NEW MEXICO Albuquerque, N.M., is growing so quickly that Petroglyph National Monument, currently on the outskirts of town, is likely to be enveloped by the city in the next 20 years. Some planners want to build a road through the monument, which now divides the west side of Albuquerque from the rest of the city […]
A road through a national monument?
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Forest Service gives climbers the slip
OREGON Rock climbers are clinging a bit more tenaciously to crags on federal lands now that the U.S. Forest Service has all but outlawed climbing at a network of caves outside of Bend, Ore. To protect dwindling populations of bats and to preserve the caves, which are sacred to the Confederated Tribes of the Warm […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Wheels still spin after desert lockdown
ARIZONA An unforgiving expanse of Arizona desert that’s almost as big as Rhode Island is now off limits to nearly everyone except drug smugglers, illegal immigrants and the Border Patrol agents who chase them. From March 15 to July 15, dirt-road closures meant to protect the endangered Sonoran pronghorn will prevent public access to three-quarters […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Braking development in the Breaks
MONTANA When then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt visited Montana’s Missouri Breaks on a rafting trip down the Missouri River in 1999, he roused fears among some that if the area were declared a monument, it would be put off-limits to oil and gas leasing. Shortly thereafter, the Bureau of Land Management awarded a series of leases […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The Latest Bounce
The country’s next nuclear power plant may be built in Idaho. The Department of Energy’s “Nuclear Power 2010” initiative aims to get a new plant built somewhere in the U.S. by the end of the decade. One of three DOE sites under consideration is the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), which a year […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The ‘Niche West’ reconnects us to the land
Arguing is one of my favorite sports. I always like to participate, and often I enjoy watching, as with the latest bout between Thomas Michael Power, an economics professor at the University of Montana, and Ed Marston, publisher of High Country News (HCN, 12/17/01: Economics with a heart but no soul) and (HCN, 2/4/02: Post-cowboy […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Heard around the West
Forget gambling casinos and the songs of Wayne Newton; these days the state of Nevada is selling stupid tricks on public lands. Print ads in Outside, National Geographic Adventure and other publications describe Nevada “as a primal playground with more … tear-yourself-to-shreds terrain than any other place in this great nation.” The ads go on […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Campaign finance reform may boost grass roots
WASHINGTON, D.C. – We all know that whoever looks too closely at the trees can lose sight of the forest. Something along this line has happened to those around here who make their living watching trees and forests, fields and streams, or mountains and deserts, either to extract resources from them or to guard them […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The Postal Service stamps the mythic West
Wyoming has declared war on Montana. Why? Wyoming officials say their northern neighbor has co-opted an icon behind which the state tries to perpetuate long-gone traditions. The stimulus for the feud was the U.S. Postal Service and its 50-state commemorative stamp series. The Montana stamp features a cowboy atop a bucking horse. Wyoming says it […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Notes from a corporate insider: It’s not easy turning green
Don Popish’s Carhartt overalls are so infused with dirt and grease that they crackle when he walks. He’s got rings under his eyes from fixing balky Snowcats at night in Aspen Skiing Co.’s vehicle shop. Me, I’m an environmentalist in a starched shirt. But like Don, I’ve got a job to do for the company. […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Winter-use plan lurches toward the finish line
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about how snowmobilers dominate the small town that’s the main gateway to Yellowstone National Park (West Yellowstone, Mont.). — The simplest way to evaluate snowmobile traffic in Yellowstone National Park is to flip-flop the season to summer: Imagine if most of the people touring the park […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Cleaner machines drive (slowly) toward Yellowstone
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about how snowmobilers dominate the small town of West Yellowstone. — WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana — Soon this town, as well as Yellowstone National Park and the national forest trails, will begin to get some relief from one chronic problem – the smoke and associated air pollution […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
A new world in the woods
With some help from Congress, forest restoration may be gathering steam
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Drought pinches Colorado River reservoirs
California’s ‘surplus’ water not in jeopardy, yet
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
April Fools
Shrub takes on pesky species By Helen Wheels Wasps, head lice and roaches to be annihilated President Gorge W. Shrub, determined to show that “we take nature as seriously as nurture,” said yesterday that his administration will exterminate all species that might possibly, some day, qualify for listing under the Endangered Species Act. “As long […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Dear Friends
The reporter’s life There’s nothing like being on the ground to really understand a story. Just ask HCN Northern Rockies editor Ray Ring, who wrote this week’s cover piece on the turmoil in West Yellowstone, Mont., the self-dubbed “Snowmobile Capital of the World.” Ray is no stranger to digging for the deeper angle. A few […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Note: This feature story was accompanied by two sidebars, describing the slow progress in developing “greener” snowmobiles and the difficult Yellowstone National Park winter-use planning. — WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana — On a sunny Thursday afternoon in mid-February, Glen Loomis, one of the snowmobile businessmen whose point of view dominates this small town, is telling me […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Where is the Kingdom of Paonia?
Dear HCN, Dispatch To the Kingdom of Paonia: Without dwelling on the thesis of This Sovereign Land and the view that the federal government must transfer the power over federal lands into local hands, presuming there is some legal, structural and socio-political basis for this action, I would like to submit a comment on Ed […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
McKenna misstates facts on wolverine studies
Dear HCN, In the article on snowmobiles by Douglas Schnitzspahn (HCN, 2/4/02: Snowmobilers rev up for roadless riding) there was a glaring error which I felt emboldened to bring to your attention. Pat McKenna is quoted as saying “scientific studies have proven that the paths that snowmobiles create up there (Mount Jefferson, Mont.) disturb wolverines […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Questions on condors
Dear HCN, Could we go from the general to the specific? How many hunting tags are issued in condor habitat? (HCN, 2/18/02: Condor program laden with lead). How much more does a lead-free bullet cost (how much is the bullet of total cartridge cost?), and how many rounds does the average hunter fire in the […]