How a controversial poison saved Utah Lake

Ninety-five-thousand-acre Utah Lake is a major water source for the Great Salt Lake. If it dries up or sickens, so…
MoreAn ugly tower threatens Bears Ears National Monument

My Navajo homeland is the great expanse of land between four sacred mountains in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah….
MoreWe won’t forget what happened 101 years ago

One hundred and one years ago, my Ute ancestors were forced to live within a barbed-wire camp in Blanding, a…
La Sal Range in Northern San Juan County, Utah, courtesy Wikimedia Commons
MoreCulture wars and an embattled Utah monument

Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument rarely leaves the news. The political tussle over this stunning expanse of red rock canyons…
Rainbow over Cheesebox Butte- Highway 95, photo by Stephen Trimble
MoreWhat did Westerners care about in 2023?

This past year, Writers on the Range, an independent opinion service based in western Colorado, sent out 52 weekly opinion…
Arches National Park, image courtesy Writers on the Range
MoreThe West has too many visiting hunters

Hunting may be losing popularity nationally, but in the West the number of hunters is climbing. According to the U.S….
Dan Vigueria, Paonia, Colorado, Grizzly Longbows LLC
MoreWe can help shape this Utah monument

When President Joe Biden restored the original boundaries of both Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments in 2021, public-land…
Grand Staircase Escalante, Unsplash/Halie West
MoreBackcountry heroes always try to bring us back

When I was leading groups into the Wyoming wilderness in the 1990s, once we left a trailhead we were on…
The Tetons in Wyoming, a great place to get lost, photo by Mike
MoreMountains don’t need hardware

We humans want the most out of life, so why shouldn’t we push to get more of what we want?…
A female mountain climber pulling herself up a climb. Image credit steele2123 via Istock Photo
MoreIt’s do or die for the Great Salt Lake

Last November, the Great Salt Lake, iconic landmark of the Great Basin Desert, fell to its lowest surface elevation ever…
Antelope Island Looking Over Great Salt Lake, photo courtesy of Michael Shoemaker
MoreA dangerous game of chicken on the colorado river

Central Arizona Project, Arizona, with homes. Image credit US Bureau of Reclamation
MoreGuess who has outsized clout on public lands?

This may be a surprising story. It begins with a working group trying to save the last native bighorn sheep…
Image by Pete Nuij, courtesy of Unsplash
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