Los Angeles has done it again — topping the list for the World’s tastiest tap water. “Good water rises to the top,” said producer Jill Klein Rone of the 18th annual “academy awards” of water held in Berkeley Springs, West Va. “Our tasting process is vindicated when the same waters are rated by a completely […]
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Can I lose 20 pounds before my 50th high school reunion?
My 50th high school reunion is this summer. I’d love to go. But vanity and I long ago parted company and while I probably don’t look any worse than most women my age, I no longer have to whip out my ID to get the senior discount. I tell myself that it is a long […]
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Don’t be afraid of the big bad bears
Ah, spring: The bloom of flowers, the song of birds, the paranoia of the National Park Service. I have come to expect it just as I expect muddy boots at the door and crowded pews at Easter: If you live in the same part of the world as Glacier or Yellowstone national parks, you will […]
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Home, home on the cyber-range
A different kind of neighborhood news now serves parts of Colorado’s Front Range, those high-altitude communities “up the hill” from Denver. It’s paperless, free-form, relentlessly local and increasingly popular. It’s a Web site called Pinecam.com, and for people living in the towns of Conifer, Pine, Bailey and Evergreen, it has become a fact of life […]
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Push, whack, shove, wallop and pound
I started with hard red wheat. Our pioneer ancestors mostly ate bread made of cornmeal until the wheat began to thrive in the arid climate and thin soil. Hand grinders like mine pulverized it fine enough for bread, even cakes. Kneading, I could see my grandmother’s strong arms working the dough on the cupboard by […]
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A hard winter makes you think
After more than a decade of mild winters, we residents of this high-altitude town in southern Colorado got a dose of the genuine article. Not since “Remember December,” when it snowed every day in December 1983, had anyone seen this much snow. But stories from old-timers, those remnant miners who stayed on here long after […]
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The loneliness of the redneck environmentalist
I don’t have that many friends. I’m not a bad guy; I call my mother, eat my broccoli, and pay my taxes. But I’m a country-music-listening, PBR-drinking, rusty-Jeep-driving good ol’ boy — and I love the environment. I grew up rural in the Rocky Mountain West and Midwest, where farming and ranching still reign. It […]
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An empty canyon full of everything
Lamoille Canyon doesn’t attract many tourists. It’s in Nevada’s remote northeastern corner, and that’s just fine with me. I’ve come to the Ruby Mountains for something that’s becoming rare in America: a starry sky and a generous helping of Western birds. Even the drive to Lamoille Canyon is wonderful. Telephone poles on the deserted state […]
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Easter and the urban farmer
If she’d lived, this Easter would have been the fourth birthday of my eldest hen, Annabelle. She was the last of a tribe all named Annabelle, all of whom arrived as day-old chicks on Easter Sunday 2004. In the intervening years, various Annabelles fell prey to dogs, skunks and finally, last week, raccoons. Such is […]
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The energy we take for granted is becoming scarce
A modern snowmobile is more powerful than any machine that existed on the planet 200 years ago. In an hour you can be 20 miles from the nearest road, high-marking a corniced ridge. But if the engine breaks or you run out of gas, how quickly the tables can turn. One minute you are omnipotent, […]
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No way to run a national park
Who has the most clout in Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana? Thousands of citizens who took part in an environmental impact study, or a railroad that wants to control avalanches as cheaply as possible? If you guessed the railroad, it seems you’re right. Four years ago, avalanches halted train service for 30 hours, twice […]
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The scandal in Boulder that won’t go away
The scandal that people are still talking about in Boulder, Colo., isn’t the murder of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey; it’s about a rich couple “stealing” land from their neighbors — and getting away with it in court. The latest tidbit involving Dick McLean, a former Boulder Mayor and district court judge, and his wife, […]
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Where’s the remote
You may have heard the news: Fewer Americans are venturing into anything that resembles the outdoors. According to a Nature Conservancy study, the number of visitors to state and national parks is declining, and fewer people are hunting, fishing or going camping. Why are people trading in their hiking boots for slippers? The study’s authors, […]
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In Wyoming, caucusing gets personal
Participating in politics doesn’t usually seem all that inviting in Wyoming, with its one congressional representative and part-time citizen Legislature. That’s especially true for Democrats in this state that is as red as it is square. Non-Republicans in Wyoming can be akin to a rare species of toad — a curiosity that is easily squashed […]
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Use it up, recycle, and never buy anything new – whew!
We may be running out of landfill space in the West, but not because of me. I’m a packrat. I spent summers in eastern Montana with my grandparents, who lived in an apartment above a department store. I spent the warm days rummaging through trash bins in the alley behind the store, and then I’d […]
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Don’t starve the Forest Service
A whole lot of Rocky Mountain Westerners are concerned about President Bush’s recent proposal to cut the U.S. Forest Service budget. Out our way, the land is not an abstraction. The numbers in the Forest Service budget aren’t abstractions, either. They mean something real to our land and to our lives, and a cut of […]
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Toxic bison
Updated March 11, 2008 With bison populations in Yellowstone National Park estimated at a near-record 4,700 animals this snowy winter, buffalo have begun pushing out of the park in earnest, and the usual winter shout-fest is underway. Fine, but the real problem posed by Yellowstone’s brucellosis infection, and the park’s refusal to realistically deal with […]
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A hunter goes lobbying
A few weeks ago, I set out with a small group to lobby Oregon’s Republican Sen. Gordon Smith. The visit was set up by the national Wildlife Federation, and our goal — a long shot — was to convince the senator to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Lieberman-Warner bill to control greenhouse-gas emissions […]
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The West loses a scrappy daily paper
Just as the booming — or busting — West needs her most, the Albuquerque Tribune is no more. The paper published its last edition on Saturday, Feb. 23, after 86 years of rough-and-tumble journalism that included winning a Pulitzer Prize. The paper was owned by the Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co., which decided last August that […]
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President Bush would jettison Indian health for ideology
Is President Bush willing to sacrifice the health and welfare of Native Americans in order to pursue one of his administration’s pet peeves? It sounds as if he is. The White House recently warned that the president may veto long-overdue legislation to improve health care for Native Americans if the bill includes a provision calling […]