We think we’ve saved the Grand Canyon. We established a national park that is supposed to remain “forever unimpaired,” as the Park Service’s enabling legislation put it. But the Grand Canyon is so deeply enmeshed in a spider web of connections to its watershed that a lot of work needs to be done to keep […]
Stephen Trimble
Posted inArticles
To save their homeland, 25 tribes unite in the Southwest
Native peoples in the Southwest take the long view. They have lived in the redrock canyons of the Colorado Plateau for 12,000 years and have shown astonishing resilience in the face of devastating change in the last 500 years. Now, they bring this ancestral perspective to the management of public lands in the canyons and […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
A painter and writer uses her art to overcome trauma
Author profile of Japanese-American Lily Havey.
Posted inWotr
What should we do with our blink of time?
The long view of science turns out to be both reassuring and daunting. Life on Earth turns out to be remarkably resilient. Within the story of our 13.5-billion-year old universe, our own lives — so crucial to us and to our families and dear friends — look fleeting, gossamer. These paradoxes overwhelm me. For five years, […]
Posted inWotr
We need a new Civilian Conservation Corps
I’m 59 years old. I’ve been a professional photographer for 40 years. And now I’m done. Not because I’m retired, but because I’ve outlived my profession. Technological change has met economic downturn in a perfect storm in which I am sinking. The same seismic shifts have transformed music, journalism, design and publishing. This revolution has […]
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
A Western primer
The Rocky Mountain Land Library asked a panel of Western writers a simple question: What books would you recommend to the next president? What does the next administration need to know about the American West? Our respondents were both generous and inspired with their suggestions. Although I’m sure they would all agree with author Rick […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Credo: The People’s West
How citizens and communities can reinvent their relationship with the American landscape Lifelong locals know their home. They understand the land’s intimate cycles from decades and generations of living in place, a miracle of stability and identity. We can never hope to restore or sustain landscapes and watersheds without the cooperation of local citizens. They […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2004: Keepers of the Flame
Everett Ruess lives!
I was delighted to see your story about the Udall clan (HCN, 10/11/04: The Coyote Caucus Takes the West to Washington). The story made me think about the time I first met Mark Udall. It was May of 1976, and my two buddies and I were camped on a bench above the Escalante River across […]
Posted inWotr
This is no time to step back from the Roadless Rule
While researching a new book last spring, I had the opportunity and pleasure of interviewing Dale Bosworth, chief of the Forest Service. I found him to be an honest, straightforward, forthcoming, and, at times, courageous man. So when I read that he had agreed to the repeal of the Clinton-era Roadless Rule on our national […]
Posted inDecember 7, 1998: Vail and the road to a recreational empire
Utah builds a dream trail
Late one afternoon, a trim, bearded University of Utah administrator climbs from a car in a foothill cul-de-sac 10 minutes from the busiest intersection in Salt Lake City. Rick Reese brims with energy as he strides off down a mountain path toward a perch with an astonishing view of the Salt Lake Valley. He stands […]