Writers on the Range
When a skunk goes after your garden
Skunks love autumn as our backyard gardens fill up with ripe vegetables. But in my northern New Mexico corn patch, that meant a determined...
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...
When no home is affordable, where do you live?
It’s a common story: Candace McNatt of Durango, in southern Colorado, kept losing bidding wars to buy a house. She finally settled on a...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
Who calls the shots on the Colorado River?
If there’s a dominant force in the Colorado River Basin these days, it’s the Walton Family Foundation, flush with close to $5 billion to...
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...
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...
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:...
