The travel route the author took when touring around Reno, Nevada.
Infographic
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Helping hikers before they get hurt
“Search and rescue” conjures up adrenaline-pumping images: rescuers rappelling down cliffs, stretchers dangling from helicopters. But it rarely evokes rangers simply offering advice, e.g., “That 12-ounce water bottle may not get you through an 18-mile hike in 110-degree heat. But there’s another great trail. …” About 20 national parks however, have added such preventative search […]
Posted inMay 28, 2012: The Gila Bend Photon Club
Selenium concentrations
Selenium concentrations, in milligrams per kilogram, detected in stream bed sediment samples collected from Muddy Creek and tributaries in Carbon County, Wyoming.
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Map of conservation areas in Mexico
This map shows conservation areas in Mexico; numbers correspond to highlighted conservation areas described in the accompanying article.
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Low snowpack means a dry summer for the West
The winter of 2012 produced more apocalyptic records than hip-hop MCs on the eve of Y2K. March was the warmest on record for the Lower 48, averaging 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. In the West, La Niña predictably soaked and chilled the Northwest while leaving the Southwest warm and dry. The positive […]
Posted inApril 16, 2012: The Other Bakken Boom
Big game tag auctions raise big bucks for Western states
In the West, big game hunting can be big business. In January, a New York man shelled out $300,000 at auction for a tag to hunt Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in Montana this fall — almost equaling the 1994 bid record of $310,000 for a bighorn tag. All Western states have similar auction programs for […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Going down in flames
Long ago, many West Coast and Rocky Mountain tribes cremated their dead to purify them and free their souls, which were borne to the afterlife “on chariots of smoke.” Today, going out in a blaze is again the region’s most popular funerary rite. In 2010, the mountain and Pacific states (including Alaska and Hawaii) had […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Teton County subdivisions
Distressed subdivisions (shown in red, above) have little or no infrastructure. Many more subdivisions, though empty or nearly so, aren’t called “distressed,” because they have completed infrastructure.
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
Greenhouse gas sources, emitters and effects
All of the top emitters listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s inventory of greenhouse gas producers, released early this year, are coal-fired power plants. Western coal, in particular from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, contributes significantly to those emissions. And though our region’s inhabitants feel fewer of the impacts of burning it, we’re not in the […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
How much time does Congress spend discussing the issues you care about?
Ten months before the election, news outlets are already jammed with political jabber. One way to put it in perspective is to chart the attention Congress has paid to your particular issues over time. Capitol Words, an online visualization tool created by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, assembles the daily contents of the Congressional Record […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
How private efforts and economic troubles have combined to support conservation
Produced in collaboration with the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University
