As poetry students at a California university, my friend Merie and I walked to class along the beach. We often paused to examine dead seagulls, whose glazed eyes and tar-matted feathers we described in our would-be avant-garde verse. Somehow we never questioned where the birds came from or even why they were dead. Twenty years […]
Recreation
Posted inGoat
TBD stands for…
…Texas Billionaire Developer. Ray Ring’s January essay told the tale of one Texas billionaire you shouldn’t trust. Well, here’s another to watch out for. His name is Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, and he might try to develop a place that’s near and dear to you! McCombs is the founder of one of the world’s largest […]
Posted inWotr
Out of the nest and into a tent
I don’t have a house. It wasn’t lost to foreclosure or auctioned by the bank; I have simply never owned one. As a recent college graduate, I am just now learning to pay rent, utilities and my gym membership every month, while trying to find a job that will cover my medical expenses if I […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2009: Non-navigable River Blues
Political guns
Wyoming calls the shots on a pass in Yellowstone National Park
Posted inWotr
Thinking green in the midst of winter
Gardening season starts when you open your first seed catalog in the dead of winter, and it doesn’t end until you’ve dug up the last carrot, plucked the final Brussels sprout or eaten your last pickled pepper of the season. The rewards of gardening begin the minute you open that catalog — long before you […]
Posted inWotr
A tale of heartbreakin’ and asskickin’
He loved Silas. Then she kicked the tar out of him.
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Methow Homecoming
Whenever I have few days to spare, I like to toss a sleeping bag and a fly rod and a few books into the back seat of my car and drive east, toward the mountains. It takes some time to shake free of the gravity of Seattle’s traffic, but once the strip malls start to […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Night: not just for astronomers
Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the DarkEdited by Paul Bogard208 pages, softcover: $21.95.University of Nevada Press, 2008. Many of us in the rural West still get to enjoy dark skies and bright stars, but in urban areas around the world, night is not as black as it once was. Paul Bogard has […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Outdoor slacking still takes work
Back-of-the-beyond recreation was recently celebrated by a magazine called InsideOutside in its 10-year anniversary issue. The southwestern Colorado publication featured dozens of grassroots writers who shared stories about how they worked as little as possible in order to ski, snowboard, hike, fish, hunt, bike, climb or otherwise hang out. But as Luke Auld-Thomas recalled, living […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
A new definition of pluck
A woman in Prescott, Ariz., deserves a prize for pluck: She ran a mile with a fox firmly fastened to her arm. The fox had run out and bitten the jogger in the foot, reports the Associated Press, and when the woman grabbed it by the neck, it squirmed and bit her arm. Wanting the […]
Posted inAugust 11, 2008: Trouble in (Private) Paradise
An unlikely Shangri-la
Little room is left for new development at the West’s established resort towns, so entrepreneurs are turning second-tier ski hills into private enclaves for the jet set. But will the new resorts fly?
Posted inWotr
Off-roaders drive closer to the Grand Canyon
Part of the pride in putting on the iconic flat hat and the green and grey National Park Service uniform is knowing you work for an organization that tries to protect some of the most beautiful and historic places in the world. After serving the National Park Service for 32 years — the last nine […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Got a license for those antlers?
As with all issues related to the marketing of wild animal products, horn hunting needs regulation as strict and enforceable as anything on the books for any hunting (HCN, 6/23/08). Whenever the convergence of wildlife and man create a market for wildlife products, greed inevitably takes hold, and what was a pastime turns into a […]
Posted inGoat
Utah fishermen no longer required to levitate
In Utah, as in many states, the public has a right to use the water in rivers for recreation. But the land underneath the state’s rivers is often privately owned. So what happens when someone touches the bottom? The question floated all the way to the Utah Supreme Court thanks to Kevin and Jodi Conatser, […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Survival and the fittest
What is an ultramarathon, anyway? Any race longer than 26.2 miles, the length of a traditional marathon. On ultramarathon-induced vomiting “Yes, that happens. Yes, it’s hard. But, it’s extreme. I mean, that’s the point.” Major wins in 2007 Western States Endurance Run (her third victory); Tour de Mont Blanc 100-miler (set new women’s course record); […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Solo journeys, life lessons
The nine essays in Mary Beath’s new book celebrate nature from the viewpoint of an “independent woman pursuing adventures that include self-exploration.” An avid hiker, the artist and award-winning poet moved to New Mexico from New York almost 20 years ago. Her title piece sums up this collection’s recurring theme: the risks and rewards of […]
Posted inArticles
Don’t trash Joshua Tree National Park
Which word doesn’t belong with “national park?” Wildflowers, wildlife, hiking, night sky, garbage dump? No doubt you answered “garbage dump,” yet the biggest landfill in the United States may be developed right next to California’s Joshua Tree National Park. Fortunately, a lawsuit filed by the National Parks Conservation Association and others is trying to halt […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Words that mountains speak
In the 18th century, when the Romantics looked up at the mountains of Europe, instead of seeing what their predecessors saw – foreboding rocky obstacles to human advance – they saw sublime peaks. Rather than fear, they felt wonder and desire. In a swift shift of perception, they re-wrote European attitudes towards mountains, initiating the […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Rolling on the rivers
In Adios Amigos: Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West, Page Stegner revels in striking juxtapositions: the fragile beauty of rivers contrasted with their staggering power to destroy; people working to preserve forests and wildlife alongside a younger generation bent on using nature for self-serving purposes. This absorbing collection of essays stems from […]