“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly reflections on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. I live with my wife and two young daughters in the high desert of the western Great Basin, at 6,000 feet on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, on a desiccated hilltop so […]
Communities
Posted inWotr
Our cheap food comes at a high price
We have the food system we asked for. There’s a reason a burger at McDonald’s sells for about a buck. There’s a reason the food is of such poor quality in places where healthy nutrition is most important — our schools, hospitals and nursing homes. What we support prospers; what we feed grows. If we […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo – the Palouse
This reader photo spotlights a beautiful section of the Northwest, the Palouse. Photographer Joe Rocchio points out that the now-agricultural region was once a prairie; it must have been incredibly beautiful then, too. Browse eh existing images and add your photos to our HCN Flickr pool; we periodically feature them on the Range community […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
An example and an antidote
Imagination in PlaceWendell Berry196 pages, hardcover, $24.Counterpoint, 2010. Wendell Berry, the author of 50 books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, is a farmer who has lived his life in service to “local geography and local culture.” By chance and choice, he tells us in his new collection of essays, Imagination in Place, he has lived […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Peril in paradise
The Light In High Places: A Naturalist Looks at Wyoming Wilderness, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, Cowboys, and Other Rare SpeciesJoe Hutto256 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Skyhorse Publishing, 2009. To Joe Hutto, a “romantic scientist,” it seemed that the vast grandeur of Wyoming’s Wind River Range existed “in spite of us,” that “human civilization and technology had proven […]
Posted inWotr
Climate change: Check the data yourself
A collaborative online effort allows both skeptics and believers to study and compare the facts.
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
The Southern Utes’ empire
A history of lost land … and a big comeback
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
The Ute Paradox
A small Colorado tribe takes control of its energy resources and becomes a billion-dollar corporation — but has it gone too far?
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Some of the key players
LEONARD BURCH, who died in 2004, is widely considered the Southern Utes’ most influential leader. He was elected tribal chairman in 1966 and served for 30 years, with just one three-year hiatus to comply with term limits. SAM MAYNES, sometimes called the last real water buffalo in the West, was instrumental in getting two water […]
Posted inGoat
The West’s growing waistline
Every time the national obesity numbers come out, with the obligatory map showing Colorado as a beacon of skinniness in an increasingly tubby American population, I can’t help but feel a smidge of pride. Colorado! The active state! But the comparative numbers only tell a partial tale of the United States’ weight-gain woe. Even in the mountain state, […]
Posted inWotr
Oil in the swimming pool
Once, during a time when I was separated from my wife, I lived in an apartment complex with a large and inviting swimming pool. One day, when I went to take relief from the heat at that glistening oasis, I found it fouled by motor oil. The apartment manager was there, shaking her head, speculating […]
Posted inWotr
We need a solution to too many wild horses
As a kid growing up in Colorado, I was crazy about wild horses. I read books about mustangs and drew pictures of them. In school, I was thrilled to learn about the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which was passed in 1971, after “Wild Horse Annie” saw bleeding mustangs being hauled off to slaughter […]
Posted inWotr
We’re still throwing horses overboard
During the 16th century when conquistadors crossed the ocean from the Old World to the New, their ships often became stranded along the equator at a place where the winds stopped blowing. To lighten their load, they would throw horses overboard. Eventually, the sails would fill with air and the voyage could continue. Over time, […]
Posted inArticles
Who’s in charge of immigration?
It’s a federal responsibility — not that of state or local government
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Boots
I had to post this reader photo, from Flickr member ben j. It’s a great shot! He took it in Boulder, Utah. Add your photos to the HCN Community Flickr pool; we feature selected photos from the group from time to time on this blog. You can also enter HCN’s many 40th anniversary photo contests […]
Posted inWotr
The San Francisco Peaks will never be the same
Our mountain is burning in a fire that we hoped would never happen, a fire that has been hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles. The heart of our mountain is blazing in an inferno that grew from 50 acres to 5,000 acres in 24 hours. As I write this, it has torched […]
Posted inJune 21, 2010: Immersed in the Wild
Immersed in the Wild
An ‘open-water’ swimmer finds a risky intimacy with nature.
Posted inJune 21, 2010: Immersed in the Wild
Into the wild
African American environmentalist Rue Mapp gets people of color outside
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Net losses
Four endangered fish species currently live in the mainstem of the Colorado River. Several other endangered native fishes — including the woundfin, desert pupfish and Gila topminnow — used to live there but now survive only in the river’s tributaries or in man-made habitats. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with […]