By any standard political measure, July was not the best of times for the protection of the last remaining wild places in this country. On July 16 came a ruling by a Wyoming court challenging the legality of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule — a policy to protect 58.5 million acres of untrammeled national forests […]
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The strange allure of tipsy trips in Montana
Drinking and driving in Montana has begun to be something of a cliché. Locals tell out-of-state newspapers that we measure distances in beers. A Los Angeles Times story a few months ago included a quote from Bill Muhs of Bozeman: “Bozeman to Billings is a six-pack drive…. Crossing the state would be a whole case.” […]
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One way to get rid of Lake Powell
What’s in a name? Controversy, as I learned about 25 years ago when I began editing a newspaper in Breckenridge, Colo. I called one local attraction what I’d always called it — “Dillon Reservoir.” The nearby Dillon Chamber of Commerce told me that it was scenic “Lake Dillon.” I argued that it was not a […]
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When does a deer become an elk? And other questions…
At what point did moose become marvels, bears become monsters and a 300-yard walk get to be strenuous? When did the human eye need a digital camera to properly experience the unimaginable proportions of the West? While working for the Park Service at Natural Bridges National Monument in southern Utah, and now for a concessionaire […]
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We keep dousing wildfires with money
Judged solely by headlines and political rhetoric, summer in the West has become a war zone of wildfire. The image is no longer of family picnics at the lake. The lake is busy filling giant buckets dangling from helicopters, which dump their taxpayer-funded loads onto fires that could not care less. One critic remarks that […]
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The EPA needs an urban pit bull
You walk past a wrecking yard and see on the other side of a high, chain link fence, not a pit bull with a mouth full of teeth but a goldfish in a tank. That”s the image called up by Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt’s nomination as head of the Environmental Protection Administration. It”s a nomination […]
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Extinction — by the clock
It isn’t easy being a cheerleader for a bottom-feeder, but I’m feeling up for the task. Montana’s two varieties of sturgeon — a miraculous, prehistoric fish that feeds at the bottom of lakes and rivers –have recently been given an expiration date — an official prediction of when they will go extinct. A doomsday clock […]
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Searching for the true causes of the West’s fire problems
By now we’ve all heard — oh, how often have we heard –that a century of fire suppression has created a buildup of fuels that threatens an inferno across the forests of the West. Forest Service officials, once happy to pose for photos with Smokey Bear, now give grim news conferences to announce that natural […]
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It’s time for ‘quiet recreationists’ to speak up
At long last, the people who make our beloved backpacking tents and climbing ropes and kayaks have taken some responsibility for helping us trample freely about the wilderness. In May, leaders of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) gave Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt an ultimatum. Leavitt had just signed deals stripping temporary wilderness protection from 2.6 […]
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Kobe Bryant bumps up against a small Western town
The week that the national media descended on Eagle, Colo., the lead story in the local newspaper was about a new swimming pool. The arrest of Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star, was noted on page 7, but not that Bryant’s 19-year-old accuser was a local woman. Eagle, located 30 miles from Vail […]
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Thanks, Frank and Deborah Popper, for pointing the way
They’re not laughing anymore. Back in 1987, when Frank and Deborah Popper traversed the Great Plains ballyhooing their “Buffalo Commons” prediction for the region, they were ridiculed. At some outposts, bodyguards were needed to ensure their safety. A Montana appearance was canceled because of death threats. Funny thing, though: Parts of the Great Plains are […]
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Watch out: We’re heating up our world
I’ve tended gardens around the West for much of my adult life, from the tomatoes and basil I nurtured through a Laramie winter in a solar greenhouse to the climbing roses I inherited in our yard in southern New Mexico’s Chihuahua Desert. Now I’m writing a book for Rocky Mountain gardeners, drawing on my education […]
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When did we become outdoor wimps needing so much stuff?
When I read that the Outdoor Industry Association threatened to move its biannual gear show out of Salt Lake City as a protest against Utah’s wilderness policies, I was taken aback. Not by the announcement, but by the reported magnitude of the show: 15,000 visitors spending $24 million in the region to pore over high-tech […]
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Wartime does not always bring out our best
It is quiet here at midweek, the silence of Owens Valley in California broken occasionally by the croak of ravens and the throb of a car or truck passing on Highway 395. Infrequently, one of those vehicles slows and follows the dirt driveway leading into this place of sorrow and remembrance. There is little here […]
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Everyone needs a place apart
Some years back, Marypat and I bought 20 acres of land in central Montana, two hours from our home in Bozeman. An unremarkable spot–a sandstone bluff, an intermittent creek, ponderosa pines, views of distant peaks. Beyond an outhouse and a campfire ring, we have done nothing to develop the place. We go there as often […]
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Peace and quiet count in Glacier National Park
Last summer, while backpacking with friends in Glacier National Park, Mont., a familiar “whup, whup, whup” filled the air. The helicopter dropped over Kipp Peak towards us, its make and color belonging to a local — and booming — helicopter-tour company. Our solitude was disrupted; helicopter noise drowned out nature’s sounds. Despite being closer to […]
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s a senator on a Harley
One my favorite things about living in the West is driving the winding, two lane roads, if you can survive the sluggish RVs, washouts, rock slides and icy patches. Now, there’s a new traffic hazard — senators on Harleys. Even if you don’t live near the mountains, you know our famous roads from automobile commercials […]
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Camping out with faux fire can be just dandy
While last year’s fires were torching Western lives, homes and trees, their accompanying fire bans were torching something else: the West’s camping plans. “I don’t want to camp without a campfire,” my wife informed me last season, while smoke from the Hayman Fire settled over Denver. Her feelings echoed those of thousands of Western campers […]
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Hanging loose in Wyoming’s bear country
My friend Fred says that what he enjoys most about camping in the wild is watching people hang their food. Though you’re miles from a television, it’s far funnier than anything Hollywood could invent. And on a recent trip with some friends, Fred and I demonstrated the truth of his theory. The concept is simple: […]
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Don’t blame prairie dogs, they’re doing the best they can
First it was the plague, now it’s monkey pox. It seems like prairie dogs take it in the shorts every time a certain primate brings a new disease to this continent. What primate you ask? Well, the variety that includes you and me. In recent weeks I’ve been gritting my teeth every time I heard […]