José “Ed” Marquez, 67, squints into the late afternoon sunlight, scanning what remains of Navajo Reservoir. “When they started filling the lake in 1961, I couldn’t imagine that this town I’d grown up in would soon be under water,” he says, waving his hand over the miles of dried and cracked mud now taking the […]
Journey to the bottom of Navajo Lake
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
When did we become such gear-toting wimps?
When I read that the Outdoor Industry Association threatened to move its biannual gear show out of Salt Lake City as a protest against Utah’s wilderness policies, I was taken aback. Not by the announcement, but by the reported magnitude of the show: 15,000 visitors spending $24 million in the region to pore over high-tech […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
County’s hopes rest on a roller-coaster power market
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Pipe Dreams.” The 2001 energy crisis, and the sky-high power prices that came with it, touched off a stampede of new power plant proposals throughout the West. North Carolina-based Cogentrix Energy arrived in Nevada with a plan to build an 1,100 megawatt gas-fired power […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Rural ‘Water Warriors’ take on a water wrangler
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Pipe Dreams.” Thirty-five miles southwest of Las Vegas, on the California/Nevada border, Sandy Valley is a desert haven for free-living refugees from the urban rat race. The valley’s institutions range from Dust Devil Pizza to the Sky Ranch Airport — “A Flying Family Community” […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Want to protect a river? Get out and swim it
On the whole, professional conservationists are an office-bound bunch. They spend their days toiling to protect wild rivers and clean air, but don’t get outside often enough; the habitat these folks frequent is behind a desk, near a pile of papers. Enter Christopher Swain. A former acupuncturist and Iron Man competitor, Swain moved to Portland, […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Plains tribe harnesses the wind
Some tribes try their hands at renewable energy, but traditional energy sources hold more allure than ever
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Is the Southwest’s ‘last real stinker’on its last legs?
Closing down the Mohave power plant would be good for the air, but bad for tribal economies
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Truce remains elusive in Rio Grande water fight
New Mexico’s biggest river dries up as battle rages in courts and Congress
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Dear friends
We’re back! Following a two-week hiatus, the High Country News staff is back on the job, looking a little sunnier, and feeling refreshed. Temperatures on Colorado’s Western Slope have been rocketing over the 100-degree mark every afternoon, so it’s good to be back under the swamp cooler. Visitors Truckloads of HCN subscribers have ducked in […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
A brave new world of water
Talk about turning over public resources — timber, minerals, land — to the cold hand of capitalism, and environmentalists get pretty uncomfortable. If nothing else, California’s electricity crisis has taught us to be wary of corporations with the power to manipulate the supply of essential resources. So it’s not surprising that when a private company […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Pipe Dreams
LINCOLN COUNTY, NEVADA — Out here in a rock-strewn, desolate sweep of creosote bush and blackbrush called the Tule Desert, there’s a patch of land bulldozed clear of vegetation. Standing in the middle of it is a well called PW-1. It doesn’t look like much; just a 32-inch-diameter steel pipe, painted black and sticking out […]
Posted inWotr
Everyone needs a place apart
Some years back, Marypat and I bought 20 acres of land in central Montana, two hours from our home in Bozeman. An unremarkable spot–a sandstone bluff, an intermittent creek, ponderosa pines, views of distant peaks. Beyond an outhouse and a campfire ring, we have done nothing to develop the place. We go there as often […]
Posted inWotr
Wartime does not always bring out our best
It is quiet here at midweek, the silence of Owens Valley in California broken occasionally by the croak of ravens and the throb of a car or truck passing on Highway 395. Infrequently, one of those vehicles slows and follows the dirt driveway leading into this place of sorrow and remembrance. There is little here […]
Posted inWotr
When did we become outdoor wimps needing so much stuff?
When I read that the Outdoor Industry Association threatened to move its biannual gear show out of Salt Lake City as a protest against Utah’s wilderness policies, I was taken aback. Not by the announcement, but by the reported magnitude of the show: 15,000 visitors spending $24 million in the region to pore over high-tech […]
Posted inWotr
Camping out with faux fire can be just dandy
While last year’s fires were torching Western lives, homes and trees, their accompanying fire bans were torching something else: the West’s camping plans. “I don’t want to camp without a campfire,” my wife informed me last season, while smoke from the Hayman Fire settled over Denver. Her feelings echoed those of thousands of Western campers […]
Posted inWotr
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s a senator on a Harley
One my favorite things about living in the West is driving the winding, two lane roads, if you can survive the sluggish RVs, washouts, rock slides and icy patches. Now, there’s a new traffic hazard — senators on Harleys. Even if you don’t live near the mountains, you know our famous roads from automobile commercials […]
Posted inWotr
Peace and quiet count in Glacier National Park
Last summer, while backpacking with friends in Glacier National Park, Mont., a familiar “whup, whup, whup” filled the air. The helicopter dropped over Kipp Peak towards us, its make and color belonging to a local — and booming — helicopter-tour company. Our solitude was disrupted; helicopter noise drowned out nature’s sounds. Despite being closer to […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t blame prairie dogs, they’re doing the best they can
First it was the plague, now it’s monkey pox. It seems like prairie dogs take it in the shorts every time a certain primate brings a new disease to this continent. What primate you ask? Well, the variety that includes you and me. In recent weeks I’ve been gritting my teeth every time I heard […]
Posted inWotr
Hanging loose in Wyoming’s bear country
My friend Fred says that what he enjoys most about camping in the wild is watching people hang their food. Though you’re miles from a television, it’s far funnier than anything Hollywood could invent. And on a recent trip with some friends, Fred and I demonstrated the truth of his theory. The concept is simple: […]
Posted inJuly 7, 2003: Invasion of the rock jocks
Westerners must be fire-starters as well as firefighters
There is no better guide to fire in the West than Stephen Pyne, who spent 15 years fighting fires on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and has written 16 books on fire. The 32 essays in his most recent book, Smokechasing, are a mixed, uncoordinated group, but so brilliant and thoughtful that they […]