“We need to be smart. The future of how public lands are going to be managed is going to be based upon how they’re being used today.” — Retired Bureau of Land Management chief Bob Abbey, who stepped down in May, speaking to HCN in a recent interview. Judging by the way much BLM land […]
Jodi Peterson
Posted inOctober 15, 2012: Are you a local?
Best of the West: Our favorite books
Western authors and HCN staffers share their most-loved writing about the region in this list of favorites. Isabella Bird and Katie Lee: two of my favorite Western women, tough, brave and eloquent. Bird, an Englishwoman, traveled from California to Colorado in the 1870s, often alone on horseback. Her richly descriptive letters became A Lady’s Life […]
Posted inOctober 15, 2012: Are you a local?
The place where you are
In 2007, I heard a radio interview with a Chinese author who talked about visiting the mountain village where his ancestors had lived for thousands of years. When he stepped onto that soil, he knew instinctively that he was home, felt in his bones that he was where he belonged. At the time, I’d been […]
Posted inGoat
Big dreams in a little town
Last Thursday evening, three members of the HCN crew stopped off in El Rito, N.M., an hour and a half north of Santa Fe, where we were headed for a Board of Directors meeting. There, in a hamlet of about 1,000, we strolled through a century-old campus and learned about a grand vision for education. […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
One Sagebrush Rebellion flickers out — or does it?
“No thief who has to pay for what he steals will steal for long.” — Nevada rancher Wayne Hage, explaining to High Country News in 1995 why he had filed a lawsuit against the federal government over restrictions on his livestock grazing. That landmark Sagebrush Rebellion lawsuit, hailed as protecting the rights of Western ranchers […]
Posted inGoat
Recreation.gov — nice try, needs work
Ever wanted to plan a vacation around a bunch of federally-managed recreation sites, but didn’t know where to turn? Yeah, me neither. I mean, sometimes I plan trips to visit particular national parks, but I don’t generally think of a vacation to, say, San Francisco, in terms of what federal facilities I can go see […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
See you in October
A heads-up: High Country News staffers will be taking a much needed two-week publishing break after this issue. We’ll be catching up on work around the office as well as harvesting North Fork Valley produce and watching the aspens change. Look for our special annual books and essays issue around Oct. 15, and visit hcn.org […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Summer visitors
The folks keep flowing in, despite the heat. Virginia archaeologists Allen Hard and Marjorie Siegel dropped by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters to cool down. They were headed to Gunnison, where they plan to spend a couple of months surveying the old mining town of Tin Cup, elevation 11,500 feet, for the Forest Service –– a […]
Posted inGoat
Report from Outdoor Retailer
The Summer Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City is a gearhead’s dream. I wandered through its hundreds upon hundreds of booths on Thursday, Aug. 2 in a breathable waterproof daze, along with 27,000 other people ogling the very latest in toys and accoutrements for every kind of outdoor adventure. The goods on display ranged […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
High Country News gets new interns
It’s that time of year again — when two fresh-faced interns join us in our Paonia, Colo., offices for six months of “journalism boot camp.” We’re also delighted to announce that the talented and diligent Neil LaRubbio, intern from the last session, will remain with us for another six months as our editorial fellow. It’s […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
HCN: Preferred reading of cab drivers and geologists
We’ve had several summer visitors here at our headquarters in Paonia, Colo. From Reno, Nev., came subscriber Robert M. Martin, better known as Tobe, on a motorcycle trip to a medicine wheel site near Red Lodge, Wyo. Describing himself as a loyal fan of HCN, he added that he’d been a cab driver for 13 […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct
Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct. Adam Duncan Harris352 pages, 302 color photos, softcover: $29.95University of Oklahoma Press, 2012 Wildlife artist Bob Kuhn passed away in 2007, leaving behind some of the finest paintings of wild animals ever created. Now, Adam Duncan Harris, curator of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyo., has collected […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Smokey Bear: From cute to buff, and in between
The icon’s many images changed over the years alongside the Forest Service’s changing attitudes toward wildfire.
Posted inGoat
Pipeline plans
Moving water from one part of the West to another – it’s a time-honored tradition, a way to channel the bounty of rivers in less populated areas to drier regions with greater populations. We’ve reported on many of these projects, like the San Francisco Bay/Delta that supplies southern California, and the Central Arizona Project that’s […]
Posted inJune 25, 2012: Special travel issue
A review of Elevating Western American Art
Elevating Western American Art: Developing an Institute in the Cultural Capital of the Rockies Thomas Brent Smith, editor. 320 pages, hardcover: $34.95. Denver Art Museum, 2012. The Denver Art Museum’s Petrie Institute of Western American Art hosts an impressive collection of historic and contemporary paintings, textiles, prints and sculptures. Elevating Western American Art celebrates the […]
Posted inJune 25, 2012: Special travel issue
High Country News skips an issue
We’ll be skipping the July 9th issue. (We publish 22 issues per year.) Instead, we’ll be picking western Colorado cherries, celebrating the Fourth of July, welcoming new interns and working on exciting new stories. You’ll see the next edition of HCN around July 23; in the meantime, enjoy the sweet lazy days of early summer, […]
Posted inGoat
Burn baby burn
Nearly every Western ecosystem needs fire. Flames thin overly-dense trees, disperse nutrients and stimulate new growth. But decades of logging, grazing and fire suppression have left many forests, especially in the dry Southwest, prone to fierce, high-severity burns that do more harm than good. In their aftermath are scorched, blackened moonscapes with powdery ash sifting […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
High Country News gets visitors and a new employee
Angela Caldwell started as HCN’s new circulation assistant in May. She’ll help us keep track of new subscriptions and renewals here at our home office in Paonia, Colo. A resident of the North Fork Valley for 14 years, Angela says she doesn’t miss the hustle of her hometown, Aurora, on the state’s busy Front Range. In […]
Posted inGoat
Farewell to a wise curmudgeon
On Sunday, the West lost a unique voice – journalist Ed Quillen, who for nearly three decades had written about the region’s communities and issues with a keen eye for irony and an appreciation for history. Ed died at his home in Salida, Colo. at the all-too-young age of 61. “Colorado has lost one of […]
Posted inMay 28, 2012: The Gila Bend Photon Club
Student visitors from near and far
As their foreign exchange program at Paonia High School came to a close, Henna Reinhardt, from Germany, and Gabby Moet, from Holland, stopped by to see how HCN operates. They sat in on our fast-paced weekly story meeting, in which the editorial staff huddles in a tiny, sweltering conference room to discuss (and argue passionately […]