Like many mountain bikers, I’m happiest when I’m charging up and down hills through the West’s spectacular public lands. I live in Durango, Colo., arguably the mountain bike capital of the world, and I ride every day. While I’ve spent most of my cycling years on roads, in the last five years I’ve been spending […]
Essays
Posted inWotr
Changing the world, one person at a time
I was fresh out of college and green — in more ways than one — when I learned that not all environmentalists are created equal. I’d applied for a job with a 10-year-old national environmental organization, based in Boston, that recruits young people to work on grassroots campaigns all over the country. Invited for an […]
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An eco-wacko figures a few things out
The Gallatin National Forest, in southwestern Montana, recently ended a public comment period for revising its recreation plan, which, among other things, allocates trail use between motorized and non-motorized users. The debate was marked by more editorial spleen-letting and rude outbursts than I’ve seen since Gay Pride marched in Bozeman, years ago. Remember, I live […]
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A dispatch from the New West battleground
Early in April 2000, I attended the auction of a ranch near my own, in a rural western South Dakota county that has resisted zoning. This is my report from the front lines where the real battle of the West is being fought — with money. The ranch was advertised as a single unit of […]
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When whiteouts in winter seem like forever
Sometimes it can’t be helped, that long drive across the West, rolling the odometer like a slot machine that promises to pay off with just one more spin. The gas gauge hovers around “half” and it looks like you’ll get there without stopping again in the middle of who knows where. Home is all you […]
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Real men head for Alaska
There is the West, and then there is Alaska, a region so wild and isolated as to make Wyoming appear tame as a strip mall. Flying to Kodiak Island (“America’s second largest island”) is risky on a good day. The day I chose to travel to the island on business was not a good day. […]
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Yellowstone should keep out polluting and intrusive snowmobiles
In 2003, Yellowstone will celebrate a centennial. It’s been 100 years since President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated the famous stone archway at the north entrance of the world’s first national park. The Park Service plans to commemorate the event. I wonder what Roosevelt would say if he could attend. I picture him pounding his fist and […]
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Snowmobiles are the people’s choice for Yellowstone
The Bush administration’s decision to upset the ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park has been met, as expected, with howls of outrage from both environmentalists and a lot of the media. After the millions of grant dollars spent lobbying and litigating to ban snowmobiles, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other environmental groups should be […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2002: In search of the Glory Days
Catch 22
NAVAJO DAM, N.M. – It’s a Thursday morning in October, and I count 58 vehicles in the parking lot next to the “Texas Hole” of the San Juan River. A mile or so downstream of the 402-foot high dam, this stretch of water is named for the Texans who used to fish for trout here […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2002: In search of the Glory Days
Holding open the door to the good life up north
The hour was early, the high desert air was fall-frosty, and the coffee was, well, truly horrible. I’d arrived for my volunteer shift at a Catholic church in the western Colorado town of Delta, and I had a very bad feeling. Five hundred people were already waiting on the sidewalk outside, sipping the acrid coffee, […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2002: In search of the Glory Days
The canyon between us
We set out in his truck on the day after Christmas, the man I loved and I, winding our way west from Colorado into Utah. We took the highway to Gateway, then the road to Paradox. The road took us through canyons where nobody else seemed to be awake, the occasional ranch as empty and […]
Posted inWotr
Public servants may go the way of the dodo
President Bush wants to privatize 425,000 federal jobs, one-quarter of the nation’s positions that are product or service-oriented in nature. Workers who exercise discretion, set policies and budgets, or perform other duties that are “inherently governmental” are immune from the process, for the time being. Does this sound good for private enterprise? Sure, for some […]
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A Christmas tradition pueblo-style
At age 79, Vidal Aragon is moving strongly into his second century as perhaps the premier silver smith in the 12 pueblos of the Rio Grande in New Mexico. He signs his jewelry with the bear paw and “VA” merged together. His name commands top prices with the Santa Fe trade. He doesn’t have to […]
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Life on the border, where education gets lost
Before I started my job this year as librarian and English teacher on the Tohono O’odham reservation, I visited the campus. A teacher looked me over and said, “You better come in that library like a gangbuster.” A gangbuster? Having just turned 25, I must have looked as young as I felt. But I’d studied […]
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Medical use of marijuana is a states’ rights issue
Medical use of marijuana is a states’ rights issue By Seth Zuckerman Like the Democrats in the U.S. Senate, marijuana advocates suffered a setback at the polls last month. By a margin of 2 to 1, Nevada voters trounced a much-publicized proposal to legalize cannabis for personal use. B ut the Bush administration would be […]
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Running Green is a learning experience
“Green Party, huh? Well, I’ll vote for you, as long as you’re not a damn Democrat,” said my 70-year-old neighbor when I told him I was running for the Montana state Legislature. Few weeks later, I introduced myself to Tom, a local businessman and one of the Montana Freeman who’d gotten into trouble with the […]
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Like Butte, Montana, an old dog hangs on
(Note: a longer version of this essay is here.) On the dust-blown fringe of Butte, Mont., at the core of one of the nation’s largest Superfund sites, lives an amazing paradox. Its genus is Canus, but its species would have to be called extraordinarius. I doubt there’s another mutt like this on the planet. The […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Like Butte, a lonely dog hangs on
BUTTE, Mont. – On the fringe of this faded mining town, at the core of one of the nation’s largest Superfund sites, lives an amazing paradox. Its genus is Canus, but its species would have to be called extraordinarius. I doubt there’s ever been another dog like this on the planet. The mysterious, mostly wild […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Cow-free crowd ignores science, sprawl
The West is tiny when pitted against our imagining of it. We imagined the buffalo would never be extinguished and the beaver would never be trapped out. We imagined big trees would always stand over the next ridge. But in a short time, the mountain men and buffalo hunters and loggers rolled over this alleged […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Ranching advocates lack a rural vision
In the summer of 2000, in the midst of one of the most intense droughts in the Southwest in decades, I was radicalized by fire. During an 11-day backpack across the Gila Wilderness, my companion and I came across one of the rarest events in the cow-burnt landscapes of the West – a gentle fire, […]