WELCOME, NEW INTERNS Having worked as a bicycle messenger, Wall Street broker, jeweler, car detailer and welder, Allison Gerfin is ready to try her hand at something new: an internship at High Country News. Allison wandered between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts for a number of years, from New York City to Portland, Ore., […]
Colorado
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Dust and Snow
High in the snowy San Juan Mountains, tiny particles have big implications
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Dear friends
WELCOME, CARMELLA Carmella Hensyel has joined HCN’s marketing department. Carmella worked most recently as marketing and sales director for Scenic Mesa Ranch in nearby Hotchkiss, which offers guided hunting and fishing. When the ranch began raising bison, Carmella helped develop and promote products ranging from buffalo meat to leather furniture: “It was extremely important to […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Dear friends
VISITORS Katie Lee, the grande dame of Western folksingers, river runners and environmentalists, graced us in early April with her merry grin and insouciant manner. She’s been updating her 1998 elegy to Glen Canyon, All My Rivers Are Gone, and says a new edition will be published soon (HCN, 12/21/98: A river rat remembers). Katie […]
Posted inApril 17, 2006: The War on Wildfire
Norton eases road claims
In a parting gesture last month, outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton opened the door for counties and states to claim control of roads crossing federal lands managed by her department. Revised Statute 2477, enacted in 1866, allowed states and counties to construct highways across public land (HCN, 12/20/04: The road to nowhere). Although the act was […]
Posted inApril 17, 2006: The War on Wildfire
Dear friends
LOCAL GRASSROOTS ACTION WSERC (“wuh-serk”), this valley’s local environmental group, has been called many things, including, of course, berserk. For a small group started around a kitchen table, the Western Slope Environmental Resource Council has accomplished a lot in its 29 years: It stopped a major powerline through the valley, convinced local coal companies to […]
Posted inApril 3, 2006: Land of Disenchantment
Norton Departs
A look at Interior’s counterrevolution — and its unintended consequences
Posted inApril 3, 2006: Land of Disenchantment
Dear friends
HCN EDITOR WINS AWARDS FOR SILVERTON PAPER Congratulations to new Associate Editor Jonathan Thompson, who recently took home seven awards from the 2005 Colorado Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest for work he did while publishing and editing the Silverton Standard & the Miner. Jonathan won first or second place in several categories, including feature and […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
Dear friends
WE’VE COME A LONG WAY … Pick up a pre-2003 copy of High Country News, and you might find it hard to believe that you’re looking at the same publication. It was in ’03 that we ditched the black-and-white, pick-it-up-for-a-quarter-at-the-local-diner design that had been the paper’s signature since its founding in 1970. We shrank the […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
Painting for progress
The call of the wilderness sounded more like a holler to Joan Hoffmann in 1963. At 13, already a headstrong artist and budding environmentalist, she was determined to go backpacking with the Sierra Club. Neither her urban family of Southern California golfers, nor the fact that she had to sew her own sleeping bag, could […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
Is everyone a Realtor?
Realtors are everywhere in the West these days — including the seats of power
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
The Latest Bounce
Rural Nevadans may ask for a little federal help in an epic water fight. Las Vegas is moving forward with a controversial plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Great Basin (HCN, 9/19/05: Squeezing Water from a Stone). Now, some citizens in rural White Pine County are looking to curtail that plan by asking their […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Dear friends
NEW BLOG ON THE BLOCK A new online experiment for HCN, or the last best place for a nuclear waste dump … you decide. We’ve got our own blog now, where Paolo Bacigalupi, our Web editor, comments daily about what’s happening in the West. Check it out at http://blog.hcn.org/goat and send comments, tips and suggestions […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Heard around the West
COLORADO The sex-change doctor who created an unusual kind of economic development for the former coal-mining town of Trinidad, Colo., died last month at the age of 82. Stanley Biber began operating on men who wanted to be women in 1969, and over a 34-year span, according to an obituary in the New York Times, […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Dear friends
NEW ARRIVALS The HCN family has grown by two in recent weeks. Laura Paskus, HCN’s Southwest editor, gave birth to a baby girl on Sunday, Jan. 29. Lillian Jane arrived at 11:38 p.m., weighing 6 pounds, 15 ounces, and measuring 19 1/4 inches long. Laura and her husband, Hollis Lawrence, report that Lillie is “ridiculously […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
Dear friends
WELCOME, JANIEC! Janiec (rhymes with “Denise”) Gutierrez is the newest addition to our marketing department and is responsible for advertising sales. Janiec, a native of Southern California, moved to town last May after becoming engaged to a Paonian she met in Germany, where they were both working in the outdoor industry. She enjoys the pink […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
Dear friends
Welcome, new interns! Sarah Gilman arrived in Paonia for a winter internship, still smiling after a summer of trail work on Colorado’s 14,421-foot Mount Massive. A native of Boulder, Colo., Sarah is no stranger to the Paonia area. She spent two summers working at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, just over the hill in Gothic, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
An ecosystem wanting for wolves
Predators could bring Rocky Mountain National Park back into balance
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Dear friends
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM HCN Thanks to all our friends and subscribers for attending HCN’s annual holiday open house on Dec. 7. Thanks also to those who brought a holiday treat. The HCN staff is taking a much-needed break for two weeks, to bake fruitcake, guzzle eggnog, and celebrate with family and friends. The next issue […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Dear friends
VISITORS Longtime subscribers Charlie and Shelley Calisher of Red Feather Lakes, Colo., a town smaller than Paonia, dropped by in mid-September after failing to catch fish on the Dolores River. Writer Susan Tweit (a frequent contributor to these pages) and her husband, Richard Cabe, left a postcard on our door after hours, on their way […]