Heard Around the West

MONTANA The Forest Service is getting more bang for its buck these days. Recently, rangers said they might have to blow up some frozen cows in Colorado to disperse them before they rotted; now comes the news that the Helena National Forest in Montana has already used explosives to bring down some trees — 500 […]

ARIZONA Phoenix broke a record on April , though we can’t imagine anyone celebrated the event. The temperature climbed up to 105 degrees — six degrees hotter than the previous record for that day. COLORADO A recent paid obituary in the Denver Post for a man named Michael “Flathead” Blanchard made for some delightful reading. […]

COLORADO Time has run out for the frozen cows of Conundrum Hot Springs, the immensely popular, 11,200-foot-high stopover for hikers in western Colorado’s White River National Forest. According to the Aspen Daily News, several cows jammed themselves into a Forest Service cabin this winter, apparently to get warm, though unfortunately they were unable to figure […]

COLORADOCanada geese may not enjoy reading, but one pair has definitely become territorial about the Harmony Library on the campus of Front Range Community College in Fort Collins, Colo. When library patrons try to enter or exit the main door, the 10-to-14-pound geese hiss and flap their wings — an “intimidating” experience for little kids […]

ALASKA AND THE WESTGrizzly bears never cease to amaze. The latest news about the powerful bruins comes from The Economist, which reports that a British biologist observed a grizzly in the shallows of Glacier Bay National Park doing something unique. The animal would pick up rocks and then discard them until it seemed to find […]

OREGONThree peregrine falcons named Judah, Carbon and Zinc are the go-to birds for a Portland garbage station when it wants to discourage pesky seagulls that scatter food scraps and foul nearby roofs and cars with their droppings. The raptors don’t have to attack the gulls to haze them away, reports The Oregonian; all they need […]

COLORADOThe city of Grand Junction, in western Colorado, just loves controversy, or so you would think from reading the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. First, there was the flap over a high school student who refused to sing an Urdu song because its lyrics translated into an Islamic hymn; then there were the members of the […]

ARIZONAPerhaps it was the “intense public scrutiny,” as Jeff Ruch, head of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, put it, or it may have been a sudden attack of common sense, but the director of the National Park Service, Jon Jarvis, recently reversed himself and announced that Grand Canyon National Park can soon ban disposable water […]

THE WESTOnce again, Hollywood has chosen mythmaking over reality in its portrayal of predators, in this case, Alaskan wolves, in a new movie called The Grey. According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the “man-versus-beast thriller” pits stranded oilfield roughnecks against extreme cold, hunger and a pack of starving wolves; when carnage erupts, “the wolves are usually […]

THE WESTMany of us harbor a sneaking suspicion that Westerners aren’t quite real to D.C. Beltway officials, particularly to the Easterners in their employ. The habitat of these politically engaged men and women so close to power is usually a crowded room where they toil from morning to night, and so the poor wretches rarely […]

COLORADO AND THE WESTWouldn’t it be grand if you could live in a house that never racked up a single electric bill? Some homeowners have pursued that goal by retrofitting their homes with solar or wind power, though it’s not easy to achieve the wondrous state of “net-zero” — defined as any building that produces […]

WASHINGTONMoney may not buy you happiness, but burning it might help keep you from freezing to death. A snowshoer who became lost in a blizzard on Mount Rainier told The Seattle Times that he survived by digging a snow tunnel and then burning everything he could find, from socks and Band-Aids to his toothbrush “and […]

MONTANAThe owners of Montana Snowbowl near Missoula  really, really don’t like criticism. So after a skier complained, they refused to sell him a season ski pass, or even daily tickets at a reduced rate during the pre-season. Jim Sylvester says that he put a comment in a handy suggestion box at the ski area, noting […]

THE WEST AND CHINAIt’s no secret that many Germans adore the Old West, but who knew that prosperous second-home buyers in China would also succumb to “cowhide, antler chandeliers, saddle blankets, lodgepole chairs, wagon wheels, Navajo rugs, iron light fixtures, wildlife-scene fireplace screens, wooden snowshoes, leather throw pillows, horseshoes, Charles Russell prints and plaid curtains”? […]

MONTANABob Ream, chairman of the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission, was driving to north-central Montana just before sunrise to hunt deer, when a deer jumped in front of his car and made the trip unnecessary. The deer was a goner, “but only its hindquarter was damaged,” reports the Independent Record, “so Ream tagged it.” […]

ARIZONAAlthough the Scottsdale Gun Club has yet to start selling Christmas cards showing baby Jesus cradling a machine gun in the manger, or the Magi bringing gifts of frankincense, myrrh and crates full of extra ammo, the club did offer its members a unique photo op: posing with Santa Claus while holding military-style rifles. Choices […]

THE WESTWe won’t go into the Freudian implications of hunters who covet wall decorations fashioned from the enormous antlers of the deer or elk they “hunted” on a fenced game ranch, but in Texas, where everything is supposed to be bigger than life, the desire for giant racks has gotten entirely out of hand. Smugglers […]