Wildfire
Season of the Match
Last spring and fall, the Colorado mountains were plagued by wildfires. They raged all over the state, popping up and spreading like—well, like wildfire.
On Oct. 30, one fire in particular started less than half a mile from my family’s house on the outskirts of Boulder, Colo. Early in the morning, a tiny, unnoticed spark leapt from an illegal campfire and quickly proceeded to engulf the hillsides above it.
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.
New West Feature
Cutthroat Habitat Faces Collapse
Climate change could reduce the habitat of cutthroat trout, a keystone species already under stress in the West, by as much as 58 percent over coming decades, according to a study published today. Meanwhile, long-term efforts have begun in Colorado to restore selected cutthroat habitats by eliminating other trout.
Today’s paper, in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also predicts that by 2080, rainbow trout, whose native habitat includes Idaho in the Rocky Mountain states, could be reduced by 35 percent. Two introduced trout species in the study will not do well, either: Brook trout habitat could decline by an estimated 77 percent, and brown trout by 48 percent.
Daily Yonder Column
Working to Do Farm Work
When we set out to start our farm, that laundry list of challenges facing beginning farmers we’d been hearing so much about became our reality. After years of studying and planning this life in theory, we got to live it.
Access to land was our first hurdle. But we found a landowner willing to give us an affordable lease and we leapt.
[more]Guest Comment
Haze Be Gone
When I started researching regional haze rules a few months back, a source warned me that I was wading into the Clean Air Act’s wonkiest, most technically complicated depths. I remember her asking me something like, “Are you sure you want to go there?”
Which is to say, you’d be forgiven if you paid little attention to regional haze. Eyes tend to glaze over at mention of the term.
New West Feature
Huge Colorado Runoff Is Mostly a Blessing
As drought continues to hammer southern states—drying out Texas streams, lakes and water supplies—the only things empty in most Colorado rivers are the fishing nets.
“I haven’t seen water like this so late since my first year here in 1985,” said Thomas Schneider, owner of Boulder-based Sunrise Anglers, LLC. “I was guiding last weekend in the park (Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado) and I haven’t seen the Roaring River that high, ever.”
[more]Telluride Daily Planet Feature
Colorado Residents Chastise DOE over Uranium Plans
In its second public meeting reviewing uranium mining in southwestern Colorado this week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) received a sharp mandate from Telluride residents: any mining is too much, and its leasing program should be disbanded.
DOE is conducting a series of meetings to take the pulse of people in the Colorado towns of Telluride, Montrose, and Naturita, and in Monticello, Utah, concerning the federal program that leases land to mining companies.
[more]Summit Daily News Feature
Has the Beaver Become an Intruder?
It’s been said that the West as we think of it—the “fast-flowing streams and invitingly open banks, celebrated in photographs and songs and pickup truck commercials,” as Kevin Taylor wrote in 2009 in High Country News—is an illusion.
In Taylor’s article, the message of this illusion was preached by Grand Canyon Trust project manager Mary O’Brien, who said the species that could bring us back to a wetter landscape that existed before white settlers arrived.
New West Photo Essay
Photos: Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo
Here are some wild images from this year’s 115th annual Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo, which finished at the end of July.
SolveClimate News Feature
Carbon Storage Drilling Underway in Wyoming
On a mid-June afternoon in the dusty plains of southwest Wyoming, a team of oil drillers got the final thumbs-up to begin boring deep into the earth. By this week, they were more than 90 percent of the way to reaching their goal of drilling a test well 2.5 miles below the surface.
But this is not any old well.
[more]