Writers on the Range
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,...
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...
Fear and the depleted Colorado River
Some Colorado River tribulations today remind me of a folk story: A young man went to visit his fiancée and found the family trembling...
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 West badly needs a restoration economy
Farmington, a city of 45,000 in the northwestern corner of New Mexico, has run on a fossil fuel economy for a century. It is...
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 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...
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...
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...
Atmospheric rivers endanger the West
Moab, Utah, gets just eight inches of rain per year, yet rainwater flooded John Weisheit’s basement last summer. Extremes are common in a desert:...
Colorado is conflicted about cutting its water use
In Colorado, farmers were required to enroll in a four-state program by March 1 if they want to get paid for fallowing their fields,...
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...
