THE WESTHuge draft horses, those “diesels of the horse world,” as the Idaho Statesman dubs them, are showing up at dude ranches these days, on tap for rugged trail rides because more and more would-be adventurers have supersized themselves. At Chico Hot Springs in Montana, for example, Heidi Saile of Rockin’ HK Outfitters said her […]
Communities
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
The path of the imagination
Conversations with Barry Lopez: Walking the Path of Imagination William E. Tydeman208 pages, softcover: $19.95.University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. For 40 years now, Barry Lopez has been at the center of the national and international conversation about social justice, and the fate of humanity and the Earth. In Conversations with Barry Lopez, the National Book […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Welcome, Brian Calvert!
HCN is delighted to welcome new associate editor Brian Calvert. Brian, a fourth-generation Wyoming native, grew up in Pinedale and graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1994 with a BA in English liberal arts and minors in writing and media studies. He has worked as a foreign correspondent, writer, audio journalist, and, most […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
‘Which parks aren’t relevant to black history?’
A black former park ranger talks about diversity on public lands.
Posted inWotr
Train Day brought out the Chief’s supporters
A baker’s dozen of us from central Colorado boarded the Amtrak Southwest Chief May 10. We were celebrating National Train Day, so called because back in 1869, a Golden Spike was pounded into a railroad tie, finally linking East and West Coasts by railroad. Lots of Americans still like to link up by train; on […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Out in the backcountry
A profile of a gay ranger in the National Park Service.
Posted inArticles
The National Park Service’s diversity problem
From Yosemite to Glacier National Park to the Harriet Tubman National Monument in Maryland, the 400 parks that make up the U.S. National Park system are supposed to be the shared heritage of all Americans. Yet as Jodi Peterson reports in the current issue of High Country News, the vast majority of people who visit […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Parks for all?
The National Park Service struggles to connect with a changing America.
Posted inWotr
A coffee entrepreneur’s unlikely success story
This is not a eulogy, just a slice of life, or in the case of Randy Wirth, 67, a fine cup of coffee with a good man. I can’t claim to have been a longtime friend, but I was a longtime acquaintance. We were both members of The Old-Guys-in-Speedos-Eeewww Club. We were fast and still […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Learning Forestry 101 in the Cascades
A novice logger helps thin the forest in Washington.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Look, Ma – a real Indian!
A performance artist tackles stereotypes of Native Americans in public.
Posted inArticles
A reluctant rebellion in the Utah desert
For ATVers at Recapture Canyon, realpolitik meets out-of-town zeal.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
A path to the parks
Veronica Verdin is a 21-year-old junior at Maine’s Bowdoin College, majoring in anthropology and minoring in history. Of Mexican and Japanese-American heritage, she grew up in El Sereno, in Southern California. She hopes to work for the National Park Service as an archaeologist or interpretive ranger and has already participated in two of the agency’s […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Pinocchios on Whitney
My April 14 issue arrived in today’s mail, and as usual I started reading pretty much right away. I was soon into the Horror Stories, where I realized that Colin Weatherby’s tall tale (“The Boy Scouts didn’t prepare us for this”) could have used some fact-checking. The peak named Mount Whitney is not “the highest in the […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Rock Art of the Grand Canyon Region
Rock Art of the Grand Canyon RegionDon D. Christensen, Jerry Dickey, and Steven M. Freers,248 pages, softcover:$24.95.Sunbelt Publications, Inc., 2013 Hiking the Grand Canyon is a journey through geologic time: The pink sedimentary layers, the limestone left by antediluvian seas, and the river-carved gorge are stunning reminders of our planet’s age. But as Rock Art […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Backcountry memoir
Yellowstone Has TeethMarjane Ambler223 pages, $16.95.Riverbend Publishing, 2013. Cindy Mernin puts it bluntly: “Paradise isn’t for sissies!” she says, recalling the 14 years she spent as a ranger’s wife at Yellowstone National Park. In particular, as she tells author Marjane Ambler, the winters weren’t for sissies. The couple had moved there in the early 1970s, […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Frosty recesses
I must admit that after glancing at “Touring the frosties of the Lost Sierra” (HCN, 4/14/14), I was tempted to pass over it and move on to a weightier issue that would have more resonance with an under-employed conservation biologist. But because it involved the Sierra, not to mention frosties, it latched onto something in […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Guns are welcome, Idaho poachers, and a popping eyeball.
IDAHO A secretive predator stalks the elk, moose and deer that roam the forests of north Idaho, reports the Spokesman-Review, and according to George Fischer, a state Fish and Game conservation officer, these two-legged, stealthy animals are “probably killing as many (game animals) or more than wolves … that is the shock-and-awe message.” Poachers have […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Not fade away
Monument Road:A NovelCharlie Quimby365 pages, softcover: $16.95.Torrey House Press, 2013. Rancher Leonard Self is the type of elderly man who keeps “his shades drawn, his talk necessary, his actions to the problem at hand.” In the wake of his wife Inetta’s death, he’s been winnowing his ranch goods, his farmhouse, his life itself, succumbing to […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
A long-submerged town becomes visible
Water recedes under drought conditions and reveals a lost California community.