I’m concerned about HCN running a 10-page comic book as the cover story in the magazine (“Nizhóní Girls”). I have nothing against comic books. When I was a kid, I enjoyed the debut of Spider-Man in 1963. As a young man, I enjoyed the revolutionary underground comic books of the late 1960s and 1970s, such […]
Ray Ring
Posted inArticles
Bipartisan weather emerges in the Northern Rockies
Blustery winds that tear at your exposed skin and clothing day after day, keeping you on edge. Outbursts of bone-rattling thunder and lightning strikes on top of you, followed by pounding rain and barrages of hailstones that force everyone to scurry for cover. Mud galore. But occasionally, through magical openings in the clouds, sunlight beams […]
Posted inArticles
We can do our part to defuse the West
The following is just a sample of what public-land managers have encountered while on the job in the last few years: On a dirt road in Arizona, a man who was paranoid about the federal government aimed a rifle at federal rangers and opened fire. In California, a shooter targeted a firefighter in a national […]
Posted inArticles
The BLM fails to provide public records
The agency’s main Freedom of Information Act office appears incompetent or overworked.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Defuse the West
Public-land employees are easy targets for a violent, government-hating fringe.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Reports from the front lines
Excerpts from official accounts of threats against U.S. Forest Service and BLM employees.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Bowden the half-mad hiker
The iconic Southwest writer brought minimal gear but loads of reading material on the trail.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Adiós Charles Bowden
The writer passed away in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Aug. 30.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Bowden the half-mad hiker
The iconic Southwest writer brought minimal gear but loads of reading material on the trail.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Adiós Charles Bowden
The writer passed away in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Aug. 30.
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Taking the romance out of farming
(This editor’s note accompanies an HCN magazine cover story headlined: Idaho’s sewer system is the Snake River.) When I was a boy in the Midwest in the 1950s, I liked to walk through the corn fields in late summer. I could disappear deep in the thickets of green stalks that were taller than I was, […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Border out of control
National security runs roughshod over the Arizona wild.
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Remembering Cecil Garland
Forty-nine years ago, a Lincoln, Montana, hardware-store owner spread maps of the nearby national forest on his kitchen table. A self-educated migrant from North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains, he liked to hunt elk in a backcountry area where the Forest Service wanted to build roads, logging areas and campsites. He drew a line around the […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Native American tourism quietly thrives
Even the customers seem to emerge from thin air.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Adventure travel vs. conservation
A conversation with outdoor entrepreneur Bill Bryan.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Strange little museums and zoos enliven the region
British ColumbiaAs you wander the West, keep an eye out for the tiniest, quirkiest museums and zoos tucked in unexpected and obscure spaces. They often provide outsized amusement and – fair to say – unrivaled learning experiences. You can see, for instance, “Canada’s largest ant farm,” along with hulking tarantulas, Malaysian rainbow frog beetles and […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
A brave and unusual conservationist turns 90
Ninety years ago, on April 12, 1924, Tom Bell was born in a house owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, in Winton, Wyo., a coal-mining camp. It was an inauspicious but appropriate beginning for the guy who would start both High Country News and Wyoming’s largest conservation group. Tom’s father, Lafe Bell, worked in the […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Savoring the horror stories
(This is the editor’s note for an April 2014 special issue of the HCN magazine devoted to travel in the West.) I’ll never forget the time I was hiking with my five-months-pregnant wife in Bryce Canyon National Park in remote rural Utah. An unexpected November snowstorm hit us, and Linda slipped on an icy path, […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Best place to see a crowd of grizzlies
A few tourists get close to amazing numbers of bears catching salmon at Alaska’s McNeil River Falls.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
How to travel the West on $5,000 per day
(NOTE this is part of the April 2014 special issue of the HCN magazine devoted to travel in the West.) Hermès Hiking BootsThe Paris company offers a “low boot in black oily calfskin” with a “palladium plated Albion buckle, orange lining … double leather sole and lugged rubber sole, water-resistant.” The Wall Street Journal praises […]