Rural Colorado county gets ready for wildfire

When La Plata County in southwestern Colorado needed a director of emergency management in 2021, they found a winner in…
Shawna Legarza Kennebec Trail Race 2024
MoreWe see the climate change in New Mexico

Here in New Mexico, our growing season has lengthened since the 1970s, even as stream flows have decreased. Fire season…
MoreBeware the Trojan Horse targeting public land

Sometimes when I drive past the little house my wife and I bought when we first married, 30 years ago,…
MoreLos Angeles is a wake-up call for the West—especially Durango

After fierce winds whipped fire out of brush-covered hills on January 7, entire Los Angeles neighborhoods burned down. Within a…
MoreAn invitation to play the climate-change game

Let’s play a game, the climate-change game that every living thing on Earth has no choice but to play, starting…
Dead Horse State Park, Moab, Utah, Andres Haro, Unsplash
MorePepper Trail: There’s so much worth saving

For a long time, climate change was largely perceived as a distant threat. But Oregon biologist Pepper Trail, 70, who…
MoreA terrible dilemma faces the Great Basin

The long drive between Salt Lake City, Utah and Reno, Nevada on Interstate 80 feels endless, the landscape timeless. But…
Toquima Range from Monitor Valley, Nevada, Steve Trimble photo
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
MoreRequiem for the Joshua tree

Disheveled, gangly, the Joshua tree is surely one of the West’s strangest — and most recognizable — plants. Named by…
Conglomerate Mesa, Photo by Louis Medina, Friends of the Inyo
MoreJohn Fielder, the man who loved natural beauty

If you’ve ever bought a calendar or coffee table book featuring the grandeur of Colorado’s 14’ers, the stunning color photographs…
John Fielder, credit Gary Wockner/Save the Colorado
MoreWildland firefighters need our support

At any given moment during this smoky summer of 2023, hundreds of wildfires were blazing in the United States —…
Calwood fire, near Jamestown Colorado, by Malachi Brooks, via Unsplash
MoreTips for a new Westerner

Hurray, you’ve moved to the rural West from a crowded subdivision or city where the traffic has become an out-of-patience…
Reno Nevada Mutton bustin’ photo by Cornelius Photography
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