Soon after learning I was less than nine months away from becoming a first-time father, I experienced an unexpected sense of déjà vu. The baby was coming whether or not the room was painted or anything else was ready. That feeling of being hitched to a biological clock that stops for no one is a […]
Opinion
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Graffiti is destroying our national landmarks. I’m on a mission to stop it.
The Coconino sandstone at Grand Canyon means many things to many people. To the hiker, it indicates that he or she is almost at the top. To the artist, it is a graceful sweep of sculptured stone, and to the geologist, it evokes the trade winds blowing across Aeolian dunes 265 million years ago. But […]
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Tiny houses won’t solve our affordable housing problem
In Salida, Colorado, little homes come with a big price tag.
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The neglected history that began in the Utah desert
Last year we observed the 70th anniversary of our atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Back then, we were told that the A-bomb shortened the war and saved lives. Americans are still told that, though the truth of this is questionable. What most of us don’t remember – or more likely never knew – is […]
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Wolves are already headed for Colorado. Let’s make it official.
The official reintroduction of a breeding pair could help ecosystems and prevent conflict.
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Ranch Diaries: The anti-ranching, misinformed discourse around Malheur
The federal grazing system doesn’t support good management.
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COP21: Let us celebrate the lack of total failure
The Paris agreement won’t end climate change. But it’s a long awaited step forward.
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Five lessons for Indian Country from the Canadian elections
A record 54 indigenous candidates ran in this election, but still occupy just three percent of the House of Commons.
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Congress should appoint delegates to represent tribal nations
Why indigenous voices are needed to make U.S. a better democracy.
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Freeway closure by flash flood should teach us a lesson
Is it time to diversify the West’s transportation options?
Posted inApril 27, 2015: Lost frontier
Westerners need to stand up for public lands
As Google Earth flies, it’s five miles and change from the Echo Lake Café in the Flathead Valley, one of Montana’s great little restaurants, up to a parking area at a trailhead that leads to Jewel Basin. Down here in the valley, we’re at 3,000 feet. Up where the gravel road dead-ends, you’re looking at […]
Posted inApril 27, 2015: Lost frontier
Wyoming tough?
A recent article in Time magazine reported that the best place to be an old person is a city, primarily because of easy access to health care. If Time’s experts on aging are correct, those of us who choose to live in remote Western places will feel increasing pressure to urbanize, abandoning the landscapes that […]
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A Latino sportsman talks with the BLM’s Utah director
Juan Palma discusses states’ rights, landscape-scale planning and how personal history affects public decisions.
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Ghost subdivisions haunt the New West
On a gusty and overcast, chilly afternoon, the writer Samuel Western and I decide to tour a housing development in Wyoming called the B.B. Brooks Ranch. It’s a 41,000-acre subdivision with hundreds of available lots – most of them 40 acres in size – in a lattice of largely ungraded dirt roads. Platted lots are […]
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A street-smart chicken for your backyard
There are many ways backyard hens can die. If you raise them long enough, you’ll see your share. But buff Orpington chickens tend to be survivors. My first clue to their talent for living came when a Siberian husky sneaked into my backyard. A more efficient chicken-killing machine does not exist. The wolfish canine […]
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Forest Service is still in search of a mission
Perhaps Ken Burns had the right idea when he named his public-television series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Even though I worked for the Forest Service for 34 years, I’m inclined to agree with him about the importance of our nation’s parks. But the national forests are surely our second-best idea, a priceless asset […]
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At Hart Mountain, the land came back
Cattle are hard on streams. There’s no getting around it. They’re large creatures, they travel in big herds unlike native ungulates such as mule deer and pronghorn, and they love to hang out in streambeds where the living is easy, with plentiful water to drink and delicate plants to munch on. The damage they do […]
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Cloud seeding is still a work in progress
Wyoming just spent $14 million and the better part of 10 years on a rigorous scientific experiment to evaluate whether it’s possible to get extra snow from winter storm clouds through cloud seeding. The conclusion? The final results were thin: There was a 3 percent increase in precipitation, but a 28 percent probability that the […]
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Change in the air
I didn’t expect change to come from the air — not the kind of change that transforms the essence of a quiet place. I assumed the biggest risk of life-altering change would most likely come from wildfire. I watch smoke plumes erupt every year from this high ridge in central Colorado, overlooking the southwest flank […]