New interns Recently, while chewing sloppy melted chunks of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and watching shadows cast by moonlight cross the walls of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, intern Patrick Dowd got his first taste of the area around Paonia. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, moving inland in 1991 to […]
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Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Dear friends
Fires – again First, you read about the 700 new fires breaking out in Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Washington and Wyoming – most started by lightning. Then, if you live in Colorado or Nevada, where fires are already burning, you notice the intense salmon colors of dawns and sunsets. Suddenly, it seems, the West […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Dear Friends
A celebration of essayists We are not calling this issue devoted mostly to essays “special,” but it certainly feels that way. It is the first time we have taken such a large break from straight reporting to feature stories that stem from personal experience in the West. Staff debated the idea and finally plunged. An […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Dear friends
Curiosity about consensus Perhaps feeling angry or resentful takes more work than cooperation, or maybe it’s the habit of perceiving people as black hats or white hats that eventually seems old hat. In any case, we’ve had so many requests for our special issue May 13 on consensus (-Howdy, neighbor!: As a last resort, Westerners […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Dear friends
Back with a bang Staff is back on the job, returning just in time for the 4th of July parade up Paonia’s Grand Avenue, an event which usually requires 30 minutes, tops. This time it took an hour for more than 100 entries to pass, what with past Cherry Days queens representing five decades, Shriners, […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Dear friends
We brake for summer We skip the next issue of High Country News because, we like to joke, everyone needs a chance to catch up on their HCN reading. Some of us here will hike, bike or cheer for kids at summer baseball games, others will head for “meditation camp” in New Mexico, and all […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Dear Friends
They don’t know it all This issue is an exploration by Elizabeth Manning and other writers of the state of outdoor education in the West. It’s a subject some approach with awe, particularly if we’re the one who admits: “That (course, teacher, backpacking expedition, river trip) changed my life.” Perhaps because so many of us […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Dear Friends
Woe is Montana Poor Montana. And we aren’t even counting the Freemen extortionists who won’t come out of their rooms. No, the latest slam against the “last best place” comes from a grumpy editor of the (need we say powerful?) New York Times Magazine. James Atlas’ family vacation near Yellowstone and Glacier national parks was […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Dear Friends
Going with the flow Locally, things are hopping. A cold snap wiped out up to half the fruit crop, and police say a “little old lady” mistook where the reverse gear was and plowed into the Paonia Post Office, demolishing three newspaper stands and a concrete wall. Both events were not novel. Fruitgrowers have always […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Dear Friends
A confusing season We realize it’s spring when an April day combines snow flurries, afternoon rain and thunder, intermittent sun and evening temperatures in the twenties. And the next morning the grass grows even greener. On this town’s main street the look of the season is layered with the one constant: muddy boots, for this […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Dear Friends
Hello, uh, fire department Pastures smudged with black ash, fast-rising billows of smoke visible from miles away, these are the signs that signal spring in this medium-altitude (5,600 feet) mountain valley. “Burning ditch” is an annual rite here, followed in more than a few instances by emergency calls to a town’s volunteer fire department (-Come […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Dear friends
They have our thanks Boise, Idaho, resident Kay Hummel sent us a note one night because she was too excited to sleep. She said she and close to 200 people had just attended a tribute to three of Idaho’s environmental heroes, and the feelings generated at the event Feb. 24 were still warm. Those honored […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Dear Friends
Spring interns The last time Michelle McClellan was in Colorado, she woke up in a pasture near Rocky Mountain National Park to a bellowing herd of cows trying to maneuver around her tent. Her reception in Paonia has been far less hectic, she reports. Michelle grew up in Kirkland, a city of 40,000 close to […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
Dear Friends
Corrections and emendations We apologize for garbling names in our coverage of the Adam’s Rib ski resort battle in Colorado (HCN, 2/19/96). Bud Gates, not Bud Grant, is the Eagle County commissioner; Kathy Heicher, with a K, is on the Eagle County planning commission, and Kathleen Forinash, not Forinesh, is the county’s director of health […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Dear friends
A man of words From a cabin in Wyoming, C.L. Rawlins has served as the (mostly) unpaid poetry editor for this paper for 14 years. Now, he wants to call it quits since “editing for non-publication doesn’t appeal.” It’s true we have printed far less poetry than, say, a decade ago, mainly because we tend […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Dear friends
Thanks, Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is best known as the home of Fort Carson, the “Star Wars” missile defense, Focus on the Family and assorted “patriots.” But the board and staff of High Country News discovered another side to the town: a spirited environmental community that turned out in force for the potluck following our […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Dear Friends
Hunting issue reverberates From Montana writer Scott McMillion about our exploration of some issues surrounding hunting (HCN, 12/11/95): “The top of the food chain is a pretty good place to be, and don’t forget: More money is spent each year on hunting than on movie tickets.” From California reader Bryan Hill: “Anti-hunters have a moral […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
Dear Friends
Utah in the news Staff is still exhausted thinking about the trials of Utah Republican Rep. Enid Waldholtz. Her tears flowed copiously for almost five hours two weeks ago while she told the nation she was financially deceived by her husband. Retiring Democrat Rep. Pat Schroeder of Colorado minced no words in giving Waldholtz advice: […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Dear friends
Deep in the banana belt Sunny, still weather has persisted here into December, and at the Diner coffee shop on Grand Avenue, talk turns inevitably toward fear of drought. The West Elk Mountains, our backyard hills, look merely dusted with snow, and old-timers say this is shaping up as an “open winter.” Not to borrow […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Dear Friends
Hello, hello? We’re still not used to the sudden disappearance of staffers at the Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service. Humans all over the West once answered our annoying and time-consuming questions; now recordings announce: “Sorry, due to a lack of budget appropriations, this office is closed.” Then a Denver Post story Nov. 16 […]