedon at Work in the American West
For six summers, from 1979 to 1984, Laura Wilson accompanied the New York-based photographer Richard Avedon throughout the rural West. Her job: Find beekeepers, oil-well drillers, vagrants, religious zealots, ranchers, coal miners and other iconic Westerners. One at a time, she’d line up these chosen people before a white backdrop and ask them to stand […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Easements aren’t easy
Jon Christensen’s article, “Who Will Take Over the Ranch?” is very timely, and covered a lot of ground (HCN, 3/29/04: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?). I own a small ranch in a sensitive area in northeast Washington, and have spent the last three years discussing conservation easements with a land trust located in another […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Don’t be afraid of easements
I have worked for a rural California land trust for five years, and wanted to respond to Mr. Gerber’s comments in his letter to the editor, “Caveats on easements” (HCN, 4/26/04: Caveats on easements). I wholeheartedly agree with his suggestion that landowners think long and hard before placing conservation easements on their property. Conservation easements […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
What grassroots wilderness movement?
The May 10th edition contained yet another article praising an effort to protect wilderness. HCN presents these efforts as being promoted by grassroots groups, and as a result, of this reporting, the typical HCN reader is likely to conclude that there is a true grassroots movement for wilderness in the West. Unfortunately, this is not […]