When I first joined Wildland Restoration Volunteers, I had the naive idea that helping the environment was a lot like a blind date: You get together and hope you click. Some of the projects were just like that: We’d carry tools in, rebuild a trail so it no longer interfered with endangered plants, and go […]
Writers on the Range
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Can Eugene, Oregon become a haven for startups?
This May, 30 game developers were laid off at the Zynga videogame company office in Eugene, Oregon. But soon after, Joe Maruschak spoke at the Barn Light coffee shop on how to launch a startup business. Game developers crowded around the tables. Maruschak, chief startup officer at Eugene’s Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network, encouraged the […]
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Why Jim Unger came West: a Yellowstone love affair
There are tourists, and then there’s Jim Unger, a Pennsylvania resident who headed out this summer on his 41st pilgrimage to some of the places that have become his second home — the national parks, monuments and historic sites of the West. It all started in 1971, when Jim and his wife, Sandy, both elementary […]
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Endurance runners in the Grand Canyon are missing the point
When I was 18, back in the swinging ’60s, I ran with equally driven friends through the Grand Canyon, going from the North Rim to the South Rim in a single day. Our trek involved traversing the 14-mile North Kaibab trail, the 7-mile South Kaibab Trail and the Old Bright Angel Trail, 14 miles of […]
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How to drought-proof California’s farms
Three years into its most severe drought in over a thousand years, it’s unclear how much longer California can continue growing half of the nation’s produce. The crisis confronting Big Ag and family farmers alike may signal the end of agriculture as it’s currently practiced. But it need not spell doom for farming altogether: On […]
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For Dinosaur National Monument’s 100th birthday, let’s protect more land
We launched our rafts on Colorado’s Yampa River at Deerlodge Park, and ran Little Joe and Big Joe Rapids. On the second afternoon, we pulled into Mathers Hole Camp under an overhung cliff wall that towered 500 feet above us. As I set up my tent, I thought about the 100th birthday of Dinosaur National […]
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Sage grouse decision demonstrates clout of the Endangered Species Act
On Sept. 22, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a landmark decision, declaring that the greater sage grouse, that icon of the Western High Plains, does not warrant federal protection. The chicken-sized bird’s numbers have dwindled from a historic high of perhaps 16 million to about 400,000, as its sagebrush range has been transformed […]
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A dog comes face to face with the Wild West
This June, I attended my first snake class. It was not a tutorial on snake charming, but rather a training session designed to teach dogs to avoid rattlesnakes. Classes like this take place in many Western states where rattlesnakes slither – from California to Idaho to the Front Range of Colorado, where I live. My […]
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Extinction is taking its course underwater
As children, most of us learned about the passenger pigeons, whose huge flocks darkened America’s skies before they became extinct a century ago. Another lesson came from the buffalo that we did our best to eradicate from the Great Plains. Less understood is what goes on underwater in our lakes, rivers and streams. Now, a new report by Trout Unlimited shows disturbing parallels with […]
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Mountain bikes on the Colorado Trail leave something to be desired
This summer, I hiked approximately half of the Colorado Trail, from Waterton Canyon to Highway 50 near Salida, covering about 250 miles in 23 days. Overall, it was a good experience, though not a great one. Among the factors limiting my enjoyment were the many road crossings and noise from nearby cars, ATVs and – […]
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Drought on the Pacific Crest Trail offers harsh lessons
We had barely covered the first 10 miles of trail, hiking north from the California-Mexico border, when my hiking partner, Flash, and I found the first Pacific Crest Trail casualty. A man in his 20s, face flushed red from heat, watched us approach with clear embarrassment. He sat in a small patch of shade next […]
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Hydropower doesn’t need any more loopholes
A bill pending in the U.S. Senate would give the hydroelectric industry and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the kind of unconditional authority more akin to what the Robber Barons enjoyed in the late 1800s, than to what reasonable people might expect today. Consider the last time a plan like Senate Bill 1236 was hatched. […]
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A tense confrontation on a quiet Montana road
It’s one of those summer mornings in Montana when whatever compromises you’ve made in life seem totally worth it. The fields are deep green, the mountains still shine white, the rivers bump their banks, the sky is that unfathomable blue. Better yet, we’re driving in two cars to the put in for an early-season canoe […]
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Why I swam through Canyonlands: Fish can’t live where people can’t swim
Under a blue moon at the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, I was exhausted but exhilarated: I’d just completed the first swim of the Colorado River through Utah’s Canyonlands, starting at Moab and ending at this merging of two rivers, a distance of 47.5 miles. Time: 13 hours and 56 minutes. The swim […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2015: Unlocking the Methane Mystery
While the Animas River spill is eye-catching, Western rivers face an even bigger threat
If there’s any good news to be gained from the toxic spill of mine wastes into the Animas River upstream of Durango, Colorado, it’s that public attention has suddenly shifted to the health of rivers in the West. The 3-million-gallon accident riveted the media, even rating a story in England’s Guardian newspaper. Here at home, […]
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A Western lesson from Cecil the lion: trophy seekers aren’t hunters
Various news reports described Walter Palmer, the dentist who killed the legendary Zimbabwean lion called “Cecil,” as a “hunter.” But this man, who was only interested in capturing Cecil’s giant head for a wall mount, was no hunter, and it insults real hunters to call him one. Calling him a “sportsman” is more accurate. Edward […]
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Idaho and BLM flout conservation laws for fallen officers
On May 13, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the federal Bureau of Land Management tried to honor two fallen Idaho wildlife officers in a most unfortunate way: They did so by violating federal conservation laws. The story begins back in 1981, when two Idaho conservation officers, Bill Pogue and Conley Elms, were […]
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The nature of fire has dramatically changed
It’s time to move irrigation pipe. It’s one of those things you have to do when you have a certain amount of land and enough water to irrigate it. My knees hurt as I walk each piece of pipe over to the next dry spot. Here in central Oregon, it’s always a race with evaporation. […]
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Without national support, rural radio stations face an uncertain future
From a singlewide trailer perched atop a mesa south of Moab, Utah, KZMU community radio began broadcasting in 1992. It took nine years for the station to build a modest studio next door, but the station kept growing, and in 2008, KZMU erected a solar array to power its electrical needs. Now 23 years old, […]
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
How Utah benefits from the national parks it neglects
Sometimes you get your heart’s desire, and it’s too much. On May 23, the Utah Highway Patrol had to close the entrance to Arches National Park after traffic got backed up for five miles on the highway into nearby Moab. Southwest of Arches, Zion National Park and its gateway town of Springdale also suffer from […]