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For a dose of awe, visit Spiral Jetty

By Dennis Hinkamp

Whenever life becomes too turbulent, I like to visit Robert Smithson’s most famous work of art—Spiral Jetty. He completed it…

Spiral Jetty by Dennis Hinkamp

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Ted Turner leaves a legacy of protected land in the West

By Todd Wilkinson

Before he died at age 87 in early May, Ted Turner knew that stewardship of land would be his real…

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Congress is gunning for a national monument in Utah

By Scott Braden

In backcountry first aid, the rapid assessment of someone injured was for years summed up by the ABCs: check the…

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When snow runoff is low, so are our spirits

By Auden Schendler

At this time of year in Western Colorado, my friends and I watch rivers. We’re eagerly anticipating a bruising spring…

With fellow paddlers back in the day of heavy runoff, Auden Schendler, right, celebrates after running a river, courtesy Auden Schendler

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The West heads for wildfires unprepared

By David Calkin

The West is staring down a dangerous wildfire year. A dry winter and historically low snowpack have set the stage…

Calwood Fire outside Boulder Colorado, courtesy Malachi Brooks on Unsplash

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Planting one million trees to cool a desert city

By Karen Mockler

Tucson lies in the heart of the Sonoran Desert where summers are serious business. In 2024, a record-breaking 112 days…

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Dismantling the U.S. Forest Service harms public lands and communities

By Tracy Stone-Manning

When I led the Bureau of Land Management under President Biden, the hardest part of my job was reassembling the…

San Isabel National Forest, Nathrop, Colorado, Dave Marston photo

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Interior Secretary ramps up assault on public land

By Aaron Weiss

For the second consecutive year, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has proposed a budget that attempts to undermine the agencies that…

A young child waits to get through the line at Arches National Park, photo Dave Marston

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Jackson Hole novelist celebrated mountain-town eccentrics

By Angus M. Thuermer Jr.

Before Wyoming’s Jackson Hole valley became the province of the ultra-rich, it drew mountain athletes and outdoor enthusiasts enthralled by…

Teton Cyclery photo by Connie Wieneke

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Random murders unite a remote Utah county

By Stephen Trimble

If I look south from my living room in Torrey, Utah, I see the sandstone spine of the Cockscomb below…

The Cockscomb, where Linda Dewey and Natalie Graves planned to hike by Stephen Trimble

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The real reason ICE agents wear masks

By Benjamin Waddell

Under the Trump administration, agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, have been wearing masks while…

ICE vehicle, courtesy Colorado Rapid Reaponse network

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Bison need better treatment from Montana

By Tyson Running Wolf Tom France

In 1886, the last wild buffalo on the Great Plains was killed among the steep bluffs and badlands of central…

Bison, photo by Taylor Wright, courtesy of Unsplashjpg

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Larmer was the first editor of Writers on the Range after it landed at HCN in 1998, he went on to become publisher/editor of High Country News (HCN) 2003-2020, and is currently senior development director HCN. Larmer is also on the advisory board of Writers on the Range.

Writers on the Range grew out of the West’s public lands, growth, and culture wars of the 1990s. At the time, environmentalists were at loggerheads with the timber, mining, oil and gas and ranching industries that had dominated and shaped land-use and rural communities for decades. 

Meanwhile, a flood of newcomers poured into the region’s urban areas and smaller towns, stressing their social and economic fabrics beyond recognition. How could the West sort through these contentious issues in a civil manner?

The answer was to give voice to a wide range of people from the region itself.  Writers with different backgrounds, espousing new ideas, were put front and center on the region’s opinion pages.

After a brief run as a think tank, Writers on the Range landed on the front porch of High Country News in 1997.  High Country News is the well-known, highly awarded publication that covers the west’s diverse natural and human communities.  It was a perfect match.

Soon dozens of news outlets subscribed.  Over the next 20 years, Writers on the Range published fresh columns from writers and thinkers across the ideological spectrum, provoking thought, generating debate, and defining the possibilities of a better west.

 It was truly a grassroots opinion service and, now as an independent non-profit organization, is still so today.

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