If you’ve spent much time wandering around the rural West, especially in southern Utah, you may have come across an extensive network of highways. You might not have recognized them as such, though — these “highways,” in many cases, are nothing more than cow paths, faint two-tracks, and sandy washes. But an antique Western law […]
Jodi Peterson
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Fishermen, writers and cyclists come to call
Colin Glover of Denver stopped by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters on a seven-day fly-fishing trip that had already taken him and his friends to Durango, Buena Vista and Ouray. When asked what stretch of the Gunnison’s North Fork, which passes through Paonia, he planned to fish, he shrugged and said he wasn’t sure. Fortunately, the […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Writing down the bones
This issue features a story that was more than two years in the writing — and at least 60 million in the making. In 2011, Montana Hodges was studying fossil management on public lands as part of her master’s thesis in journalism at the University of Montana. “Originally,” she says, “I was going to do […]
Posted inGoat
‘Camping 101 on steroids’ gets minority kids into the outdoors
On a recent Sunday morning, a dozen young boys splashed gleefully in an alpine stream in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. Wearing rubber boots and wielding fine-meshed nets, they reached into the icy water, rolled rocks aside, and scooped up the flotsam released into the current. Then they dumped the contents into plastic trays held […]
Posted inGoat
Seven days to fund an anthology of Ed Quillen’s wise, curmudgeonly writing
Want to help ensure that the West will never forget one of its wisest and most unique voices, writer Ed Quillen? Consider chipping into this Kickstarter project to anthologize his work. Ed died last year on June 3, at his home in Salida, Colo. “For nearly 30 years, Ed had written about the region’s communities […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Report from the summer HCN board meeting
High Country News‘ board of directors met in our hometown of Paonia, Colo. at the end of May, to assess the nonprofit’s health, discuss our prospects, and savor the Western Slope’s beauty. The news was good: HCN continues to expand its reach — our website, hcn.org, saw one-third more visitors in the first quarter of […]
Posted inWotr
About a disappearance in a national park
This happens all too often in the rugged backcountry of the West: A hiker goes out for a day, or an afternoon, and never returns. A search is launched, and eventually the person is found safe — or it ends less happily, and a body is recovered. This time it happened at Mesa Verde National […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Time is running out to get the poster!
We’re in the home stretch of our special referral promotion to enlist friends, family and colleagues to join the HCN community of people serious about the West. More than 125 new readers have stepped up to subscribe and support the work we do here. And their reward? Besides the high-quality journalism we’re known for, they’ll […]
Posted inGoat
Death in the desert
Updated 6/24/13 Two weekends ago I traveled to Mesa Verde National Park in southern Colorado to do some reporting for a future story on diversity in the parks system. On Monday morning, the 10th, I was waiting in the administration office for my appointment with Cliff Spencer, the park’s black superintendent, to begin. I heard […]
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
More awards for HCN
We’re honored to announce that HCN is the winner of the prestigious 2013 Utne Media Award for Environmental Coverage. “HCN stood out for its consistent reports on important stories we’re not reading anywhere else,” wrote the Utne judges. “From the effects of Twilight-inspired tourism on the Quileute Nation to half-built subdivisions at the foot of […]
Posted inWotr
Made in the American West, consumed in China
This spring, the Gulf of California’s shores near the mouth of the Colorado River were littered with dead bodies. They weren’t casualties of the drug trade; instead, they were victims of another international market — the Asian desire for wildlife. Chinese demand for the swim bladders of the giant totoaba fish, thought to aid fertility, […]
Posted inMay 27, 2013: Haywired
Subscriber Warning
High Country News subscribers should be aware that an Oregon company is mailing unauthorized offers for HCN subscriptions and renewals. Please note: These are not authentic solicitations from High Country News. The company name on these solicitations is Publishers Billing Emporium. The solicitation we have seen offers a renewal for $85.95 and includes a lot of […]
Posted inGoat
A win for Monsanto on GMO crops
As genetically-modified food crops speed inexorably across the land, the U.S. government is doing little more than occasionally tapping the brakes a bit. The Department of Agriculture gave one such tap last week, reported The New York Times, when it decided to delay the release of two engineered crops that could result in much higher […]
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
Reflected glory
We are delighted to announce that Boston-based journalist Lisa Song (an HCN intern in 2010) has won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, along with her InsideClimate News colleagues Elizabeth McGowan and David Hasemyer. They received journalism’s premier award for “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of.” “The story […]
Posted inGoat
Everett Ruess redux
A new documentary on Everett Ruess is out, the latest manifestation of an ongoing cultural obsession with the young artist who vanished in the desert Southwest nearly 80 years ago. Filmmaker Corey Robinson’s “Nemo 1934: Searching for Everett Ruess” is a 38-minute documentary that “tells the story of the life and afterlife of everyone’s favorite […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Spread the word and get an exclusive HCN poster
High Country News launched its first “friends” referral subscription campaign on April 11. And, so far, several of you have stepped up to spread the word about HCN to your friends, family and colleagues. Participating subscribers who recruit two people to subscribe (or give gift subscriptions) will get a top-notch poster of a graphic that […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Trappers catch a lot more than wolves
As the feds handed management of gray wolves to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming over the last few years, reactions were mixed. Conservationists worried that wolf numbers would plummet, while hunters and trappers were thrilled they’d get to legally pursue the predators. All three states have hunting seasons now. Idaho started allowing wolf trapping last year; […]
Posted inGoat
Changing of the guard at the Department of Interior
Monday was Sally Jewell‘s first day on the job as the nation’s new Secretary of Interior. She replaces Ken Salazar, Obama’s first-term choice. The second woman ever to serve as the head of Interior (Gale Norton, considered a nemesis of conservationists, was the first), Jewell is now in charge of 70,000 employees and 500 million […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Waiting with bated breath
We’re pleased to announce that High Country News has been nominated for the 2013 Utne Media Award in the Environmental Coverage category. (The other finalists are Grist, OnEarth and Resurgence/Ecologist.) Presented by Utne Reader, a digest of independent media, the awards “publicly celebrate the (media outlets) which consistently impress us with the high quality of […]
Posted inGoat
On setting aside new national monuments
As of last week, our country has five new national monuments; two of them are in the West. The Eastern sites, controlled by the National Park Service, are cultural – new monuments in Ohio and Maryland commemorate Charles Young, the first African-American colonel in the Army, and Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor on the […]