Rob Schultheis moved to Colorado in 1973, when pop stars began singing about the Rocky Mountains and asking whether you’d ever been “mellow.” His newest book, Fool’s Gold, zooms in on his home turf of Telluride, where “summer is briefer than a butterfly’s dream … autumn an afterthought, and winter rules.” When Schultheis arrived, Telluride […]
Fool’s Gold: Telluride’s ‘magical realism’
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Benigna’s Chimayo: Cuentos from the Old Plaza
And then Grandma sits down on an old wooden wheel, leans on her knees, tucks her skirt between her legs, and begins her favorite of the old stories. I listen, watching the dust motes float in shafts of sunlight … To a young Don Usner, summers in the New Mexican hamlet of Chimayo meant chili […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Islands hung out to dry
IDAHO Idaho irrigators gave a sigh of relief when, on Feb. 23, the Idaho Supreme Court denied the federal government’s attempt to secure water rights for a wildlife refuge composed of 94 islands in the Snake River. The federal government had hoped to reserve a steady flow of water for the Deer Flats National Wildlife […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Slapping back at SLAPPs
COLORADO A bill designed to protect citizen activists from the cost and intimidation of frivolous lawsuits is lying wounded in Colorado’s State Senate. House Bill 1150, the so-called anti-SLAPP suit bill, was defeated on final reading in the state House last month after receiving an inadequate 32-32 tie vote. Still, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bill […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Debate roars over quiet canyon
ARIZONA, NEVADA New rules for sightseeing flights will help restore some tranquility for boaters in the Grand Canyon, but the rancorous debate over where airplanes and helicopters are allowed shows no signs of quieting down (HCN, 1/20/97: It will be noise as usual in Grand Canyon). Last year, after 13 years of deliberation, the Federal […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Microwaveable wilderness
CALIFORNIA The infrastructure of the information age is still firmly rooted on the ground – and when that ground is designated wilderness, things can get a little complicated. In Death Valley National Park, a microwave repeater tower, used to relay telephone calls across the rugged terrain, is under scrutiny by environmental groups. The 35-foot high […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
The latest bounce
A federal judge in Idaho has ordered the state to stop killing badgers, ravens and coyotes. Last February, in an attempt to increase numbers of declining sage grouse, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission authorized Wildlife Services to kill the bird’s predators (HCN, 2/26/01: Idaho predators are under the gun). The court ruling is the […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Roadless rule hits the skids
The mood was unusually agreeable at a recent federal court hearing on the Clinton administration’s roadless area conservation rule for national forest lands. In Boise, Idaho, on March 30, Judge Edward Lodge heard arguments against the rule from the State of Idaho, timber company Boise Cascade, and other plaintiffs. Then he turned to the government […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Heard around the West
“WOW! Did I miss something?” asks Patrice Mason in her letter to the Moab, Utah, Times-Independent. Then she jumped into the fray: “I have a vagina. Half of the people in Moab have vaginas. And let us not forget that each and every one of us passed through one on the way into the world. […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Plan protects foresters, not fish
Biologists say Washington salmon plan based on politics
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Company leaves victims in its dust
Facing a blizzard of lawsuits, W.R. Grace & Co. declares bankruptcy
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Monument status could wreck ruins
BLM officials need money to manage masses
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Monuments caught in the crosshairs
Will Clinton’s designations crumble under Republican attacks?
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
An unabashed moralist bows out
CARSON NATIONAL FOREST, N.M. – Sam Hitt wraps his arms around a towering yellow pine. He sniffs the bark and invites me to take a turn. Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice assail my sinuses. “People tease me about being a tree hugger. I never hugged a tree, so I thought I’d get into it,” says the founder […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Dear friends
Relentless Over the years, High Country News has been blessed with many friends and supporters. Surely one of the most faithful is Connie Harvey. On more than one occasion, the longtime resident of Aspen, Colo., has made timely contributions that have kept the paper going or seeded a new endeavor, such as our Writers on […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
The Big Blowup
The Great Fires shaped a century of fire policy
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
After the fires, Part I
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Reforming an agency such as the Forest Service is like pushing an old truck up a hill. It’s grunt work, and unless you have a lot of friends, you won’t get anywhere. But every once in a long while, there’s a shift. A moment […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
An environmentalist in the heart of cowboy culture
ELKO, Nev. — It’s not often that the prospect of a humanities lecture stirs protest. But that’s what happened when former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall was invited to give the annual lecture at the 17th annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering. The Elko gathering has become the state’s premier folklore event, and it brings about 8,000 people […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
The real deal vs. the stolen image
Dear HCN, I appreciated the Hotline pointing out that Utah is slaughtering the mascot of the SLC Olympic games (HCN, 3/12/01: State to coyote hunters: Let the games begin). Each time I see the California flag, I imagine (that’s all I can do, given limited funds) full-page ads in the L.A., San Francisco and Sacramento […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
The border’s gut-wrenching water problems
Dear HCN, Megan Lardner’s story, “Divided waters” (HCN, 3/12/01: Divided waters), provoked a strong, visceral response in me. She certainly has the ability to observe and to describe what she sees. What she saw stirred my gut. To have a metropolitan border area of over 2 million persons, some of whom have to depend on […]