Tom Coburn and James Inhofe came to power with the help of Oklahoma’s religious conservatives.
There’s something in the water
A Colorado family discovers that their clear “Rocky Mountain Spring Water” is unsafe to drink
The windhover
Wildlife biologist Travis Booms tracks remote Alaska gyrfalcons
Dr. No
How Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn — and his colleague, Sen. Jim Inhofe — run roughshod over the West
Grace behind glass
Fish ladders and beauty, on the Columbia
Trouble in the PRB
Environmentalists dig deeper to fight big coal
Draining the tub
On Oct. 17, history was quietly made: The surface elevation of Lake Mead, a huge reservoir on the Colorado River near Las Vegas, dropped below its record low and continued to fall about a tenth of an inch per day over the following days. Those fractions of inches might seem insignificant, but when projected across…
How outsiders shape the West
Note: This is the editor’s note for a package of stories about Oklahoma vs. the West (links at the end). — The biggest story happening now — the Nov. 2 elections and their results — is impossible to cover in this edition of High Country News. We go to press a few days before the…
Oklahoma vs. the West
This dispute includes drilling, wilderness, guns and climate change
Burning questions about biomass
Of cane, coal and carbon dioxide
The dark side of Indian law
In his new book, In the Courts of the Conqueror, Walter Echo-Hawk discusses the 10 worst Indian law cases ever decided.
Coal reality check
It’s a risky time to invest in coal. Production was down almost 8 percent in 2009, and consumption fell even further. Environmentalists have fought new coal-fired power plants tooth and nail — and won. Some plants are already planning a switch to natural gas. Meanwhile, the shape of future federal carbon regulation, a looming threat…
Dam removal for dummies
Your plain-English guide to more free-flowing rivers
HCN bids farewell to an old friend
Sometimes we are fortunate enough to get a closer look at the lives of our remarkable readers. Shortly after longtime HCN reader and donor William L. Berry Jr. died on Sept. 30 from pancreatic cancer, two of his sons, John and Scott, got in touch with us to tell us a bit more about their…
False moderates?
Your article is correct in stating: “The most hard-line right-wingers didn’t do very well in Wyoming’s Republican primary.” But that result wasn’t terribly indicative of the political leanings of most Republican voters in Wyoming. Rather, it’s a commonly accepted fact among both Democrats and Republicans that Dems switched parties to vote for Matt Mead in…
Tamarisk takedown
This is incredibly short-sighted thinking on these environmentalists’ part, in my opinion (HCN, 10/10/11). It’s called the southwestern willow flycatcher, not the tamarisk flycatcher. This is a bird that needs willows and insects to survive. Part of the reason tamarisk is so invasive is that almost nothing can eat it. Releasing the beetle means two…
‘Please stay in the kiddie pool’
It was one small group who blew the rock in the Salt River Canyon (HCN, 10/10/25). The guy who lit the fuse was too incompetent to get himself or his customers past an irreplaceable, completely natural challenge. It broke my heart, even though my rafting is defined by the inner tube. No one has a…
Guide, not gospel
Eureka! As I read the article “Once More Unto the Breach” and glanced at the bookcase behind me, it hit me — I had most of (Michael Kelsey’s) books (HCN, 10/10/11)! But I had never connected the dots. The first, Guide to the World’s Mountains, had steered my climbing itineraries overseas, and ultimately led me…
The river (too) wild
We wouldn’t want to engineer every river, but rivers are transient, anyway (HCN, 10/10/25). Making one rapid consistent with the rest of the run makes sense. As a climber, I’m a little tired of the argument that placing enough bolts on a route to prevent someone dying is “dumbing it down.” I’ve seen people die…