Getting air, losing a ski. Photo taken at the opening of Sun Valley's new terrain park by Nils Ribi. Read more about the terrain park on Ribi's blog.

See more photos on the New West Images photoblog.

New West Book Review

David Mas Masumoto Pays the Price for Perfect Peaches

Wisdom of the Last Farmer
by David Mas Masumoto
Simon & Schuster, 238 pages, $25

David Mas Masumoto‘s Wisdom of the Last Farmer will make you want to go out and pay a farmer more than the asking price for his produce at a market.  Masumoto grows organic peaches, nectarines, and grapes on his farm in California’s central valley, carrying on in the tradition of his family.  His grandparents emigrated from Japan over a hundred years ago with the dream of buying land.  Because they weren’t native born Americans, laws forbade them from purchasing land, so instead they worked in other people’s fields and suffered through internment in the Arizona desert during World War II.  But they persevered and eventually their sons established the 80-acre farm that Masumoto now runs with his wife and children. 

Masumoto is on a mission to preserve flavorful heirloom peaches that his family has grown for decades, varieties most farmers have abandoned because of supermarkets’ demands for harder, redder peaches with longer shelf life and transport durability.  Masumoto wants people to experience the “Sun Crest peach, a fat and juicy gem with a stunning, honeyed flavor.” If people could try it, he thinks, they probably wouldn’t settle for the fruit that’s sold as peaches today.

In Wisdom of the Last Farmer, Masumoto, a columnist for the Fresno Bee and the award-winning author of several previous books, discusses his father’s decline in the wake of a stroke, and how their hard work in pursuit of a perfect peach breaks their bodies and spirits down.  “Organic farming is not simple or easy,” Masumoto writes.  “It’s easy to want to be environmentally responsible, but it’s a damned hard thing to achieve.  I cannot replace tedious labor with faster technology or equipment when things go wrong.”

David Mas Masumoto will be in Utah to present his book in Salt Lake City at the King’s English Bookshop on Thursday, October 22 (5:30 p.m.).  On October 23 and 24, he will participate in the Moab Confluence “Eating the West” literary festival, and on October 25 he will visit Denver’s Tattered Cover (Colfax, 2 p.m.) as a part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library reading series.

Holy Frappuccino!

Downtown Missoula Starbucks Grinding to a Halt

Here's the skinny: the Starbucks coffee shop in downtown Missoula is slated to close. The three-year-old business in the Trailhead building is the only one of the five Starbucks in the area that will shutter its doors owing to the global financial slowdown, which (apparently) no amount of caffeine has been able to cure. Last summer the company announced it would close more than 600 stores in the U.S.; this winter, it announced it would close an additional 300 locales in the U.S. and abroad, due to lackluster performance.

Understanding the land you live on

A Sense of Place: Microclimates in Your Backyard

In the Intermountain West climate varies – by elevation, aspect, within valleys and even within backyards.

In natural landscapes, the varieties of plants (and where they grow) offer clues to microclimates. But man-made landscapes (like wheat fields and blue grass lawns) “mask” the diversity of climate within. The mask leads landowners to assume that the climate on their property is all the same. They discover their mistake when their plantings fail.

Natural features like elevation, aspect, and wind affect local climate, and therefore your backyard is a microclimate.

guest column

Building a New and Sustainable Residential Model

About a year ago, a client of mine came to me and asked me to design a house that would have no energy bill -- a "Net Zero House," producing as much energy as it used. During the same year, I found that my energy bill for my own house was beginning to become much more of a burden on our family budget. These two events led me to research energy costs and how those costs are impacting the average American household. It was immediately clear from the research that energy prices are outpacing income and our current way of building houses will create energy bills that will not be sustainable for the average household.

NewWest.Net Conferences

Designing the New West

The Designing the New West: Architecture and Landscape in the Mountain West Conference is wrapping up here in Bozeman at the historic Gallatin Gateway Inn. Put on by NewWest.Net and sponsored by the Sonoran Institute, the conference brought together designers from all over the country to explore innovative design ideas, identify best practices, and better understand how to bridge the gap between good architectural theory and sometimes-messy building practices in the fastest growing region in the nation.

A mix of presentations and engaging panel discussions tackled pressing Western issues like sustainable development, land design and the special challenges of urban, rural and resort design, historic preservation and affordable housing.

Click on the photo or here for a slideshow of the days' events. Click "more" for a recap of the conference.

Yoga On & Off the Mat

Lessons from Lino

Last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Rome’s Lino Miele at a workshop in Bozeman, Montana. Lino is a senior Ashtanga yoga teacher who has been studying the practice for more than 20 years—yet you wouldn’t know it at first glance. He’s as humble as a novice and as excited about the practice as if it were a recent discovery.

The following highlights, based around his teaching of the Full Vinyasa System, can inform and lend context to all students of yoga, Ashtanga or otherwise.

Missoula Notebook

Going to the Dogs in Missoula

I don’t know why so many dog owners believe that leash laws apply only to someone else, although I guess most of us have at least a law or two we choose to disregard, even if it’s only a speed limit. Arguably one good reason to disobey leash laws is to be able to give your dog more exercise than you’d otherwise have time for, if you don’t live next door to Jacobs Island Park, although another way of looking at this situation would be that, if you don’t have time to drive to Jacobs Island Park on a regular basis, maybe you don’t have time to own a dog.

Yoga On & Off the Mat

Setting the Stage for a Home Practice

Considering last week’s “Inspiring Reasons to Practice Yoga at Home,” it’s fair to say that a personal practice is worth exploring. Rolling out your mat at home, on your own schedule and in a way that supports your body/mind, bolsters all aspects of your yoga practice.

Now, it’s just a matter of preparing a place.

Yoga On & Off the Mat

Inspiring Reasons to Practice Yoga at Home

I cherish my home practice. My body, my energy, my wall clock call the shots. Also, at home the teacher-student ratio shifts, and my monkey mind and body become my primary instructors. Sure, it shouldn’t take a home practice to fully focus on how I feel, but in a studio—where collective energy is paramount and wonderfully powerful—breath and body may move in ways other than what comes most naturally. Other than what flows when I’m flying solo.

With that, I deem a home practice a good, no great, idea because...