In Park County, Colo., ranchers who want to maintain their traditional land uses are saying “no, thank you” to housing developers. Instead, they’re welcoming tourists. Seven years ago, several ranchers and county officials formed the South Park Heritage Area Board. The board, along with six partner organizations, aims to protect ranchers with conservation easements, and […]
Communities
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
Developers push revisionist history
In March 2000, the people of Flagstaff, Ariz., won a big one. Development of a treasured crater and wetland known as Dry Lake into a gated, high-end golf-course subdivision was stopped dead. This is especially significant because the property was private and already zoned for a planned community. The four-year battle was complicated, including a […]
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
Heard around the West
Here’s some good news: So many people turned out to work for free at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City that the Games will turn a profit. That’s a rare event, reports the Wall Street Journal, and it’s all due to the “kindness and good cheer” of 20,000 volunteers. They took on jobs as […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
A blueprint for better communities
Westerners who are fed up with polluted water and air, strip malls that eat up open space, and automobile-dependent lifestyles can look to a new book by the Natural Resources Defense Council for guidance on how to counter the poorly planned patterns of growth we now know as urban sprawl. In a series of 35 […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Notes from a corporate insider: It’s not easy turning green
Don Popish’s Carhartt overalls are so infused with dirt and grease that they crackle when he walks. He’s got rings under his eyes from fixing balky Snowcats at night in Aspen Skiing Co.’s vehicle shop. Me, I’m an environmentalist in a starched shirt. But like Don, I’ve got a job to do for the company. […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The Postal Service stamps the mythic West
Wyoming has declared war on Montana. Why? Wyoming officials say their northern neighbor has co-opted an icon behind which the state tries to perpetuate long-gone traditions. The stimulus for the feud was the U.S. Postal Service and its 50-state commemorative stamp series. The Montana stamp features a cowboy atop a bucking horse. Wyoming says it […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Heard around the West
Forget gambling casinos and the songs of Wayne Newton; these days the state of Nevada is selling stupid tricks on public lands. Print ads in Outside, National Geographic Adventure and other publications describe Nevada “as a primal playground with more … tear-yourself-to-shreds terrain than any other place in this great nation.” The ads go on […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The ‘Niche West’ reconnects us to the land
Arguing is one of my favorite sports. I always like to participate, and often I enjoy watching, as with the latest bout between Thomas Michael Power, an economics professor at the University of Montana, and Ed Marston, publisher of High Country News (HCN, 12/17/01: Economics with a heart but no soul) and (HCN, 2/4/02: Post-cowboy […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Note: This feature story was accompanied by two sidebars, describing the slow progress in developing “greener” snowmobiles and the difficult Yellowstone National Park winter-use planning. — WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana — On a sunny Thursday afternoon in mid-February, Glen Loomis, one of the snowmobile businessmen whose point of view dominates this small town, is telling me […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Zoning code may squeeze Aspen ranchers
COLORADO In Aspen’s narrow valley, cluttered with enormous homes and virtually devoid of affordable housing, growth management seems a moot point. However, that is just what Pitkin County commissioners hope to accomplish with a bold rezoning plan. The proposed revisions of the county’s land-use code would concentrate growth in already-developed areas and would cap new […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Cactus Ed revisited
In the West, few names elicit as much veneration or revilement as that of Edward Abbey. But those of us who weren’t around during Abbey’s heyday, or never got to meet him, can only turn to books. Thirteen years after Abbey’s death, two new books add depth to the story of Cactus Ed. James Cahalan’s […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
How I lost my town
The land was ours before we were the land’s …Something we were withholding made us weakUntil we found out that it was ourselvesWe were withholding from our land of living,And forthwith found salvation in surrender. – Robert Frost, “The Gift Outright” I know I’m starting to lose it. My sense of place. It really hit […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Heard around the West
Is there no compassion in Aspen? Maybe not much for Kenneth Lay, former honcho of the bankrupt corporation Enron. The good drinkers at the Woody Creek Tavern recently placed a contribution bowl on the bar to raise money for Lay, a quasi-local and occasional neighbor. Lay owns several properties in Aspen as well as a […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
Development threatens historic town
Does Washington’s growth law do its job?
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
You can call mine Mortgage Manor
Lupine Lodge. Del Mar at the Sea. Massive Mountain Manor. Harbor House at the Pines. I have changed the names to protect the ostentatious; to protect those who not only must own four luxury homes in four different places, but also pick and register names for them. I didn’t think I was capable of being […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
Westerners share a different reality
Time magazine recently gave Westerners a good laugh. Time’s “Your Technology” columnist, Anita Hamilton, wrote about her road test of a new satellite radio network. You’ve probably heard of satellite radio – it’s the latest breakthrough, promising to beam signals from orbit to your car radio whether you’re in Stinking Desert, Ariz., or Sodden Pass, […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
Heard around the West
What does the well-dressed park ranger wear to work at Yellowstone National Park? A gas mask, of course, if the work station is at the park’s western gate. Especially on dead-calm winter days, a pall of pollution awaits staffers as they deal with up to 1,200 snowmobilers idling their gaseous engines. The Clinton administration tried […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
In the grip of Ungulate Fever
Deep crimson splotches, like large drips from a painter’s brush, pock the snow and lichen-encrusted rocks. A few steps farther, they mingle with patches of gray-brown fur, some of which cling to the stiff gray branches of sagebrush. Then more blood, more fur, more blood, on down the hill. And finally, the body. Or what’s […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Scouts (dis)honor
ARIZONA After Henry Jackson bought the X9 ranch just a few miles southeast of land-hungry Tucson in 1955, he subdivided and lightly developed much of it. But during the ’70s and ’80s, Jackson also deeded 420 acres to the Boy Scouts of America. At the base of the Rincon Mountains, the land is bordered by […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Entrepreneur shovels trouble
UTAH Archaeologists don’t dig Anasazi Digs. The family-owned business on private land near Monticello, Utah, invites customers to excavate – and keep – artifacts from an Anasazi pueblo for $2,500 a day. “It’s like owning a Van Gogh painting and cutting it into lots of pieces,” says Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones. “The owner could […]