Guest Opinion
Has David Slain Goliath Again?
Right in the midst of their battle against ExxonMobil, residents along Idaho’s Highway 12 received an email from an unlikely but eminently appropriate source. An Israeli activist fighting gas exploration in the Elah Valley found their website, FightingGoliath.org, and wished them well in their struggle.
The Elah Valley was the site of the famous duel between a young shepherd boy and a giant warrior 3,000 years ago. Visitors can stay walk along the brook where David chose five smooth stones for his trusty slingshot.
Outdoors Gear
The Western Adventure Goes Soft and Rugged
Seven a.m. came three hours too early. I did my best to rally, though, and slipped into the Outdoor Retailer Industry breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Shhhh.
The event kicked off the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2011 trade show Aug. 3-7 in Salt Lake City, where manufacturers displayed next year’s gear for retail buyers.
High Country News Post
Montana Fly Shops Welcome New Customers: Hair Stylists
Despite their reputation as hangouts for brawny hook and bullet types, fly-fishing shops--particularly the fly-tying sections--have always been a tad swishy. No matter how you slice it, scores of straight-faced men poking through purple Krystal Flash and pearl Flashabou or inquiring about the next shipment of pink chenille isn’t exactly manly.
But a recent women’s hairstyle trend has upped fly-fishing’s “fabulous” factor another notch: rooster feather hair extensions. According a recent NPR story, the trend originated at western music festivals like Burning Man and Sasquatch, but has since spread to various pop celebrities, most visibly, “American Idol” judge and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler.
And while some fly tiers decry the increased competition--and higher prices--for their materials, a few fly shop owners are happy to see a boom in business.
The New West Festival in May brought together an eclectic group of Rocky Mountain enthusiasts and entrepreneurs who examined the quality of life, work and play in the region. From an opening keynote about climate change, with practical solutions for reducing carbon footprints, to a closing session about entrepreneurism and the funding of new businesses, the day was packed with interesting ideas for personal and professional growth.
New West Series
Coming Home: It’s About the People
I was a young and naïve adventurer when I first left Montana for the Big City years ago. I was afraid but I was much more curious, and it didn’t take much encouragement for one summer internship at San Francisco Magazine to turn into a professional life spending more than two decades away. During those years, I lived in two major cities (San Francisco, San Diego), a few storied towns/suburbs (Tiburon, Sausalito, Los Gatos, La Jolla), one house, many apartments and a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains. I had a few roommates, male and female, and I finally found happiness living alone with cats. (Lots of city people find happiness living alone with cats: epic and/or epidemic, you be the judge.)
Through it all, I missed my Rocky Mountain people.
It was an undercurrent, and the missing of them took many guises (denial among them), but the truth is that I always felt a little bit way down deep that I had run away from home. To some wonderful places, places with some wonderful people, no question about that, but it was always quite clear to me that I was not at home. While I was happy to tell people that I mostly lived in San Francisco, because it truly is a fantastic place to live, I always added a note: But I am originally from Montana.
New West Series
Coming Home: An Untied Tongue Returns to Montana
When I first moved back home to Montana last year, people encouraged me to write about the experience. A year later, I finally understand why I couldn’t do that at the time.
It has taken a full year – a cycle through four very distinct seasons – to combat the writer’s block that paralyzed me from this simple task. It’s a strange thing, this connection to the land that drew me home. It informs everything I think, and it informs everything I do. It has such a hold on me that it required a year of penitence (for ever leaving in the first place) before it loosened its grip and my pen. What I finally realized is that, in order to leave in the first place, I had to shut off a part of my spirit to find the courage to go.
But it has worked on me, this year and this land, and now my finally-addressed heartbreak of the first leaving, the first loss, so many years ago, has begun to heal. I am not sorry I left and yet I now understand the full toll that the leave-taking exacted on my psyche and my spirit.
