High Country News - Writers on the Range

How wild is a managed wolf?

George Sibley — 2009-11-18T16:06:04Z

In an age when wolves are radio-collared and tracked everywhere they go, can they still be considered wild animals?

Stopping by apples in the land of condos

Joanne Wilke — 2009-11-19T17:14:21Z

The small courtesies of gleaning urban fruit.

Advice from the Loser School of Hunting

Ari LeVaux — 2009-11-12T21:03:58Z

Even a poor student gets a second chance in the Loser School of Hunting, where if at first you don’t succeed, you try, and try again.

Mystery unsolved -- and that's a good thing

Jeff Osgood — 2009-11-12T20:38:32Z

The recent discovery that bones found in the Southwest did not belong to the long-lost poet-wanderer Everett Ruess keeps one more evocative Western mystery alive.

Climate change threatens our livelihoods -- and yours

Steve Rendle and Mike Kaplan — 2009-11-11T17:03:48Z

The CEOs of two outdoor-recreation-based companies favor strong legislation to stave off climate change, not just to save the planet but to help the economy.

Confessions of an off-road outlaw

Garrett VeneKlasen — 2009-11-10T22:50:10Z

A hunter who once tore through the woods on his ORV rethinks his ways after he realizes that he’s scaring off wildlife

On the road in lonely Wyoming

Sharon O'Toole — 2009-11-03T15:43:36Z

A late-night encounter with a cop on a lonely Wyoming highway is a quintessentially Western experience.

Phosphate mining: a toxic tradition

Jeff Welsch — 2009-11-03T15:47:13Z

Simplot plans for a phosphate mine in southeast Idaho endanger a family's ranching lifestyle.

Polygamy tours? Why not?

Beth Kampschror — 2009-10-29T15:06:38Z

For $69, two former "polygs" will guide you through fundamentalist towns on the Utah border.

Whose sovereignty is it?

Jonathan Thompson — 2009-10-28T15:09:20Z

The Hopi and Navajo governments have played the tired old card of locals vs. environmentalists. They got it wrong.

Socialism and the West

Ed Quillen — 2009-10-22T13:48:20Z

Despite our reflexive fear of the word "socialism," the West was built on subsidized government efforts.

Some people just don't get it

Bob Sawatzki — 2009-10-22T15:45:31Z

After a car accident, the author gave up driving and joyfully turned to bicycling everywhere instead.

Stubbornness and the art of riding a bicycle

Rob Pudim — 2009-10-27T22:19:51Z

Bike helmets are unbelievably ugly and dorky-looking, but after a few close encounters with pavement, you realize it’s a good idea to wear one.

The war between bicyclists and motorists

Bill Schneider — 2009-10-22T12:10:52Z

Only in America do drivers seem to regard bicyclists with such implacable hostility.

Aldo Leopold might call it the new agrarianism

Courtney White — 2009-10-15T15:42:54Z

Aldo Leopold advocated many conservation methods, but perhaps most important, he advocated a land ethic.