Thanks, Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is best known as the home of Fort Carson, the “Star Wars” missile defense, Focus on the Family and assorted “patriots.” But the board and staff of High Country News discovered another side to the town: a spirited environmental community that turned out in force for the potluck following our […]
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Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
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Hunting issue reverberates From Montana writer Scott McMillion about our exploration of some issues surrounding hunting (HCN, 12/11/95): “The top of the food chain is a pretty good place to be, and don’t forget: More money is spent each year on hunting than on movie tickets.” From California reader Bryan Hill: “Anti-hunters have a moral […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
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Utah in the news Staff is still exhausted thinking about the trials of Utah Republican Rep. Enid Waldholtz. Her tears flowed copiously for almost five hours two weeks ago while she told the nation she was financially deceived by her husband. Retiring Democrat Rep. Pat Schroeder of Colorado minced no words in giving Waldholtz advice: […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
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Deep in the banana belt Sunny, still weather has persisted here into December, and at the Diner coffee shop on Grand Avenue, talk turns inevitably toward fear of drought. The West Elk Mountains, our backyard hills, look merely dusted with snow, and old-timers say this is shaping up as an “open winter.” Not to borrow […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
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Hello, hello? We’re still not used to the sudden disappearance of staffers at the Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service. Humans all over the West once answered our annoying and time-consuming questions; now recordings announce: “Sorry, due to a lack of budget appropriations, this office is closed.” Then a Denver Post story Nov. 16 […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
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A near visitor He was probably looking for the High Country News office. Where else would a bear go in Paonia? But it got distracted by its stomach and began lunching on discarded produce at neighboring Don’s Market on Oct. 14. The bear temporarily eluded the town’s entire police and public works departments – all […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
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A long walk Larry Tuttle called to say he was one day’s walk from Denver, Colo., and the end of his 1,872-mile trek in support of mining law reform. It’s been five months and two days on the road, he says, “but it feels like I just left.” Tuttle reports that he’s returning to Portland, […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
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Pear wars We’re not sure how to describe the $5 “Pear Insurance Contract” High Country News just signed. But two Paonia High School students assured us that after the “time of combat,” which in the past has meant teenagers gathering at night to hurl fruit at each other, “all you need to do is let […]
Posted inOctober 2, 1995: Did Idaho libel the feds?
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A Beltway correspondent High Country News has just opened a bureau in Washington, D.C. It will be manned by Philip Shabecoff, the creator and publisher of an electronic publication named Green Wire and a 32-year veteran of The New York Times. He spent 1977 to 1991 on the environmental beat out of Washington, D.C. Before […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
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On to Wyoming As hunters in camouflage toting bows and muzzleloaders converged on western Colorado in early September, the HCN staff worked overtime preparing for the 25th anniversary of the paper, in Lander, Wyo. We’ll have a report in the next issue on the celebration and Western conversation. Meanwhile, to readers that included rancher Jake […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
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Suddenly, late summer It turned hot, and then it turned humid in this mountain valley that receives only 9 to 11 inches of rain a year. Although our swamp coolers can’t keep up, we tell ourselves to enjoy this damp and still warm August weather – slant light announces that fall isn’t far away. Lots […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
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High Country News is put together every two weeks in much the way a Jackson Pollock-type painting is put together. And that is the approach we have taken to the ceremony marking the paper’s 25 years in the West: impromptu, short on formal presentations and long on directness. We’re thinking of Saturday, Sept. 9, as […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
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Thank you, Ray Ring To avoid a fight, we waited on this column until senior editor Ray Ring was out of the office. Not that Ray has been argumentative while here. Far from it. But he is a man who has never heard a compliment he liked. If we were writing this just for Ray, […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
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A celebration Twenty-five years ago, schoolteacher-rancher-activist Tom Bell of Lander, Wyo., had the nutty, impractical, unsustainable idea of founding a newspaper to cover environmental issues in the rural, inland West. On Saturday, Sept. 9, Bell (who lost his ranch while establishing the paper) and scores of like spirits will gather in Lander, Wyo., to celebrate […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
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Snowplows in June Summer in this 6,000-foot mountain valley unofficially arrived July 5; up until then snow fell and dusted the West Elk Mountains overnight, and something called rain dripped every other day. The air felt more like October. Finally, 90-degree heat moved in – this was more like it! – though we could still […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
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Skipped issue Librarians especially should note that there will be no July 10 issue. This annual break allows readers to catch up on articles they haven’t read, and to get out into the great outdoors while it is still great. Getting into the higher outdoors is difficult around Paonia. Kebler Pass, which links us to […]
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
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It must be spring Wyomingites Geneen Marie Haugen and David Titcomb stopped by on Memorial Day, hoping to get away from the snow and rain. “Fat chance,” they reported. With no television reception or newspaper delivery at their house, they told us they like picking up High Country News for the latest scoop – even […]
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
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Ramon in Paonia We’re a little upset with Ramon – an activist against logging clearcuts whose 20 acres of private land is the staging ground for the continuing fight against fragmenting the Cove/Mallard area in central Idaho (HCN, 3/6/95). If we had known the exact day of Ramon’s visit, we would have organized a public […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
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Semi-special Since several recent issues have been labeled “special” because of their long planning time and extra pages, we were loath to call this edition on the Endangered Species Act a special issue too. But as the publication date approached, pages filled with yet more dimensions of the story. So we compromised: no extra pages […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
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Stacked deck? When Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young decided to leave the Beltway to hear opinions on changing the Endangered Species Act, he set no House (Natural) Resource Committee hearings in what we think of as The West: Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Montana, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, or South Dakota. Young selected mainly small […]