Here in western Colorado, we usually have great food year-round. Local farmers grow squash, peppers, tomatoes and corn, and their orchards produce cherries, apples and peaches. Cattle and sheep fatten in pastures. In the last few years, though, weird weather has affected agriculture more and more often. Hard frosts murder fruit blossoms in May, grape […]
Jodi Peterson
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
New kids in town
Well, they’re not exactly kids, but HCN is pleased to welcome two new interns to our Paonia, Colorado, office for six months of journalism boot camp. And we’re also delighted that Krista Langlois, our extraordinary editorial fellow, is staying for another six months. Growing up in Toronto, new editorial intern Sarah Tory devoured books on […]
Posted inGoat
Of packrat poop, creosote bush and juniper-fed lamb
Scientists find that gut bacteria can help animals digest toxic plants.
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Visitors from Maine to Montana
Summer’s in full swing in Paonia, Colorado, our tiny hometown. The North Fork Valley’s sunny weather, scrumptious fruit and fine wines draw lots of visitors, and we’re always delighted when friends old and new drop by our office. Andreas (Andy) Mink, who reports for the Sunday edition of Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Switzerland’s leading paper, spent […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
The Latest: Interior commits to restoring bison on select lands
BackstoryJust a few free-roaming bison herds remain in the West. Roughly 4,000 bison inhabit Yellowstone, but they are hindered by ranchers who fear they spread brucellosis, which can cause cattle miscarriages. The park and state agencies limit the herd’s roaming and remove “excess” animals by hunting, slaughter and transplanting to other areas (“The Killing Fields,” […]
Posted inGoat
Interior commits to bison restoration – but offers few specifics
Bison have pretty much been “odd ungulate out” when it comes to restoration efforts. Deer and elk are found throughout the West, and bighorn sheep and mountain goats are relatively widespread as well. But there are just a handful of free-roaming, genetically pure herds of bison in North America – today most of the gigantic, […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Summer publishing break
In our 22-issue-per-year publishing schedule, we’ll be skipping the next issue. Look for High Country News in your mailbox again around July 21. You can keep up with Western news and views on our website, hcn.org, for fresh articles, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. June board meetingAt the tail end of May, 10 […]
Posted inGoat
Wildland firefighting takes funding from other vital programs
A new federal report this week shows how dollars meant for forest restoration and wildfire preparedness often get diverted to fighting wildfires. It’s been that way for years, and as fires get bigger and more expensive to fight, the problem only gets worse. As we reported last summer: “Just a few days before (the Rim […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Remembering Cecil Garland
Forty-nine years ago, a Lincoln, Montana, hardware-store owner spread maps of the nearby national forest on his kitchen table. A self-educated migrant from North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains, he liked to hunt elk in a backcountry area where the Forest Service wanted to build roads, logging areas and campsites. He drew a line around the […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Welcome, Brian Calvert!
HCN is delighted to welcome new associate editor Brian Calvert. Brian, a fourth-generation Wyoming native, grew up in Pinedale and graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1994 with a BA in English liberal arts and minors in writing and media studies. He has worked as a foreign correspondent, writer, audio journalist, and, most […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
‘Which parks aren’t relevant to black history?’
A black former park ranger talks about diversity on public lands.
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
The Latest: Utah loses Salt Creek road suit
BackstoryRevised Statute 2477, passed in 1866, allowed settlers to build highways across public land. Western counties later exploited it to reopen and maintain abandoned routes, even in national parks and wilderness study areas (“The road to nowhere,” HCN, 12/20/04). In 2004, Utah and San Juan County filed an R.S. 2477 suit to reopen the Salt […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Parks for all?
The National Park Service struggles to connect with a changing America.
Posted inGoat
Utah denied claim to road in Canyonlands National Park
High Country News has been around for 44 years now … and sometimes it feels like we’ve been covering certain stories for darn near that long too. Like the Animas-La Plata water project in southern Colorado, meant to fulfill the Utes’ water rights, or the Central Arizona Project, which supplies Phoenix, Scottsdale and other major […]
Posted inGoat
“Production vs consumption” in Moab
Moab, Utah seems to be coming full circle. Early prospectors discovered useful minerals – uranium, vanadium, potash and manganese – near the farming and ranching outpost, and in the 1950s, Moab became known as the “Uranium Capital of the World.” Thirty years later, the boom was over, the mines closed down, and homes stood empty. […]
Posted inGoat
Oregon moves to help disappearing honeybees
Here in western Colorado, a few honeybees have emerged recently, buzzing tentatively among the first spring crocuses. Soon the peach, apricot and cherry trees will burst into pink and white bloom and bees will begin working in earnest, to pollinate the stone fruit that’s a mainstay of our area’s agricultural economy. Then local farmers will […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
It’s spring break time again!
In mid-March, as snow melts and crocuses bloom in our hometown of Paonia, Colo., HCN staff takes one of our four annual publishing breaks. Look for the next issue, a special issue on unusual travel experiences around the West, to hit your mailbox around April 14. And in the meantime, visit hcn.org for fresh news […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
New HCN employees and several visitors at the office.
Thank you for helping us blow our gift-subscription goal out of the water! Our loyal readers gave their friends and families more than 1,600 holiday gift subscriptions. We joyfully welcome our new readers and thank our existing ones for sharing your commitment to our journalism and to the region that binds us together. New development […]
Posted inGoat
New farm bill still favors big ag
We’ve been following the glacial progress of the latest Farm Bill for three years now. This massive bill, passed every five years, doles out nearly $1 trillion for food stamps and school lunches, farm subsidies, and conservation programs. The Farm Bill got its start during the Dust Bowl years, when it was meant as temporary […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Las Vegas Periphery: Views from the Edge, by Laurie Brown and Sally Denton
Las Vegas Periphery: Views from the EdgePhotographs by Laurie Brown, essay by Sally Denton, 96 pages, hardcover: $60. George F. Thompson Publishing, 2013 At the edge of cities, development and nature collide. That juxtaposition has always fascinated photographer Laurie Brown, and she explores it fully in Las Vegas Periphery. Focusing on a city that symbolizes […]