Writers on the Range
Gun nut has a warning
When I was a young man growing up in rural Oregon, there was a term for people like me: “gun nut.”
By my 20s I...
Restoring the land can feel like a lot of fun
Driving back to Colorado State University with a van full of students after a day of work- ing to heal some beat-up land north...
The Colorado River is sending a message
It feels like an apocalypse in the Southwest — wildfires, floods, drought, heat, smoke. This was not the norm when I moved to Colorado...
Old bones can be a small town’s movie stars
The prehistoric past can perk up the present. When woolly mammoth bones were found in my hometown in Wisconsin years ago, they became the...
Wildlife watching has been getting a free ride
There’s a new initiative in Wyoming that’s changing the face of wildlife conservation funding, and it’s already seen huge success in its first year.
It’s...
The ‘energy gap’ nobody wants to tussle with
Many Western states have declared they will achieve all-renewable electrical goals in just two decades. Call me naïve, but haven’t energy experts predicted that...
A dogged reporter covers our roiling world
Usually seen with a camera slung around his neck, Allen Best edits a one-man online journalism shop he calls Big Pivots. Its beat is...
Fired up
At any given moment during this smoky summer of 2023, hundreds of wildfires were blazing in the United States — more than 850 as...
The West is an exploiter’s paradise
High on a mesa where everyone can see it, a trophy house is going up in the northern Colorado valley where I live. Some...
Let’s tell the truth about those big, bad wolves
The return of wolves to the West has always been contentious, and the deaths last fall of more than 40 cattle in western Colorado...
It all began with pizza
In the mid-1960s, my dad served on the school board in Cortez, in rural southern Colorado. He recalled that at one meeting he said...
As Lake Powell dwindles, wonders open up
On May 9, protected by neoprene, I bobbed around in a flooded canyon in Utah’s Lake Powell. The reservoir had fallen below 35% full,...
