On a 10-day walk through the northwestern New Mexico
desert, the author follows an ancient road that leads him from
silent Indian ruins into noisy, modern gas fields.
Also in this issue: Land managers have been
talking about letting more wildfires burn, but the recent blowup of
the Peppin Fire near Capitan, N.M. – home of Smokey Bear
– leads to renewed talk of aggressive fire suppression.
Proposal for Lassie’s lumber mill has enviros barking
WASHINGTON A dilapidated lumber mill in the Columbia River Gorge, famous for its appearance in an 1967 TV episode of Lassie, is now the site of a controversial development proposal. Since the time when the famous collie floated down the flume to the Broughton Lumber mill, recreation — particularly windsurfing — has skyrocketed in the…
How agriculture ate the earth
The next time you drink a Coke, take a second to consider that you’re suckling from the teat of evil. The culprit is not, despite what you’ve been taught to think, a soft-drink-peddling Fortune 500 company, but agriculture itself. And Richard Manning goes after it with a vengeance in his book Against the Grain: How…
High-stakes logging plan gets go-ahead
OREGON In June, federal land managers announced one of the largest timber sales the Northwest has ever seen. Two years ago, the Biscuit Fire torched 500,000 acres in southern Oregon and California. Now, in a final environmental impact statement, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management propose opening parts of the burned…
Mining law claims mountain
COLORADO For nearly 30 years, the people of Crested Butte, Colo., have fought mining claims on Mount Emmons, known locally as “the Red Lady” — a beloved backcountry skiing spot and the town’s breathtaking backdrop. The town’s determination to save the Red Lady heralded a shift in values in Western mining communities, from resource extraction…
Debate rages over firefighting airplanes
WEST Just as fire season arrived in the West, the federal government touched off a blaze of controversy. In May, citing safety concerns, the Interior Department and the Forest Service canceled their contracts for 33 privately owned large air tankers. The decision followed a report from the National Transportation Safety Board, which detailed three plane…
Border Patrol wants motorized access to wilderness
ARIZONA As part of a sweeping new initiative to fight illegal immigration and drug smuggling, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is pushing to give the U.S. Border Patrol regular motorized access to more than 330,000 acres of wilderness along the Mexican border. The Border Patrol wants unlimited cross-country access by motorcycle, the ability to…
This isn’t your daddy’s Republican party, either
In a recent letter, Neil Snyder wrote that “today’s party is not your daddy’s Democratic party, and you’ll have a hard time attracting conservatives to support it” (HCN, 5/24/04: This isn’t your daddy’s Democratic party). His arguments were disingenuous on at least two counts. He alluded to the fact that two Democrats got us involved…
What grassroots wilderness movement?
The May 10th edition contained yet another article praising an effort to protect wilderness. HCN presents these efforts as being promoted by grassroots groups, and as a result, of this reporting, the typical HCN reader is likely to conclude that there is a true grassroots movement for wilderness in the West. Unfortunately, this is not…
Don’t be afraid of easements
I have worked for a rural California land trust for five years, and wanted to respond to Mr. Gerber’s comments in his letter to the editor, “Caveats on easements” (HCN, 4/26/04: Caveats on easements). I wholeheartedly agree with his suggestion that landowners think long and hard before placing conservation easements on their property. Conservation easements…
Easements aren’t easy
Jon Christensen’s article, “Who Will Take Over the Ranch?” is very timely, and covered a lot of ground (HCN, 3/29/04: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?). I own a small ranch in a sensitive area in northeast Washington, and have spent the last three years discussing conservation easements with a land trust located in another…
Follow-up
Chalk one up for endangered species. For the last five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ignored citizen petitions to list endangered species if a plant or animal is already on the agency’s “candidate list.” Currently, there are 280 candidates, none of them protected under the Endangered Species Act owing to a lack…
Avedon at Work in the American West
For six summers, from 1979 to 1984, Laura Wilson accompanied the New York-based photographer Richard Avedon throughout the rural West. Her job: Find beekeepers, oil-well drillers, vagrants, religious zealots, ranchers, coal miners and other iconic Westerners. One at a time, she’d line up these chosen people before a white backdrop and ask them to stand…
Perspectives on change — climate change
On the northern edge of Alaska, says journalist Charles Wohlforth, the impacts of human-caused climate change have become part of daily life. Spring is coming earlier, and Iñupiaq whaling crews are making ever-narrower escapes from cracking sea ice. In The Whale and the Supercomputer, Wohlforth looks at such changes from the perspectives of two very…
Lame-duck governor moves deadlocked wilderness debate
UTAH The decades-old battle over how much of Utah’s desert should be protected as wilderness took a new turn in May, when Gov. Olene Walker, R, announced county-by-county discussions to break the impasse. Utah has lagged behind other Western states in designating wilderness areas on Bureau of Land Management land: Of nearly 23 million acres…
Food on every plate, art on every wall
If I were asked to state the great objective which Church and State are both demanding for the sake of every man and woman and child in this country, I would say that that great objective is “a more abundant life.” —Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933 What would New Mexico be without its wind-worn mesas, without…
Mining town gambles on a road to riches
A new highway will bypass a competitor, and sacrifice a bighorn sheep herd for development
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA A professional fisherman from Arizona took time out from a California bass tournament to douse a fire from his boat. Clifford Pirch used to fight fires during his summers off from Northern Arizona University, but that doesn’t quite explain his ingenuity, notes the Payson (Arizona) Roundup. Here was Pirch, trolling for bass, when he…
Fighting for the Rocky Mountain Front: Montana rancher Karl Rappold
DUPUYER, Montana — Montana’s spectacular Rocky Mountain Front is known for its window-rattling winds. But Karl Rappold, a former rodeo cowboy who raises cattle here, says he was still surprised to get blown out of his saddle — literally — while herding stock last year. The winds that day were clocked at over 120 mph,…
As dams fall, a chance for redemption
I am sitting next to a 200-foot high concrete apparition. Matilija Dam, not far from the California coast, sits astride the narrow canyon of the Ventura River amid the velvet green foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains. At the entrance to the dam site, razor wire conspicuously adorns the top of a fence, just above…
Following the Ancient Roads
I would walk between two civilizations. This ancient road would carry me through the heart of a young nation’s gas fields.
A chance for redemption
It was mid-September 2001, and I was sitting on a sandbar, my ears full of the roar of whitewater, watching the stars blink through a slice of cobalt sky. I was deep in Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River in Utah, and as far as I could tell, my pack of friends and I were…
Dear friends
SUMMER BREAK Every year, the editorial staff takes an issue off during midsummer to escape the heat and head for the hills, so this will be the last issue of High Country News you’ll receive for a month. Watch your mailboxes again around July 19. A GREAT MEAL, AND A GOOD QUESTION At the end…
As fire season ignites, Smokey Bear’s legacy lingers
Land managers talk about letting firesburn, but politics douse the flames
Revenge of the old-timers: The beavers are back
At a recent barbecue during a breezy Sunday afternoon on the South Fork of the Shoshone River, near Cody, Wyo., I saw the largest beaver I’ve ever seen. It was floating in the river’s current like a big dog. The beaver looked to be about three feet long from nose to flat tail, and must…
Oil money rules in the West’s mini-Middle East
Wyoming and New Mexico governors walk a jagged line between conservation and fiscal conservatism