The West’s history of developing water sources, occasionally stained with instances of outright theft, is probably best described as “complicated.” Our decisions on who should get what water — and how, and from which source they should get it — usually teetered to the side of whatever person in power had the least tolerance for […]
Essays
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Wilderness and military use can coexist
A funny thing happened on the way to a small expansion of the nation’s prized system of wilderness. In Colorado, the state’s largest national forest wilderness proposal in nearly two decades is being ambushed by the U.S. military. At stake is the gorgeous Red Table Mountain area in central Colorado between the valleys of the […]
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Nature fierce and not so pretty
I’ve never cared much for nature writing as a genre because usually there’s too much wafting, glimmering and shimmering. Things seem to happen outdoors that seldom happen in real life. Animals, for instance, often come off seeming more noble, contemplative and spiritual than humans. I think nature can be just as drunk, self-indulgent and spiteful […]
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Beware of wolves cloaked in “access”
America’s national forests belong to everyone, and all Americans deserve and rightfully demand access to this national birthright. Such access is like oxygen for hunters and anglers, but beware: Industry barracudas and their pals in Congress are trying to hoodwink sportsmen into supporting bad legislation by promising more lenient access. Today’s case in point is […]
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Survival of the worthless
I recently flew from my home in southern Oregon to Denver, giving me the opportunity to reflect on the fate of Western landscapes. As we took off from the Medford airport, it was easy to see how the neat pear orchards and vineyards of my compact valley are increasingly hemmed in by subdivisions. But we […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2011: For the love of hummers
How I survive scorching Phoenix summers
Every summer in Phoenix, I picture people in the rest of the country riding bikes through fields of purple flowers, picnicking in parks and strolling down leafy streets. I picture them summering, while I am simmering, trying not to melt. When I step out of my house, I’m hit with a wall of scorching gas, […]
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Big Sky swipe
Montana has been lauded this year for its tourism campaign, which consists largely of plastering photos, buffalo-sized and beautiful, on things that are decidedly not beautiful: buses in New York City, trains in Chicago. This spring, the American Marketing Association awarded the Bozeman, Mont., company that developed the campaign an “Effie” – “Effie” being short […]
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The monastery of pure landscape
Years ago, I overheard some German motorists talking in the visitor center in Moab: “Yah, zis is ze first time ve are traveling in pure landscape!” Because I’d been to Germany as a high school student, I knew what they meant — no manicured fields and forests, few fences, human settlements few and far between, […]
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Save the land by saving the rancher
The behavior of Congress might seem unusually erratic, but one thing can be confidently predicted: The Interior Appropriations bill for 2012 will contain the largest cuts in conservation funding in 40 years. Look for lots of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth in environmental circles. For many reasons, though, I see this as a godsend for […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
The casual violence of driving
Slow is not always beautiful, but it’s the best way to experience the West — for better or worse. When I’m cross-country bicycling, I’m out in the air where I can smell everything, including the road surface, petroleum exhaust and carrion, especially deer that have died after being hit by vehicles. Of course, roads are […]
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Just a few moments in Yellowstone
Early this summer, I went into the forest near Slough Creek Campground in Yellowstone National Park. Just out of sight of the last campsite, it felt very secluded. I set my folding chair on some flat ground next to a couple of dried buffalo flops and sat there, alone, for an hour or more. Nothing […]
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Billboard battles don’t help much
About a year ago, in northeast Oregon, someone shot one of the wolves that ran with the Wenaha Pack. A few months later, the poacher had not yet been caught, and the case was getting cold. To revive interest, conservation groups raised $10,000 for a reward and rented space on a billboard just outside of […]
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The light is changing… summer is ending
Suddenly it’s the end of August, and everything is different: The light has started to tilt and deepen, and the landscape has that burnished look, as if it’s been drenched in honey and ripened by sun. The world seems balanced; we stand at the brink of September, at the edge of the turn of the […]
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The real side effect of medical marijuana
My father died from an addiction to a dangerous drug when I was 13. The pushers who sold it to him remain in business, and the federal and state governments seem to like that fact. I’m not bitter, but whenever I hear the arguments against medical marijuana in Western states, I’m struck by the hypocrisy. […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
River rafting — no car required
One reason I live in the West is that taking a car or plane to enjoy nature always struck me as paradoxical. How can a hiker, biker, skier or camper claim to “leave no trace” when his or her carbon footprint exceeds Bigfoot’s by several orders of magnitude? No, I said, let the Sherpas summit […]
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Great hope, great fear
Last month, three little girls, ages 8, 5 and 2, and their mother, were killed in a Wyoming flash flood that washed away their van. It was the kind of torrential downpour climatologists predict will increase as the planet warms. Their father survived. He alone can speak of the horror of trying to save his […]
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Hats off for a grand American senator, Mark O. Hatfield, 1922-2011
Some people called former Oregon Sen. Mark Hatfield, who died Aug. 7 at age 89, “Saint Mark,” for his outspoken Christian faith and his teetotaling habit. Mark O. Hatfield was a man of integrity, but a saint he wasn’t — and thank goodness for that. He was the kind of leader many of us wish […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Adventuring on Colorado’s big peaks
I rank them by altitude and tackle them one set at a time: the 200 highest, then the tricentennials. I’m told I was the first woman to climb Colorado’s 100 highest peaks; mathematical precision makes the task seem manageable. There are 638 mountains in the Colorado Rockies over 13,000 feet high. I’d climb them all, […]
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Food safety is a matter of power
In Venice, Calif., the Rawesome raw-food club was raided Aug. 3 by armed federal and county agents who arrested a volunteer and seized computers, files, cash and $70,000 worth of perishable produce. Club founder and manager James Stewart, 64, was charged with 13 counts, 12 of them related to the processing and sale of unpasteurized […]
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Live and let live
Lion attacks have been in the news lately, but there’s one story I’ll never forget. It was in the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner last year, and featured a hunter who’d shot an “angry” mountain lion while out hunting mule deer. Investigators from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources determined that the hunter had acted in self-defense […]