Urban-rural divide is alive and well

“The annual Western Stock Show puts cowboy hats in high-end restaurants and strip joints alike.”
Photograph by Allen Best, outside of Akron, CO
MoreAn isolated area gets the vaccine job done

“The two small counties, including the indigenous community of the Southern Ute Nation, were ready when 4,000 of those doses—10% of the state’s total—arrived.”
Photograph by Fadil Fauzi, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreDying for powder

“I don’t know anyone who’s stood at the top of a slope and thought, ‘Well, this could kill me, but it’s going to be epic powder skiing!’”
Photograph by Jan Kronies, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreWe can act now to fight wildfires

“In 2020, the highest we got to anywhere, was a D2 — Severe Drought. Now we are looking at D3 — D4 — Extreme and Exceptional Drought across much of the West and almost all of the Southwest.”
Cameron Peak Fire, Near Red Feather Lakes, Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forest, Colorado – 2020 Image courtesy of Harrison Raine
MoreAn Idaho congressman aims to dump dams

Rep. Mike Simpson is a conservative Republican from Idaho whose concept of wildness in the 1990s was going into the…
Photograph courtesy of Rocky Barker
MorePumping iron became my armor

“Within two months I was getting muscles. I have never been harassed since.”
Photograph of Crista Worth in competition shape, courtesy of Crista Worthy
MoreSometimes, poison is the only thing that works

The ashy storm-petrel, threatened by mice on the Farallon Islands.
Photograph courtesy of Ted Williams
MoreThe West badly needs a restoration economy

“Restoration work is not fixing beautiful machinery … It is accepting an abandoned responsibility,”
Photograph courtesy of Allan Nash, open pit coal mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin
MoreBillionaire mine owner leaves a tiny town in the lurch

“..a visitor to the town notices abandoned cars parked willy-nilly and piles of junk that look as old as the town itself. “
Photograph Courtesy of Somerset Water District website
More“Gun nut” has a warning

“The so-called patriots of today risk the very rights they’ve pledged to uphold with their lives.”
Image courtesy of STNGR industries
More“Look at me” culture leaves too many marks

“The pioneers endured drought, famine, disease, and death in order to reach the West and scratch their names on the wall.”
Photograph by Lloyd Bunk, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreConservative Republican has a personal mission

“I’m living proof of why people should not trust their government with the death penalty”
Photograph by Damir Spanic, courtesy of Unsplash
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