The call of the wilderness sounded more like a holler to Joan Hoffmann in 1963. At 13, already a headstrong artist and budding environmentalist, she was determined to go backpacking with the Sierra Club. Neither her urban family of Southern California golfers, nor the fact that she had to sew her own sleeping bag, could […]
Colorado
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
Is everyone a Realtor?
Realtors are everywhere in the West these days — including the seats of power
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
The Latest Bounce
Rural Nevadans may ask for a little federal help in an epic water fight. Las Vegas is moving forward with a controversial plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Great Basin (HCN, 9/19/05: Squeezing Water from a Stone). Now, some citizens in rural White Pine County are looking to curtail that plan by asking their […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Dear friends
NEW BLOG ON THE BLOCK A new online experiment for HCN, or the last best place for a nuclear waste dump … you decide. We’ve got our own blog now, where Paolo Bacigalupi, our Web editor, comments daily about what’s happening in the West. Check it out at http://blog.hcn.org/goat and send comments, tips and suggestions […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Heard around the West
COLORADO The sex-change doctor who created an unusual kind of economic development for the former coal-mining town of Trinidad, Colo., died last month at the age of 82. Stanley Biber began operating on men who wanted to be women in 1969, and over a 34-year span, according to an obituary in the New York Times, […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Dear friends
NEW ARRIVALS The HCN family has grown by two in recent weeks. Laura Paskus, HCN’s Southwest editor, gave birth to a baby girl on Sunday, Jan. 29. Lillian Jane arrived at 11:38 p.m., weighing 6 pounds, 15 ounces, and measuring 19 1/4 inches long. Laura and her husband, Hollis Lawrence, report that Lillie is “ridiculously […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
Dear friends
WELCOME, JANIEC! Janiec (rhymes with “Denise”) Gutierrez is the newest addition to our marketing department and is responsible for advertising sales. Janiec, a native of Southern California, moved to town last May after becoming engaged to a Paonian she met in Germany, where they were both working in the outdoor industry. She enjoys the pink […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
Dear friends
Welcome, new interns! Sarah Gilman arrived in Paonia for a winter internship, still smiling after a summer of trail work on Colorado’s 14,421-foot Mount Massive. A native of Boulder, Colo., Sarah is no stranger to the Paonia area. She spent two summers working at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, just over the hill in Gothic, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
An ecosystem wanting for wolves
Predators could bring Rocky Mountain National Park back into balance
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Dear friends
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM HCN Thanks to all our friends and subscribers for attending HCN’s annual holiday open house on Dec. 7. Thanks also to those who brought a holiday treat. The HCN staff is taking a much-needed break for two weeks, to bake fruitcake, guzzle eggnog, and celebrate with family and friends. The next issue […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Dear friends
VISITORS Longtime subscribers Charlie and Shelley Calisher of Red Feather Lakes, Colo., a town smaller than Paonia, dropped by in mid-September after failing to catch fish on the Dolores River. Writer Susan Tweit (a frequent contributor to these pages) and her husband, Richard Cabe, left a postcard on our door after hours, on their way […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Tapping into energy’s fringe
As companies drill for ‘unconventional’ natural gas, environmental impacts mount
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Heard around the West
COLORADO A deliciously funny film called The Lost People of Mountain Village wowed audiences at Telluride’s Mountainfilm festival and other venues around western Colorado. In deadpan style, the 15-minute pseudo-documentary explores what happened to the overlords who once lived above high-altitude Telluride. The joke for locals: The “town” of Mountain Village always feels abandoned by […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Dear friends
HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE The staff of High Country News cordially invites all readers and friends to our holiday open house. It will be at our Paonia, Colo., office at 119 Grand Avenue on Wednesday, Dec. 7, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Feel free to bring a treat to share; we’ll provide beverages. PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Heard around the West
NEVADA You’ve gotta love Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas: He doesn’t hesitate to trumpet what he thinks, no matter how over the top. Appearing on a TV program in Carson City recently, the mayor sounded off on lawbreakers who spraypaint graffiti over freeways. “These punks come along and deface it,” he said, according […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Doubling density near Durango
After two decades of trying to hold the line against an increase in oil and gas drilling, commissioners in La Plata County recently signed deals allowing two energy companies to double the density of coalbed methane wells near Durango. Now that the companies’ infill applications have been approved by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Crossing hearts on Colorado’s plains
Laura Pritchett’s first novel, Sky Bridge, is set in “Nowhere, Colorado,” on the ranchland east of the plains town of Lamar. In this tiny place assaulted by big forces — climate change, the global economy, federal policies — teenage narrator Libby finds the prospects slim: “… all my old schoolmates are either doing drugs or […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Dear friends
THANK YOU The cottonwood leaves are piling up along the North Fork of the Gunnison River, not far from the HCN headquarters. Inside, contributions to the Research Fund have been fluttering in. Many thanks to all who have contributed to the fund so far this fall; it’s what pays our writers, editors and photographers to […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Commuter trains could connect the West’s far-flung cities
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Back On Track.” Even as light-rail lines promise to revolutionize transportation within the West’s metropolitan areas, longer commuter rails could connect these far-flung cities in ways they have not since railroad’s glory days a century ago. Unlike light rail, which uses overhead electrical lines, […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
The Latest Bounce
The Department of Labor has denied a whistleblower’s complaint that the BLM fired him in retaliation for exposing violations of federal law in a mine-cleanup project in Yerington, Nev. (HCN, 12/20/04: Conscientious Objectors). Earle Dixon supervised the cleanup of the abandoned copper mine for the BLM, and repeatedly complained publicly about inadequate efforts to deal […]