John Fayhee’s piece (HCN, 3/20/06: Town Shopping) raises a lot of the usual questions, but one he avoided is this: Are those of us who bemoan the gentrification of the West guilty of romanticizing poverty? An acquaintance in Santa Fe once commented that the area around Taos was “Cabrini Green with better scenery” — that is, […]
Hal Clifford
Posted inOctober 27, 2003: The Gear Biz
The Gear Biz
The West has become the nation’s playground, but is there a future here for the folks who make our outdoor toys?
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
Reweaving the river
Farmers and ranchers — not ‘yuppie environmentalists’ — work on a Colorado restoration
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
NEPA gets short shrift in the courts
For more than a year, environmentalists have been warning that the Bush administration is attempting an unprecedented rollback of the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). A recent study of NEPA court cases by the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife indicates that such warnings have merit. Supporters of NEPA describe it as the Magna Carta […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2002: In search of the Glory Days
In search of the Glory Days
Two decades after the bust, Colorado’s last great mining town still gropes for a new identity
Posted inDecember 23, 2002: In search of the Glory Days
“They want the workers to be invisible”
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bob Elder, a third-generation Leadville resident, worked at the Climax for 17 years as a mining engineer. He thinks the way people commute to resort jobs now is “exploitative.” Bob Elder: “I just have to wonder how these resort areas are going to sustain […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Permanent user fees in the pipeline
Agencies struggle toward a unified public-lands pass
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
Colorado oil shale gets a second look
Shell Oil hopes pilot project will go commercial
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Last dance for the sage grouse?
GUNNISON, Colo. – The way to see sagebrush is not as most people do, through the windshield of a vehicle speeding toward someplace else. Slow down and get out of the car; walk in the midst of it. Then the sagebrush in the cold, dry Gunnison Valley can have a scraggly beauty. It rolls across […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Chick-a-boom-boom at the lek
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Male sage grouse congregate on leks for the same reason young men go to singles bars: They’re hoping to get lucky. For the grouse, sex is very much a one-night stand, which explains why the males gather in late winter at traditional sites to […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Can cows and grouse coexist on the range?
Brad Phelps remembers sage grouse numbering in the hundreds in the uplands of his family’s 700-acre cattle ranch when he was a teenager. “Twenty years later, it was 12 birds,” Phelps says. But Phelps, a fourth-generation rancher in the Gunnison Valley and a member of the Colorado Wildlife Commission, doesn’t think the grouse’s problems can […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Wyoming’s powder keg
Coalbed methane splinters the Powder River Basin
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Patricia Clark, Wyoming rancher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Patricia Clark, Wyoming rancher: “We’ve had this place in the family for 105 years, and I’m looking to keep this in the family for another 105 years, and I want to keep it as pristine as I can. Once the damage is done, it’s […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Miles Keogh, Wyoming rancher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Miles Keogh, Wyoming rancher: “I’ve told them (drillers) all the same story. If you guys want to play hardball, I’ll play hardball. I’ve been around the block. So part of the terms and conditions of this agreement is you take total responsibility, so the […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Mickey Steward, coordinator for the Coal Bed Methane Coordination Coalition
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Mickey Steward, coordinator for the CoalBed Methane Coordination Coalition: “The fastest way to kill the coalbed methane industry is for gas prices to drop below a dollar. The surest way to get significant attention paid to even the slightest (industry) concerns is for gas […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Montana gets a crash course in methane
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Powder River Basin doesn’t end at the state line; about one-third of the sprawling basin lies in Montana. Though the coal seams are thinner here than in Wyoming, coalbed methane development is expected to explode in the northern third of the basin and […]
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Ski resorts pump up ecoterrorism defenses
Hired sentries call the measures ‘kind of a joke’
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Drawing a line in the mud
Coloradans weed out tamarisk before it takes over
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Backyard power struggle
Locals hope new energy sources will save their view
Posted inSeptember 11, 2000: Holy water
Ski town workers find homes in the hills
Squatters say camping on public land is the only affordable option