When I first visited “Carnage Canyon” in the 1970s, it was clear to me how it got its name. The place was a mess. It had become a racetrack for racing bikes and motorcycles that zipped up and down the sides of the canyon. A few years later, people dragged in old refrigerators, cars and […]
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Forget political labels, let’s think for ourselves
I recently filled out a survey from an environmental group but got stumped by the question about my political affiliation. The right of the scale was labeled “conservative” and the left side was ‘‘radical.’’ I bristled. Compare the two words: Conservative has a pleasant root, conserve, as in not squandering money or resources. Radical evokes […]
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Enough winter already
While reading recently about Kit Carson’s role in the settling of the West, I was struck by how mountain men more than 150 years ago dealt with the elements, particularly winter weather. Amazingly, they rode horses huge distances over unknown terrain without wearing Gore-Tex, Thinsulate or other advanced “technical clothing.” They mostly ate bacon, beans […]
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What does a $155 million house reveal about us?
People have been talking about a plan to build the most expensive spec house in history in the exclusive Yellowstone Club near Big Sky, Mont. The ski resort-home will boast 53,000 square feet of living space, larger than the new public library in Bozeman. It will have a heated driveway, an enclosed chairlift for direct […]
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Delisting wolves won’t change much in the West
When Idaho Gov. Butch Otter said last month he wanted to bid for the first wolf tag offered to hunters in his state, it prompted predictable righteous indignation. Newspapers across the nation, including the New York Times, expressed doubts that the federal government could turn control over Idaho’s remarkably productive wolf population to people like […]
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The underbelly of prosperity in the resort West is illegal labor
The public affairs director for Park City, Utah, Myles Rademan, tells a story about tourists on a ski vacation asking him for directions to a Mexican restaurant. His answer: “They’re all Mexican restaurants. Go into the kitchen of any restaurant, whether it’s American, Italian or Chinese, and the people cooking the food are Mexicans.” I […]
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Only reform in Mexico can stop the exodus to America
Angelica, a dark-haired young woman, smiled and looked straight ahead. She was wearing a new dress and shoes and sat behind a table in the schoolhouse of a remote village in the mountains of Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. “Mi esposo se fue al norte,” she replied, when a health worker asked why her […]
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Get out of Iraq now
I’m a retired Air Force colonel and a teacher, and over the years I?ve taught a great many people about the military, sometimes starting out with a quote from Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer Abroad”: “I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says ‘Yes, the little ones does.’” That […]
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Hypocrisy on the road
I?ll always remember the evening a candidate for local political office, an environmentally minded and intelligent citizen whom I liked and admired, passed me on the highway between Cortez, Colo., and Mancos. I was traveling somewhere between 60 and 65 mph, my usual cruising speed. He blew by me — passing over a double yellow […]
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Sharing jurisdiction is the worst thing for thenation’s bison range
Through the years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t been known for a willingness to stand up to political pressure. So I was surprised in mid-December when the agency took back control of the National Bison Range in Montana. Until then, it had been operating the refuge jointly with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai […]
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Injustice on the Great Plains
I wasn’t born soon enough to be a cowboy on the West’s old open range. But for the last 10 years, I’ve been lucky enough to help gather a herd of up to 500 bison every fall on 30 square miles of Montana prairie. I live on the reservation, though I’m not a Native American, […]
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Could it be Apocalypto for the Southwest?
Thanks to Hollywood movies showing the first North Americans as wandering hunters grunting to each other, Westerners may perhaps be forgiven for failing to appreciate the urban civilizations that arose in the New World long before Europeans arrived. Now, moviegoers have a chance to correct this oversight by seeing “Apocalypto,” Mel Gibson’s gruesome depiction of […]
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Dick Cheney was right
President Bush’s idea that voluntary corporate efforts can stop climate change is wrong, and it’s wrong because Dick Cheney was right. That paradox, along with a new Congress and many progressive Western governors, may outline a path to a real climate policy in 2007. The vice President famously called most conservation measures “a personal virtue” […]
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Hold on: I’m on my cell
In the last year I’ve done something that deeply offends some of my small-town neighbors: I’ve acquired a cell phone. Back when I was among the land-lined gentry, I used to think a cell phone was a reflection of lifestyle. People with mobile lifestyles — you commute to work, step out to meetings, travel to […]
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Let’s not allow winter’s quiet to be shattered everywhere
As an outdoor educator, I receive questions about cross-country skiing every winter. Lately, one common question is: “Where do I go to get away from snowmobiles?” Unfortunately, the fact is that there are fewer and fewer places on the West’s national forests where we can enjoy the natural peace and quiet of winter. We are […]
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A field guide to the instant rural guy
Anyone who has moved to the mountains recently has learned of the existence of a distinct subspecies of human beings known familiarly as “flatlanders.” The first thing that needs to be understood about this group is that it is almost never found at sea level. Only when the flatlander takes residence at a higher altitude […]
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One oil change ago
I’m not really sure how I met Jim. Like everything else in life, it was probably through a series of bad choices, weak will and cosmic roulette. I probably should have said “no.” I probably should have moved on. I probably should have done a lot of things differently, but that’s how you end up […]
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Christmas fuels the ‘bough industry’ in Washington
When my parents were first married, my father wanted to name their newly created logging company “Moonscape Logging.” Thankfully, my mother nixed that idea, although it was an apt description of the clear-cutting that happened on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula in the ’70s and ’80s. Once logs were taken out of the forest, whatever remained got […]
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No surprises, and no solutions, from raids aimed at illegal immigrants
On the morning of Dec. 12, immigration and other federal officials launched a simultaneous raid — the biggest ever of its kind — at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants across six different states. At the plant in Greeley, Colo., about an hour’s drive north of Denver, agents surrounded the windowless, monolithic facility, then entered, carrying […]
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The best job in the world
I had the best job in the world this December. I made 50 people laugh and then start to cry. Some looked at me as if I were crazy, while others hugged me tight. I was a “Mystery Shopper” in Montrose, population 13,000, in western Colorado, who “caught” people shopping in local stores and gave […]