EARTHTONES Essayist Ann Ronald and photographer Stephen Trimble want to redeem Nevada from John Muir’s century-old slur that the state “seems one vast desert, all sage and sand, hopelessly irredeemable now and forever.” Earthtones: A Nevada Album takes readers beyond the Muir clichés, although the authors admit that the Great Basin is an acquired taste. […]
Deserts
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Defending the desert
Defending the desert In the minds of far too many people, says former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, the Southwest’s public lands are a wasteland. “Indestructible because there is nothing to destroy; unworthy of protection.” Now, a new handbook by the Environmental Defense Fund provides activists and educators with the tools to tackle this myth. Defending […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Save the Sonoran
Save the Sonoran “After five years of watching them bulldoze the desert and pack the sardines in, those people living in Del Webb’s 1,400-home Terravita development will need a therapist,” says David Phelps. He’s a local carpenter and board member of Sonoran North, a grassroots group battling the blade in the booming communities north of […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
The Great Basin: America’s wasteland seeks a new identity
Note: this feature article is one of several in this special issue about the Great Basin. The landscape casts a rhythmic spell in the Great Basin. You feel it driving Highway 50 across Nevada. Grinding up a steep grade to the summit. Seeing a broad valley, and more mountains, one range after another, like waves […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
At home in the wasteland
Note: this feature article is one of several in this special issue about the Great Basin. The Great Basin can be seen as the geography of hopelessness. Wallace Stegner might roll over in his grave at this turn of phrase. But at the twilight of the 20th century, the Great Basin is still a social, […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Desert Images
Phil Lauro of Dillon, Colorado, is not a fan of photographers who shoot mediocre images and then expound on how wonderful, creative, important and awe-inspiring they are. Rather, he says, “I just shoot whatever looks neat to me.” For “His bite is worse than his bark,” pictured above center, Lauro shot just one frame before […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Real summertime
When southern Arizonans travel during the warmer months of the year, they get looks of sympathy when they reveal their homeplace. “Isn’t it hot down there?” “Isn’t it hard to live without seasons?” But Sonoran Desert dwellers know they have one up on the questioners, with two distinct seasons during what the rest of the […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
At last, a California desert bill
After winning overwhelming approval in the U.S. Senate, the California Desert Protection Act is only one vote away from becoming law. The voluminous bill, which was held up for eight years by Republican opponents and commercial interests, would create 74 new wilderness areas, three new national parks, and protect a total of 6.3 million acres […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
On the borderline
A bleak, flat, grim, hot, gritty and wondrous desert