Dear Friends

We’re back! Following a two-week hiatus, the High Country News staff is back on the job, looking a little sunnier, and feeling refreshed. Temperatures on Colorado’s Western Slope have been rocketing over the 100-degree mark every afternoon, so it’s good to be back under the swamp cooler. Visitors Truckloads of HCN subscribers have ducked in […]

We need a vacation! Don’t be surprised that High Country News isn’t in your mailbox two weeks from now. Each summer, we skip an issue, to give staffers a chance to crawl out of their cubicles and frolic in the hills. Your next issue should arrive August 4. The board comes to Paonia The High […]

HCN in the spotlight Thanks go out to all the readers who have written e-mails, postcards and letters in recent weeks to comment on the paper’s new look. So far, the reviews have been mostly positive: “GREAT,” “easier to read,” “handsome and easy to handle,” “a job well done,” “I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new […]

A new supporter Once a year, High Country News dedicates almost an entire issue to essays. We hope this issue gets stuffed into the backseat of a few cars for the summer road trip, tucked into backpacks, or packed in dry bags for a little reading on the river. We’ll be back with more news […]

A new look, same old spunk Here it is, at long last — the new High Country News. As promised, the paper has a lively new look, but what’s inside remains largely the same: sagacious reporting, balanced perspective, a skeptical edge. Here’s hoping you like what you find. To research the cover story, our editor […]

Two weeks to launch time It’s true: This is the last issue of HCN in its current format. Your next issue will look a little different. We won’t give away the details of the new design, but thanks go out to all those who wrote in with ideas and critiques of the covers we printed […]

Scratch the metamorphosis bit The notes from readers continue to roll in regarding our plans to redesign High Country News. We’ll spare you the details, but it’s great to get some thoughts from the outside world, since we’ve been staring at our work for so long that we’re all a bit cross-eyed. We received this […]

Your chance to weigh in Spring is springing in Western Colorado, and work continues on the redesign of High Country News. We’re getting a stream of good advice from readers. “HCN has made its mark by doing the kind of in-depth reporting that dailies now do less and less, and at the same time has […]

This isn’t the first time … Just when you think you’re doing something really revolutionary, you learn it’s all been done before. In preparation for redesigning High Country News, we dug back into the archives to see what the paper has looked like over the 33 years of its existence. It turns out this won’t […]

Fear and loathing in HCNland Change is always a little scary, and changing times at High Country News are no different, we’ve discovered. We mentioned in Dear Friends last month that we’re planning to give the newspaper its first major face-lift in probably two decades. The goal is to make the paper look more smart […]

A wintry gathering As a gentle snow fell from a gray winter sky, 130 High Country News readers and friends jammed into the Cache La Poudre Grange in Bellvue, Colo., just outside Fort Collins. They brought splendid food and drink (thanks, New Belgium Brewery!), and a bevy of story ideas for the HCN staff. Issues […]

The defrost cycle First, a little follow-up to Jeffrey Lockwood’s cover story in the last issue, (HCN, 2/3/03: The death of the Super Hopper). Locusts aren’t the only things being disgorged by glaciers as global warming takes its toll on the West’s alpine ice. The Los Angeles Times reported in January that scientists are scouring […]

Survey results are in Living in a small town, it’s easy to make generalizations about your community. It’s a little harder to make sense of a community that’s spread across the million-square-mile West — and all the way to Washington, D.C. — as are the readers of High Country News. Sure, we send out a […]

A blizzard of mail The staff of High Country News returned from our holiday excursions to find the mountains above town buried in snow, and our desks — and e-mail boxes — piled high with mail from many of you. The holiday cards and fruit baskets and jerky and chocolates were wonderful — but it […]

A town reborn In the last issue of High Country News we told you about a mining town – Eureka, Utah – in a death spiral. This issue features Leadville, Colo., also a moribund mining town, but one that is climbing out from the tomb of its mining past. The author, Leadville-area resident Steve Voynick, […]

Kiss a super idea goodbye The rest of the world knows the West for its wide-open spaces and its national parks. And sure, the region is home to some of the nation’s most spectacular wildlands – but it’s also home to some of its most spectacular messes. Our mountain towns are pocked with the remnants […]

Paul Larmer takes the helm of High Country News For the past five months, the High Country Foundation board has been searching for the right person to lead this institution into the future. The board received about 40 applications, from the supremely qualified to the supremely unqualified. They were screened and winnowed and weighed, and […]

Former HCN staff reporter Florence Williams’ cover story in this issue looks at an unusual topic – gated communities. What, you may be wondering, do these have to do with the West? Quite a lot, in our estimation. The sequestered communities and neighborhoods that are springing up around the West represent a broader trend: the […]

The cool, crystal-blue autumn days have brought a flurry of visitors to High Country News headquarters. Most recently, a posse from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., stopped by, midway through a new environmental studies field program. The “Whitman College Semester in the West” is the brainchild of professor Phil Brick, who won a Mellon […]

On July 11, 1932, “Blazin’ Ben” Eastman appeared on the cover of Time. A few weeks later, the holder of eight world track records (a medley of quarter- and half-mile distances) got more publicity when he won a silver Olympic medal in the 400-meter event at Los Angeles. He got a bit more publicity when […]