WASHINGTON A dilapidated lumber mill in the Columbia River Gorge, famous for its appearance in an 1967 TV episode of Lassie, is now the site of a controversial development proposal. Since the time when the famous collie floated down the flume to the Broughton Lumber mill, recreation — particularly windsurfing — has skyrocketed in the […]
Proposal for Lassie’s lumber mill has enviros barking
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Lame-duck governor moves deadlocked wilderness debate
UTAH The decades-old battle over how much of Utah’s desert should be protected as wilderness took a new turn in May, when Gov. Olene Walker, R, announced county-by-county discussions to break the impasse. Utah has lagged behind other Western states in designating wilderness areas on Bureau of Land Management land: Of nearly 23 million acres […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Follow-up
Chalk one up for endangered species. For the last five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ignored citizen petitions to list endangered species if a plant or animal is already on the agency’s “candidate list.” Currently, there are 280 candidates, none of them protected under the Endangered Species Act owing to a lack […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA A professional fisherman from Arizona took time out from a California bass tournament to douse a fire from his boat. Clifford Pirch used to fight fires during his summers off from Northern Arizona University, but that doesn’t quite explain his ingenuity, notes the Payson (Arizona) Roundup. Here was Pirch, trolling for bass, when he […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Revenge of the old-timers: The beavers are back
At a recent barbecue during a breezy Sunday afternoon on the South Fork of the Shoshone River, near Cody, Wyo., I saw the largest beaver I’ve ever seen. It was floating in the river’s current like a big dog. The beaver looked to be about three feet long from nose to flat tail, and must […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
As dams fall, a chance for redemption
I am sitting next to a 200-foot high concrete apparition. Matilija Dam, not far from the California coast, sits astride the narrow canyon of the Ventura River amid the velvet green foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains. At the entrance to the dam site, razor wire conspicuously adorns the top of a fence, just above […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Fighting for the Rocky Mountain Front: Montana rancher Karl Rappold
DUPUYER, Montana — Montana’s spectacular Rocky Mountain Front is known for its window-rattling winds. But Karl Rappold, a former rodeo cowboy who raises cattle here, says he was still surprised to get blown out of his saddle — literally — while herding stock last year. The winds that day were clocked at over 120 mph, […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Mining town gambles on a road to riches
A new highway will bypass a competitor, and sacrifice a bighorn sheep herd for development
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Oil money rules in the West’s mini-Middle East
Wyoming and New Mexico governors walk a jagged line between conservation and fiscal conservatism
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
As fire season ignites, Smokey Bear’s legacy lingers
Land managers talk about letting firesburn, but politics douse the flames
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Dear friends
SUMMER BREAK Every year, the editorial staff takes an issue off during midsummer to escape the heat and head for the hills, so this will be the last issue of High Country News you’ll receive for a month. Watch your mailboxes again around July 19. A GREAT MEAL, AND A GOOD QUESTION At the end […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
A chance for redemption
It was mid-September 2001, and I was sitting on a sandbar, my ears full of the roar of whitewater, watching the stars blink through a slice of cobalt sky. I was deep in Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River in Utah, and as far as I could tell, my pack of friends and I were […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Following the Ancient Roads
I would walk between two civilizations. This ancient road would carry me through the heart of a young nation’s gas fields.
Posted inWotr
Getting rude at the nation’s big funeral
“Could the anti-everything folks have the common decency,” asked a caller to my public-radio talk show in Oregon, “to wait until the body gets cold before jumping on it?” Former president Ronald Reagan was being put to rest, and it was easy to understand how his admirers felt. Those of us outside that category might […]
Posted inWotr
Reflections on small towns after a bulldozer rampage
To many of us who know Granby, Colo., or even mountain towns in general, the bizarre explosion last week — a man armoring his bulldozer, mowing down buildings and then shooting himself — was surprising. The explosion itself was not. Some people say they expect violence in cities and not in little towns. But mountain […]
Posted inWotr
Looking for Heroes? Go to Boise, Idaho
If you want an example of real heroes in the “war on terrorism,” go to Boise, Idaho. Look for 12 of your fellow citizens who recently spent long hours on uncomfortable chairs in a windowless room in the local federal courthouse. These are the jurors who recently found Sami Omar Al-Hussayen innocent of terrorism charges. […]
Posted inWotr
Revenge of the old-timers: The beavers are back
At a recent barbecue during a breezy Sunday afternoon on the South Fork of the Shoshone River, near Cody, Wyo., I saw the largest beaver I’ve ever seen. It was floating in the river’s current like a big dog. The beaver looked to be about three feet long from nose to flat tail, and must […]
Posted inWotr
Driver’s ed from a pedestrian’s point of view
A few of my friends have completely sworn off bike-riding on roads. One too many shoulder brushes with the side-view mirror of a recreational vehicle. One too many dives for the ditch. They can’t take it anymore, and who could blame them? Some are threatening to give up walking as well, since being a pedestrian […]
Posted inWotr
The terrifying saga of the West’s last big dam
The war on terror has a new front in southwestern Colorado. Outside the fast-growing city of Durango, the government has allocated $2 million for terrorism security at the Animas-La Plata Dam construction site. How will that money specifically ward off al-Qaida operatives and increase homeland security? “If I tell you too much, I’d have to […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Journal of the Dead
The open roads and big spaces of the West have always called young men and women from the cities and suburbs of the East. So it was with David Coughlin and Raffi Kodikian, both in their 20s, who, in 1999, headed from Boston to California. Inspired by Jack Kerouac, the nascent literati took along a […]