Dozens of dragonflies zoom through my vegetable garden this time of year. Like hunchbacked sprites, they perch on the hog wire holding up the ever-heavier tomato plants, waiting for an unsuspecting fly or a particularly attractive mate to zip by. In the shallows of mountain lakes and irrigation ponds, blue damselflies, wings folded behind (unlike […]
Paul Larmer
Posted inGoat
The Visual West: Going with the Monsoonal Flow
Over the past several weeks, the monsoon season has kicked in nicely across the Southwest, reaching up into Colorado, where it has created some spectacular lightning, downpours and sunsets. In my humble opinion, summer afternoons during monsoon season were meant to be spent working (not too vigorously) in the garden and watching the thunderheads build […]
Posted inWotr
The return of the Lords of Yesterday
A couple of decades ago, the West’s conservationists dreamed a lovely dream: The region’s traditional extractive industry base, which had taken such a huge environmental toll, would soon make way for a kinder, gentler economy based on protecting the land for recreation and tourism. And the dream seemed on the verge of coming true; during […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
HCN enters the digital world
On a beautiful blue-skied June weekend, the High Country News Board of Directors gathered at our headquarters in Paonia, Colo., to discuss everything from how the editorial staff develops story ideas to the ongoing evolution of digital technology. A presentation by staff on plans to roll out HCN content for mobile phones, tablet computers and […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
The return of the Lords of Yesterday
A couple of decades ago, the West’s conservationists dreamed a lovely dream: The region’s traditional extractive industry base, which had taken such a huge environmental toll, would soon make way for a kinder, gentler economy based on protecting the land for recreation and tourism. And the dream seemed on the verge of coming true; during […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West — In Praise of Skunk Cabbage
On a recent trip to the Grand Mesa in Colorado, my eyes kept returning to the amazing stands of what many locals call skunk cabbage unfurling from the recently snow-covered meadows. The species, Veratrum tenuipetalum, is not related to the Eastern skunk cabbage. Other folks call the plant corn lily, though it is not a […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Go East, young greens
After college, I landed a series of internships with environmental groups in Washington, D.C. I thought I would change the world, protecting the last wild places while putting some badly needed brakes on society’s insatiable appetite for growth. I ended up making vast amounts of coffee, Xeroxing dense legal documents (no computers yet), and writing […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West
I like how our local cemetery, nestled in the shoulder of a small hill above town, is shaped by both natural and human forces. Among the varied stones and markers of the dead and a scattering of native juniper trees and planted arborvitae, I will usually spot a small herd of mule deer and loose […]
Posted inWotr
The West’s dams share a dirty secret
Soon after I moved to Colorado from the humid Midwest 20 years ago, I learned that a reservoir is not a lake. My family and I were eager to test our new canoe on the local reservoir, which I’d driven by a month earlier. Its dark waters lapped against a thick conifer forest. I couldn’t […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Siltation expert: We need more dams
George Annandale has worked all over the world, studying, constructing and retrofitting dams and reservoirs to manage the sediment they accumulate. A native South African, Annandale, 59, is a water resources program leader for Golder and Associates, an international engineering and consulting firm. High Country News Executive Director Paul Larmer caught up with him in […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 11
Spring storms have kept the mountains in Western Colorado clad in winter white into early April, but they have not deterred the apricot trees in the valley below to burst out in flower. These blossoms adorn an old, gnarled specimen behind the High Country News office.
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 10
As temperatures climb in late March, the heavy snowpack on Colorado’s Western Slope start its inexorable journey to the sea, carrying with it a heavy load of silt. This shot of the aptly named Muddy Creek was taken just above Paonia Reservoir. Just below the dam, these waters join the much clearer flows of Anthracite […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2011: Big Beef
Spring fever, skipped issue
In mid-March, as the snow melts and the crocus pop up here in Paonia, Colo., the HCN crew will be taking one of our four annual publishing breaks. Look for the next issue to hit your mailbox around April 18. In the meantime, be sure to visit hcn.org for news, blog posts, and other Web-only […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
The power of the lowly dirt particle
Soon after I moved to western Colorado from the humid Midwest 20 years ago, I learned that a reservoir is not a lake. My family and I were eager to test our new canoe on the local reservoir, which I’d driven by a month earlier. Its dark waters beckoned to me, lapping against a thick […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 9
In March, the first flowers of the year can often be found above your head rather than below your feet. Here, a silver maple planted in a cemetery outside Paonia, Colorado, shows off its stuff only a few days after the snow has melted off. The swelling elm buds, below, will soon follow suit. For […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West — Image 8
This male American Kestrel took off before I could take a decent shot — but I love the blurred movement anyway. It reminds me of how mercurial a March day can be, when a sunny morning gives way to afternoon snow showers, which clears to a star-studded night. The birds and other wildlife are as […]
Posted inGoat
First Signs of Spring
We asked our HCN Facebook community what signs of spring they were seeing (or looking for) in their corner of the West. Several of you mentioned birds, including western meadowlarks — which have already started singing in earnest here in Western Colorado — sandhill cranes and and mountain bluebirds. Beth Pratt, who took the photo […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Cy-board meeting
In late January, the High Country News board of directors met via Web and phone. With a headset and a smile, Board President Florence Williams marched more than a dozen board and staff members through an agenda that included finances, editorial direction, marketing capacity and what skills the board would like to add to its […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 7
The west side of the Colorado Rockies has its own unique weather patterns. Winter storms that smother the mountains to the east in dense, gray clouds, often break up over the valleys, leaving seams of clear sky that, at sundown, produce spectacular light shows. This shot includes a lower flank of Grand Mesa above Hotchkiss, […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 6
I had never really listened to a body of water talk; but this small reservoir at the confluence of the Uncompaghre and Gunnison rivers in Delta, Colo., insisted on a conversation as its ice-covered skin loosened and shifted under a strengthening Spring sun. It’s voice sounded like the deep groans of whales, punctuated by thunderous […]