An Ancient Bone Bed in the Nevada Desert Holds Clues to the West's Past

DEATH BY RURAL COP | WATCHING THE WASATCH | FUNGAL FIGHTER | HCN IN 2020

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Editor’s note Curious scientists

“Vikings’ mysterious abandonment of Greenland was not due to climate change” read the headline of a recent Washington Post story, detailing new evidence that the Norsemen’s departure from the ice-capped island in the 1300s was not spurred by rapidly cooling conditions, as many scientists had thought. New high-tech rock-dating technology has convinced researchers that glaciers were already advanced in Greenland when the Vikings flourished there. Now, it’s believed that socioeconomic factors — perhaps disputes with the Native Inuit over the waning walrus and polar bear trade — caused them to pack up and leave. There goes another tidy theory about the past. But future scientists, probing with new tools, will likely come up with yet more compelling Neil Kelley pieces together the flipper of an ichthyosaur at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. explanations. For, as Hillary Rosner writes in this Olivier Douliery issue’s cover story, “Humans are a storytelling FEATURE species. In science, those stories must be based on evidence. But even when they are, we often get it 12 The desert that was an ocean wrong.” An ancient bone bed in the Nevada desert holds clues to the West’s past Rosner’s profile of the adventurous On the cover — and the Earth’s evolutionary puzzle By Hillary Rosner paleontologists seeking to unravel the mystery of a 200-million-year-old marine boneyard in Nevada Shonisaurus popularis (the larger resurrects more than one wild-sounding theory. ichthyosaur) and CURRENTS A husband-and-wife team, pondering the neat Californosaurus rows of ichthyosaur skeletons, postulated several perrini (the smaller 5 Death by cop Rural Idaho rancher the latest to die at hands of police years ago that an enormous squid killed the ichthyosaurs), which once lived in the huge 6 Gun control A state-by-state look at Western gun laws “superdolphins” and then carefully arranged their carcasses on the sea floor. Armed with 3-D laser ocean that covered 7 Eastbound and down An interstate expansion threatens Denver’s what’s now Nevada, technology, the new team hopes to come up with low-income neighborhoods depicted by Boise a more plausible theory, including the possibility illustrator Todd 8 Two futures for Utah’s Wasatch Range As ski resorts push that ocean currents brought the bones into an Marshall. for a mega-connection, backcountry skiers try to save some wild orderly assemblage. But no one is suggesting that 9 The Latest: Gila River diversion plan this is the last word. 10 A desert oasis, lost and found A retired lawyer rebuilds a rare wetland This same humble spirit of inquiry into the past might help leaven the political fever over the 11 Fighting fungus with fungus A mushroom could protect pines science surrounding the great, ongoing mystery of 11 The Latest: Arizona’s Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) our time — climate change. The models projecting the conditions we will encounter in coming years DEPARTMENTS are increasingly sophisticated and data-rich, but Complete access they are still human constructs that inevitably will to subscriber-only 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG change as new tools, information, and yes, creative content storytelling, are thrown into the equation. HCN’s website 4 LETTERS What will be the tipping point beyond which hcn.org 14 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends the Greenland ice cap melts and rapidly rising seas Digital edition 21 MARKETPLACE overwhelm coastal areas? Will it be an average hcne.ws/digi-4722 global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius, Tablet and mobile apps 25 WRITERS ON THE RANGE or will 1 degree do the trick? Will some as-yet- hcne.ws/HCNmobile-app Western nativism has a rotten odor By Forrest Whitman unknown factor offset the effects of concentrated 26 BOOKS greenhouse gases, or will something else make it The Dying Grass by William T. Vollmann. Reviewed by Daniel Person much worse? Follow us I don’t know, but one thing is for sure: Unlike The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy. Reviewed by Jenny Shank the mysteries of the past, we all have front-row 27 ESSAY What IS this? By Melissa Hart seats at this drama. @highcountrynews 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston —Paul Larmer, executive director/publisher 2 High Country News December 21, 2015 From our website: HCN.ORG

Renewables falter Trending on public lands No dogs President Barack Obama’s first Interior allowed secretary, Ken Salazar, aspired to turn Western federal lands into hotbeds of wind Marjorie “Slim” and solar projects. But seven years later, the Woodruff, an educator administration’s record on renewable projects at the Grand Canyon on public lands is mixed. The Bureau of Land Association Field Management now counts 57 projects that it Institute, argues in has approved since then, including canceled an opinion piece projects and projects where the agency played that dogs should not a bit part, but far fewer projects on federal be — and usually land actually deliver power to the grid: four aren’t — allowed in solar arrays, five geothermal projects and the backcountry of three wind farms. Still, the BLM has made national parks. But progress in readying the public lands for she says some human renewable energy projects, especially solar. visitors have begun It designated 19 solar energy zones in six to use the loosely Southwestern states, where the BLM will monitored service prioritize projects and transmission lines to dog system to get bring their electricity to the grid. Some in their pets in. “In 2011, the solar industry fear this approach could the National Service complicate the permitting process, while Animal Registry wind developers are more likely to take their signed up 2,400 business elsewhere. Elizabeth Shogren emotional support Windmills at the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm near Whitewater, California, where the BLM has animals. Last year, it Sam Mircovich/REUTERS More: hcne.ws/mixed-record authorized 3,300 acres of wind projects on public lands. registered 11,000. No paperwork required; this is on the honor system,” Woodruff GM salmon changing the market? it also opened new markets for the fish, and wild writes. “For me, it’s the prices eventually recovered. And while Alaskan lack of respect for a The Food and Drug Administration has approved fishermen worry the modified fish could further park’s rules that gets $6 billion the AquAdvantage salmon, the first genetically cut their market share, European countries, at my goat, the notion spent each year on energy for modified animal authorized for human least, have largely rejected genetically modified indoor cannabis cultivation that rules apply to consumption. Critics fear the fish’s potential to foods. In the end, reconnecting American other people but not inflict harm on the environment, as well as on the consumers with their wild seafood resources will to me.” Alaskan salmon industry. History indicates the likely accomplish more than any FDA action. Kate Schimel effects could be complex: Though aquaculture Ben Goldfarb 15 million caused wild salmon prices to tank in the 1980s, More: hcne.ws/gmo-salmon tons of greenhouse gas emissions produced Global salmon production, 1980-2014 You say by the U.S. pot industry per year 7,000 Nicole von Gaza- 6,000 Reavis: “The role With medicinal or recreational marijuana of dogs in people’s legal in most of the West, utilities and Wild salmon 5,000 lives, as well as in grid operators are a bit worried about Farmed salmon society, has changed the impacts of these energy-hogs, even 4,000 rapidly just in this as they’re excited about the profits they’ll last decade. The bring. Meanwhile, expanded legalization 3,000 rules are outdated. … could reduce pot’s energy and carbon Banishment is not the footprint. Farmers could grow crops outside, (Million pounds) Production 2,000 answer.” where it takes no more energy to grow a cannabis plant than it does a carrot or 1,000 Iris Redcliff: “Keep tomato. It also means utilities and farmers your dog on a leash can work together to maximize efficiency. 0 when walking trails. Jonathan Thompson How hard is that?”

More: hcne.ws/pot-energy 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 SOURCES: ADF&G, FAO, PACFIN, DFO, MINATO TSUJIKI NEWS SERVICE, AND MCDOWELL GROUP ESTIMATES. NOTE: 2014 IS AN ESTIMATE. Jeff Hall: “National FROM THE BRISTOL BAY REGIONAL SEAFOOD DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION’S SPRING 2015 SOCKEYE MARKET ANALYSIS. parks are overcrowded nature museums. ... So does it really make Video “Technology and a difference with all the roads and tourists research is going making a ton of noise Range riders to be a huge part and emitting a ton of 5 In recent years, a rebounding of how farmers pollution?” Number of Syrian refugees wolf population in eastern that were resettled in Washington has stirred and ranchers More: hcne.ws/ Colorado in 2015. The state controversy. The resulting wolf- move into the natl-parks-no-dogs typically receives 2 percent livestock clashes have spurred the future. The ones and Facebook.com/ highcountrynews of the nation’s refugee creation of a new system: range that get it and intake each year, and most riders who track both wolves and resettle in metropolitan livestock with GPS collars, hoping move with it will areas. Matt Whittaker to prevent further conflict. s u r v i v e .” More: Lena Jackson —Jay Kehne, Okanogan hcne.ws/COsyrian-refugee More: hcne.ws/wolf-tracking Range rider Bill Johnson rides his horse, Walter, County organizer, while on patrol. Lena Jackson Conservation Northwest

www.hcn.org High Country News 3 Letters Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428.

High Country News TOOLS FOR TRAILS Executive director/Publisher Paul Larmer Thank you for your Nov. 9 article on MANAGING Editor guerrilla trail work. As a former U.S. Brian Calvert Forest Service trail crew foreman, trail SENIOR EDITORS contractor and now fire lookout, I’ve Jodi Peterson Jonathan Thompson done my share of clearing “official” trails Art director and trying to keep others open that Cindy Wehling have been neglected. Richard Coots’ ONLINE EDITOR spirit is laudable. Tay Wiles I’ve also seen the results of enthu- Assistant EDITOR Kate Schimel siasm’s misguided efforts on trails, D.C. Correspondent especially in designated wilderness Elizabeth Shogren areas, where chainsaws are not allowed. om c WRITERS ON THE RANGE Trails, while a wonderful way to get to . editor Betsy Marston places in wilderness, are not part of the Associate designer “untrammeled” nature of these places. Brooke Warren artoons c

Copy editOR Wilderness isn’t just for humans. And le

Diane Sylvain when Forest Service or Park Service ag Contributing editorS managers make a conscious decision Kee/C Cally Carswell to not maintain a particular trail, they c

Sarah Gilman M may have a serious reason.

Michelle Nijhuis ick CorrespondentS This doesn’t make it any easier to R Ben Goldfarb see trails “disappear.” All of us who love Krista Langlois Joshua Zaffos trails outside the wilderness will try cal care or that they suffered a higher A FORGOTTEN LAKE our best to keep them open, much as death rate than the general population. Editorial Fellow I read with interest the article titled Sarah Tory Richard Coots is doing. And inside the That said, the internment was driven by “Tenuous revival of Mono Lake” in the Intern wilderness, pack your ax and cross-cut racism, was totally unnecessary, denied Nov. 23 issue. I was involved in the Paige Blankenbuehler saw and encourage our public-lands 120,000 Americans their freedom, and Associate Publisher politics of that rescue, being friends managers to value the incredible resulted in the illegal seizure of many Alexis Halbert with Rick Lehman, our congressman, resource of our nation’s trails — and internees’ property. Development Manager and with other politicos who drove Alyssa Pinkerton the primitive skills that go along with Pat Munday the legislation. Now that the lake is Development Assistant maintaining them. Christine List Walkerville, Montana stabilized, I have tried to interest them Subscriptions MARKETER Tom Van de Water in Walker Lake, Nevada, just a short JoAnn Kalenak Kooskia, Idaho, and Colton, New York jaunt east from Lee Vining. One of the WEB DEVELOPER Eric Strebel A MODEST PROPOSAL — FOR MUSTANGS few terminal desert lakes in the world, Database/IT administrator it supported prehistoric trout, and mul- Alan Wells If words were bales of hay, feeding cap- DON’T BLAME THE GREATEST GENERATION titudes of migrating birds for several Community ENGAGEMENT tive feral horses would be no problem thousand years. The inlet end, Walker Gretchen King Richard Reeves’ book Infamy: The (“Wild horses sent to slaughter,” HCN, FINANCE MANAGER River, was essentially freshwater, and Shocking Story of the Japanese Ameri- 11/23/15). Presently, the government Beckie Avera the terminal end was closer to Mono can Internment in World War II is a is the largest livestock caregiver in the Accounts Receivable Lake in its chemistry. Irrigation rights Jan Hoffman tragic story of an immoral episode in U.S. Over 90,000 horses are either in in the Yerington area have deprived this Circulation manager American culture, and it’s simply not lockups or on the Western ranges. In larger and more remote version of Mono Tammy York necessary to compound the tale through the meantime, one child dies every five Lake of its inlet water, and the level Circulation Systems admin. sensationalism and historical error. The seconds from malnutrition and/or dis- Kathy Martinez has dropped several hundred feet since title of Eric Sandstrom’s review in the eases, which go hand in hand. The feral Circulation the 1900s. The total dissolved solids Nov. 9 issue, “The Greatest Generation horse adoption fad is dead. This year, Doris Teel, Kati Johnson, and alkalinity have grown to the point Stephanie Kyle at its worst,” is off base. The “Greatest there were only 2,800 horses adopted — where it will soon support only brine Advertising Director Generation” grew up in the Depression out of thousands that were available. I David J. Anderson shrimp. and served in WWII, where their aver- have the answer to the excess and a way Advertising Sales Walker Lake is surrounded by Representative age age was 26 years old. These young to do some good also. Each 1,000-pound Bureau of Land Management territory, Bob Wedemeyer men and women were hardly respon- horse will yield about 800 pounds of with a small patch of private lands on GrantWriter sible for the Japanese American intern- safe, pure and highly nutritious horse- the west shore. I find it repulsive and Janet Reasoner ment. As Reeves points out, the leaders meat. When a quarter-pound of this FOUNDER Tom Bell hypocritical that no environmental who were responsible included FDR (b. meat is mixed with a good variety of [email protected] group has taken on the lake’s rescue, or 1882) and Earl Warren (b. 1890). Also, vegetables, vitamins and minerals in a [email protected] seems to have any interest at all in its [email protected] the fact that “more than 1,800 died in pure preservative-free juice, it will yield imminent death. [email protected] the (internment) camps” is not particu- 3,200 cans of Mustang Stew. Multiply [email protected] larly notable. This works out to a death this by 90,000 horses and it will yield Richard Raucina Board of Directors rate of about 500 per 100,000 per year. millions of cans of safe, nutritious food Midpines, California John Belkin, Colo. According to the Centers for Disease for all of those babies and lactating Beth Conover, Colo. Jay Dean, Calif. Control and Prevention, the U.S. death mothers. rate in 2013 was about 822 per 100,000. Bob Fulkerson, Nev. John Radosevich Wayne Hare, Colo. There is no evidence that the interned Laura Helmuth, Md. Wheatland, Wyoming John Heyneman, Wyo. population was denied necessary medi- Nicole Lampe, Ore. Marla Painter, N.M. Dan Stonington, Wash. Rick Tallman, Colo. High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Printed on Luis Torres, N.M. High independent media organization that covers the Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post offices. recycled paper. Andy Wiessner, Colo. issues that define the American West. Its mission is POSTMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All Florence Williams, D.C. Country to inform and inspire people to act on behalf of the rights to publication of articles in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. News region’s diverse natural and human communities. Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: 800-905-1155 | hcn.org 4 High Country News December 21, 2015 CURRENTS Death

A screenshot of by cop police lapel-cam video from 2014 Rural Idaho rancher the latest that recorded Albuquerque to die at hands of police Police Department officers closing in Bty Ka e Schimel on and shooting homeless camper James Boyd in the Sandia foothills. ancher Jack Yantis was eating dinner Two officers were R on a Sunday in early November when later charged with the Adams County sheriff’s office called to murder. tell him to come deal with his bull. The bull, Albuquerque Police Keiford, had wandered onto Highway 95 department near the town of Council, Idaho, and been hit by a car. Badly injured and maddened of just 2 million people, has seen 18 people has studied rural policing, says by pain, the animal was charging at by- killed by the police so far this year. And, those factors may contribute to standers and the first responders who were according to the Guardian, police in Kern a more aggressive response. attempting to help the injured passengers. County in California have killed more But he also says training Yantis rushed to the scene, toting a rifle. people relative to the county’s popula- and preparation can play a Once there, Yantis prepared to do tion than anywhere else in the country. In large role. Rural police “are what the sheriff’s deputies had failed to 2015, mirroring other recent years, blacks increasingly getting the do, to dispatch the wounded bull. What were killed by cops in the U.S. at a rate of same training as urban happened next is murky. Some observers 6.3 per million people, while Native Ameri- officers,” which now in- say words were exchanged, and perhaps cans died at a rate of 3.4. That’s compared volves the military-grade gunfire. But before Yantis could shoot the to a 3.05 rate for Hispanics and 2.66 for equipment and training bull, the deputies shot him multiple times, whites. Over 100 of the 169 Hispanic or that some have blamed for killing the 62-year-old rancher. The FBI is Latino deaths this year were in Western excessive use of force in cit- now investigating the incident. states. ies, Weisheit says. The mot- At a time when the deaths of young Many happened in urban areas, such to used to be “To Serve and black men at the hands of police in places as Albuquerque, where a court-appointed Protect,” he says. Now, it’s like Ferguson, Missouri, Staten Island, monitor is overseeing attempts to reform “Get home safe every night.” New York, and Chicago have caught na- the notoriously brutal police department. That places the emphasis on tional attention, the case seems like an Seattle’s police department has also been defensive tactics that may lead anomaly, with its rural Western setting investigated by the Department of Justice officers to escalate situations rather and middle-aged white victim. But it high- for its violent tactics. Most Western cities, than attempt to defuse them. Put an- lights a surprising fact: Western states including Portland, Las Vegas and Los An- other way, it’s the image of police officer as lead the nation in officer-involved killings, geles, have grappled with how to minimize soldier, rather than peace officer. Today’s Fatal and rural areas aren’t immune. the use of force and prevent killings. recruiting videos depict armored officers encounters According to data spanning 2004 to Yet rural areas have been equally breaking down doors, and training sessions Deaths 2000-2015, 2010 from the Centers for Disease Con- bloody. Indeed, only two of Washington’s 21 sometimes bear titles like “Killology.” per million trol and Prevention, New Mexico, Oregon fatalities this year were at the hands of Se- Holding police who use excessive force population, and Nevada have the highest rates in the attle police, and many took place far from accountable in rural areas offers challeng- following nation for fatal injury due to “legal inter- any major towns. And sparsely populated es as well; there’s less likelihood that there encounters vention” — the rate of deaths per 100,000 areas like Eagar, Arizona, Dillon, Montana, will be bystanders on hand with cameras to with police people is more than twice the national and Parowan, Utah, have seen killings in document incidents. And obtaining official Source: FatalENCOUNTERS.ORG average. Utah, California, Colorado and recent months. In some cases, like that of video is at least as difficult as it is in ur- Idaho also rank in the top 10. Idaho’s Jack Yantis, the circumstances re- ban centers. The Idaho State Police has re- Official data on killings and excessive main muddy. In others, the cops may have fused to release any video of Yantis’ death use of force by law enforcement are no- had little choice, as in remote Lukachukai, despite a request from the Idaho Freedom toriously spotty, imprecise and often out Arizona, where a young Navajo man was Foundation, citing Idaho state law and the of date. Much of the most comprehensive shot dead this March after killing one po- pending investigation. tracking now happens on crowdsourcing lice officer and wounding two others. But the rancher’s death may help in- sites such as Fatal Encounters, run by The lack of comprehensive long-term crease scrutiny of rural law enforcement. the editor of the Reno News & Review, the data makes it difficult to know how the Leo Morales, the executive director of U.S. Police Shooting database and Killed- rate of rural fatalities compares to urban ACLU Idaho, says his group has received byPolice.net. But all tell a similar story. zones, but their frequency is notable. Some more complaints of police using excessive As of Dec. 7, the Guardian’s series “The experts believe rural law enforcement of- force in Idaho since Yantis’ death, particu- Counted” shows Western states filling six ficers in the West are more likely to be fac- larly from rural areas in the northern part of the top 10 places for officer-involved ing armed citizens, given the high rates of of the state. “That fundamental trust the deaths per capita in 2015, with Wyoming gun ownership. Or perhaps they’re more community had with the police and their fourth in the country. New Mexico, a state likely to have to make arrests without ad- government is broken, and that needs to equate backup. be repaired,” he says. That’s true in com- Assistant editor Kate Schimel lives in Seattle, Ralph Weisheit, a professor of crimi- munities of every size, wherever they hap- Washington. @kateschimel nal justice at Illinois State University who pen to be.

www.hcn.org High Country News 5 n Friday, Nov. 27, a man identified eral background checks soared from just O as Robert L. Dear Jr. opened fire at over 9 million in 1999 to 19.8 million so far Gun a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in 2015. On Nov. 27, the day of the Colora- Springs, killing three people and wound- do shooting, the FBI conducted more back- ing nine. Five days later, on Dec. 2, two ground checks than on any day previously. control shooters killed 14 people and wounded 21 These checks (which do not equate di- in San Bernardino, California. rectly to gun sales) are meant to prevent In the wake of mass killings, Most guns used in mass shootings, people with criminal records, domestic including the ones in San Bernardino, abuse convictions, drug addictions or dan- a state-by-state look at Western are acquired legally, often by people with gerous mental illnesses from buying fire- gun control laws criminal histories or documented mental arms. But in many Western states, pri- health problems. Overall, Americans are vate sales, like those at gun shows or over B y Krista Langlois buying more guns than ever before. Fed- the Internet, are exempt from background checks. Gun laws also vary from state to state. Montana, Wyoming, Alaska and New Mexico — four Western states whose laws received a failing grade from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence — are also among the 10 states with the highest per capita rates of gun deaths. See below for a breakdown of how Western states’ gun laws compare.

Correspondent Krista Langlois lives in Durango, Colorado. @cestmoiLanglois

Eric Baker, co-owner of the Mo Money Pawn Shop in Phoenix in September, after he had turned over to authorities surveillance video that showed Phoenix freeway shooting suspect Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. pawning a gun believed to have been used in the shooting. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

Gun laws by state Requires mental Regulates or bans Imposes additional health reporting to Number of gun Requires firearm Requires a permit to most assault restrictions on the National Instant deaths per 100,000 Requires universal dealers to be carry a weapons and large- perpetrators of Criminal Background people (including background checks* licensed by the states concealed handgun capacity magazines domestic violence** Check System*** suicides), 2013 Alaska No No No No No Yes 19.8 Arizona No No No No Some 5 Yes 14.1 California Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 7.7 Colorado Mostly 1 No yes Some 4 Yes Yes 11.5 Idaho No No Yes 3 No No Yes 14.1 Montana No No Yes No Some 6 No 16.7 Nevada No 2 No Yes No Yes Yes 13.8 New Mexico No No Yes No No No 15.5 Oregon Yes No Yes No Yes Yes 11.0 Utah No No Yes No No No 12.6 Washington Yes No Yes No Yes Yes 8.7 Wyoming No No No No No No 16.7 *Universal background checks include private purchases made at gun shows or over the Internet. **Federal law prohibits people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors or with a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a gun, but excludes partners who are not married, convicted stalkers and others. States are not required to report domestic violence convictions to the federal database. ***Federal law prohibits possession of a firearm by any person who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” or involuntarily “committed to any mental institution.” But states are not required to report the identities of these individuals to the FBI. (1) With several exceptions. (2) Nevada has a provision that lets private sellers request a background check from the state Department of Public Safety, but this is voluntary. (3) Only in cities and towns. (4) Colorado prohibits large- capacity ammunition magazines but does not regulate assault weapons or .50 caliber rifles. (5) Only while the person is serving probation for that conviction. (6) Only if a firearm is used in perpetrating domestic violence. Sources: The New York Times, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the National Rifle Association, the FBI, the Washington Post, and the Kaiser Family Foundation. 6 High Country News December 21, 2015 Eastbound and down An interstate expansion threatens Denver’s low-income neighborhoods

By Joshua Zaffos

rmando Payán’s family moved from A California to northeast Denver in A rendition of the 1963, when his dad took a job in a meat- highway cover packing plant. Their arrival preceded alternative for I-70 that a new wave of Hispanic immigrants, would add a new park who now constitute the majority in the space near Swansea Globeville, Swansea and Elysia neighbor- Elementary School. Courtesy Colorado hoods along the city’s rail yards. Local in- Department of comes and education levels trail the rest Transportation of Denver, and there’s no supermarket, bank branch or health clinic. “This is an nity activists have responded by oppos- eled or reported,” notes Bob Yuhnke, a for- area of the city that has been neglected for ing expansions. For instance, plans that mer Environmental Defense Fund lawyer 100 years,” says Payán, 59, a state govern- were made in the late 1990s to widen and air-pollution control expert. Based ment employee. Interstate 5 between Portland, Oregon, on his own review, Yuhnke expects those One September evening, Payán and and Vancouver, Washington, would have pollutants to exceed national air-quality other members of the community group increased pollution and razed houses in standards if the renovation occurs. Unite North Metro Denver met at an el- low-income black Portland communities. Residents would rather see the high- ementary school to discuss a looming Jeri Jimenez, then head of Portland’s En- way realigned with other nearby inter- concern: freeways. The elevated junction By the numbers vironmental Justice Action Group, says states, and a city street converted into a of Interstates 25 and 70, known as the opponents forced planners to acknowledge wider pedestrian- and bike-friendly bou- Mousetrap, is just down the street. This 45 million concerns about local asthma rates, which levard to handle local traffic. That would stretch of I-70 East, one of the most con- People in the U.S. who were twice the national average. In 2013, likely cost half as much and get I-70 out gested highways in Colorado, badly needs live within 300 feet of a following lawsuits, cost overruns and de- of the neighborhoods. Denver would then repairs or replacement. But the six-lane four-plus-lane highway lays, Washington lawmakers halted the join the highways-to-boulevards move- highway also cuts off through-traffic on and face elevated ad- project. Traffic has since steadied. ment, which has successfully removed many local roads, blocking access to other verse health effects from Still, many interstates clearly need San Francisco’s Embarcadero and Central parts of the city, and its air pollution con- vehicle pollution work, including the Mousetrap. Between elevated freeways, rejuvenating the city’s tributes to some of Denver’s highest rates 47,000 and 205,000 vehicles drive I-70 waterfront without worsening congestion. of asthma and cardiovascular disease. 30 years eastbound from it daily, but 285,000 are But White says that I-70, which con- Now, residents fear that plans to re- Intended lifespan of expected by 2035. Bridges and drainage nects the airport to ski resorts, isn’t a good place it with a larger, partially below- bridges and other structures are showing critical signs of candidate for removal. Planners consid- ground highway could just exacerbate structures along I-70 East wear. ered rerouting it, but concluded that would their problems. What’s more, they claim in Denver, built in 1964 After 12 years of studies, state and clog local streets. “A lot of cities — St. Lou- planners are ignoring a cheaper, commu- federal officials announced this August is, Dallas, San Diego — are doing exactly nity-friendly alternative. 1 that their preferred option is to lower the what we’re doing — adding covers,” White Roads in Globeville that freeway and add four toll lanes to reduce says. “The ones we’ve seen have really be- connect the northern and rban freeways are “a simple, but sig- rush-hour congestion. The $1.17 billion come park and community spaces.” southern parts of the nificant, design flaw” in American U project would include a four-acre, grassy If partially covered highways have be- neighborhood, due to the transportation planning, according to “highway cover” that would double as an come popular fixes, that’s because fund- interstate and rail yards Peter Park, Denver’s former planning urban park. ing mechanisms don’t support removals, director and a University of Colorado- Fifty-five homes and 17 businesses says Park. A 2013 report he authored for 3.5 Denver urban planning professor. When will have to be removed, but Colorado the Congress for the New Urbanism high- Average “years of President Dwight Eisenhower created the Department of Transportation spokes- lighted a serious problem: Federal high- potential life lost” due interstate system in 1956, he envisioned woman Rebecca White says the project way funding cannot be readily used for lo- to health effects among freeways ringing cities, since even then, would compensate displaced residents, cal greenbelts or boulevards. “I don’t know residents of Globeville, planners recognized that urban highways pay for renovations at Swansea Elemen- of any neighborhood that became more Elysia and Swansea, would isolate city neighborhoods and in- tary School, next to the covered section, valuable or desirable because of a bigger compared with other crease congestion, as cars must slow down and could include affordable housing and highway,” Park says. “But every single Denver residents to enter and exit during rush hours. But money to attract a local grocery. An air- neighborhood that I know of that’s adja- they also realized that access to down- quality analysis, she adds, concluded that cent to a former freeway that was taken towns would help justify new roads and the project would decrease pollution by out got better.” construction taxes. alleviating traffic. A final environmental At the September meeting in the Highways were often routed through impact statement is due in January. school cafeteria, where there was no air poor neighborhoods. Recently, commu- Opponents aren’t convinced. Measure- conditioning, residents sweated as they ments of harmful nitrogen oxides and considered a lawsuit. “This is a neighbor- Correspondent Joshua Zaffos writes from Fort smaller particulates, such as soot from hood being exploited,” Payán said. “We’re Collins, Colorado. @jzaffos diesel trucks, were not “specifically mod- just asking to be treated fair.”

www.hcn.org High Country News 7 Two futures for Utah’s Wasatch Range As ski resorts push for a mega-connection, backcountry skiers try to save some wild

By Paige Blankenbuehler

n a winter day in Utah’s Wasatch ment out of the Wasatch Range. The wild charging more than $100 for a daily pass. O Range in the early 1970s, University land of the Wasatch, which abuts Salt Vail’s move has created fresh impetus for of Utah professor Gale Dick and a small Lake City and its exurbs, has become a further consolidation and connection of re- group of skiers stood near the top of Little ski mecca, with six resorts scattered amid sorts, and set the stage for a new battle. Cottonwood Canyon, contemplating a thousands of backcountry-skiing acres. The conflict between backcountry us- pristine slope of powder. A man appeared Most of the resorts are separated by just ers and resort operators highlights two at the bottom of the run and urgently a single ridge, a proximity that has fueled very different visions for the mountains: waved them away. Thinking they were be- the ski executives’ dream: Connect them One that eagerly welcomes the rapidly Construction on ing warned of avalanche danger, they took all, so that skiers can hop chairlifts from growing population in the nearby urban the new Quicksilver an alternate, much bumpier way down. one to the next, thereby stimulating an areas, and another that wants to hold gondola, a connection At the bottom, they again encountered already lucrative industry that brought the growing mass of humanity at bay. between Park City and Canyons resorts in the the man — a famous French skier named more than 4 million visitors and 18,000 The population of Salt Lake and Summit ONE Wasatch plan, Jean-Claude Killy. There was, in fact, jobs to the state last year. counties will more than double by 2050, which makes Park no avalanche danger at all. Much to the A growing community of backcountry according to the nonprofit Utah Foun- City the biggest resort group’s annoyance, Killy had been cast in skiers, though, object to that plan. They dation, and the tussle over competing in the United States, a promotional ad for Snowbird Ski Resort see themselves as more akin to Gale Dick uses of a finite resource is only growing below. John Lemnotis and needed a pristine slope for the day’s than to Jean-Claude Killy, and, increas- as demand increases. “Everyone wants drops into the Benson photo shoot. ingly, they feel squeezed out of public more — more terrain and more solitude and Hedges Couloir Dick went on to found Save Our Can- land by the big resorts. Earlier this year, within those spaces for backcountry ski- in Big Cottonwood yons, an organization that’s fought for Vail Resorts Inc., a Colorado-based in- ing and more acreage for resort skiing,” Canyon, a popular more than four decades to keep develop- dustry giant, purchased and consolidated says Chase Lamborn, a research associate place to backcountry ski, right. two Wasatch Range ski areas. In mid- with the Institute for Outdoor Recreation Courtesy Vail Resorts; Paige Blankenbuehler is an HCN intern. November, Park City opened for its first and Tourism at Utah State University. James Roh @PaigeBlank season as the country’s largest ski area, “But the reality is, you’re talking about

8 High Country News December 21, 2015 e this confined space, and all of the areas Backcountry Alliance’s president. “Every- while also protecting the area’s environ- u are already being heavily utilized.” one loves the canyons.” ment and watershed, which supplies Bl of

In 2014, on the heels of the Ski- drinking water to half a million Salt Lake le c

entral Wasatch skiing has a lengthy Link failure, Ski Utah proposed “ONE City residents. The accord began with ir C history, beginning with the Brighton Wasatch,” which would connect all of the meetings between Salt Lake City and /C ton Ski Resort (1936), followed by Alta Ski area resorts, providing access to 18,000 county leaders, area ski resorts and Save l a

Area (1938), Solitude Mountain Resort acres of in-bounds terrain. The linkages Our Canyons, who hired a neutral leader, W tt e

(1957), Park City Mountain Resort (1963), would be made over private lands owned Laynee Jones, as the project director. r Canyons Resort (1968), Snowbird Ski or controlled by the resorts, instead of The Mountain Accord, like ONE B Resort (1971), and Deer Valley Resort through public lands, and both costs and Wasatch, yearns to improve traffic flow THE LATEST Company (1981). All are crowded into profits would be shared by those resorts. through the canyons — but it wants to do 64,000 acres within the Uinta-Wasatch- “The ski industry has learned from their a lot more than link up ski areas. During Backstory Cache National Forest. past mistakes and have come back with ski season, more than 8,000 cars per day For over a decade, In 2012, a Canadian developer first another, more powerful proposal,” Kent travel Little Cottonwood Canyon alone, the New Mexico proposed a project called SkiLink, which says. “They have packaged ONE Wasatch according to a 2012 Salt Lake County Interstate Stream would have required the sale of 30 acres very well.” Vail has just completed the transportation study. Mountain Accord’s Commission has of national forest to connect two Wasatch first of the three required connections by proponents want to dramatically decrease pushed a plan to resorts with a high-speed gondola. Ski adding a gondola between Park City and that by using a train, light-rail system or build a large water Utah, the marketing arm of the state’s ski Canyons resort, so only two more remain. buses to connect the Salt Lake Valley and diversion and industry, has long sought to boost tourism The backcountry community supports the town of Park City with popular recre- storage project through a Wasatch connectivity project, small-scale infrastructure, such as trail ation sites in Big and Little Cottonwood on the upper reaches of the Gila but backcountry users feared the influx of signage, restrooms in popular areas and canyons. River. Under the infrastructure and lift riders into formerly a transportation system that would limit In July, after two years of negotia- 2004 Arizona Water remote terrain. The newly formed Wasatch traffic. But most members vehemently tions and public comment, local, state Settlement Act, New Backcountry Alliance rallied hundreds oppose a resort-connectivity project like and federal governments, Utah’s ski in- Mexico has the right of backcountry skiers and snowboarders ONE Wasatch. Earlier this year, Lam- dustry, recreational advocacy groups and to develop 14,000 and, with the help of the older group Save born helped survey more than 4,000 rec- environmental groups signed on to the acre-feet of the river’s Our Canyons, defeated SkiLink. Because reationists in the Wasatch. While about first phase of the Mountain Accord. That water. Proponents the proposal relied on resort connections half of resort skiers supported a mega- step signifies a “good faith agreement” on say the project would via public lands, it was easy to rally sup- ski resort connection, a mere 1 percent of broad goals for the mountains, but is not save a drought-prone region, while critics port against it, says Jamie Kent, Wasatch backcountry users did so. legally binding, Jones says. In phase two, call it a billion-dollar Backcountry aficionados fear that the environmental impact statements and boondoggle that ONE Wasatch proposal would clog up both studies will be completed for the initial would destroy one vistas and slopes, taking away some be- agreements — transportation solutions, a of the Southwest’s loved backcountry access points. They see federal land designation to provide stron- last remaining wild it as an assault on their lifestyle, one that ger conservation protections, an environ- rivers (“On New will also degrade a natural resource, fur- mental monitoring program, and land Mexico’s Gila River, a ther commercializing the mountains with swaps to put key parcels in public hands. contentious diversion each new development, expansion and The accord does not derail ONE Wasatch, gets the go-ahead,” HCN, 5/25/15). marketing ploy. “How can you enjoy ski- but it’s not yet clear how the ski connec- ing when everything has been developed?” tion proposal might be affected by it. Followup Kent says. “That takes away the whole Backcountry advocates like Kent see On Nov. 23, the point.” Critics also contend that the new the accord as a way to leverage more pro- diversion proposal lifts and their service and access roads tection for the Central Wasatch, to hold took another step would fragment wildlife habitat and im- back development and preserve backcoun- forward, when pact popular mountain-biking trails. try access. Perhaps the crux of the conflict Interior Secretary Proponents, however, say ONE with the resort ski industry lies in Grizzly Sally Jewell signed Wasatch would make Utah an interna- Gulch, a small slice of land owned by Alta an agreement with tional destination, modeled after the that backcountry skiers have fought the New Mexico water sprawling resorts of the Alps. The Euro- hardest to protect. The resort has tradi- managers. The pean-style gondola and lift connections tionally allowed backcountry skiers to use decision triggers a federal environmental would also help free narrow mountain this gentle, popular terrain. But it’s also review, but the project roads from car and bus traffic. David Du- the best place to site a new ski lift for a is by no means a Bois, an airline pilot who lives in Park key connection under the ONE Wasatch done deal. Instead, it City and frequently skis at Alta, Solitude plan that would merge Alta’s terrain with guarantees another and Snowbird, says, “It’s a no-brainer for Snowbird’s. Onno Wieringa, manager of round of extensive me. I’d much rather ski than be in a car.” Alta Ski Resort, says that if the Mountain studies before the Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, Accord can’t come up with a solution to 2019 deadline, when believes ONE Wasatch would provide an move skiers from one canyon to the next the government must “unrivaled” product to skiers. “There’s no- more easily, he will install a lift through approve or reject the where in North America that could tie so Grizzly Gulch. project — no doubt fueling an intense much acreage together.” Kent and off-piste enthusiasts know water-management this time is pivotal for the future of battle for years to or the moment, ONE Wasatch is stalled backcountry skiing in the Wasatch. The come. F amid a tangle of interlocking interests. outcome will hinge on community com- SARAH TORY And it’s further complicated by an even ment during the next phase, which, Jones broader initiative called the Mountain says, will be announced to the public in Accord, which has pulled together dozens the coming months. “Participation at this of stakeholders to prepare for a growing point is crucial,” she says. “It could go number of recreationists in the Wasatch either way.”

www.hcn.org High Country News 9 A.T. Cole sips water straight from the wetland he restored on Pitchfork Ranch in New Mexico. Avery McGaha

away the posts Cole had jammed into the A desert oasis, lost and found stream to trap sediment. Rock structures crumbled. The creek and downstream A retired lawyer rebuilds a rare wetland in New Mexico flood channels kept deepening under the fast-moving water. But after a decade of B y Avery McGaha work — organized by Cole, but carried out by graduate students, government employ- Uncommon hen a monsoon rain blesses south- ranchers, who trenched and drained the ees, contractors and the Youth Conserva- Westerner W western New Mexico, as it does just land and evicted the resident beaver. The tion Corps — the wetland is coming back. a handful of times each year, creeks and cienega now sliced deep into the landscape, On a cool April morning, Cole zipped Name A.T. Cole rivers can rise quickly, causing dangerous more creek than meandering marsh, and up the dirt road leading to it. Dressed flash floods. Those are the moments A.T. much of the life it once supported was gone. in washed-out denim, Cole kept one cal- Age 68 Cole, a ranch owner near Silver City, an- So Cole set to work. First, he tracked loused hand on his cowboy hat and the ticipates all year — hoping his dams will down every bit of information on ciene- other on the ATV’s wheel. Over the rum- Favorite book Beyond hold. gas he could find, adding volumes on lo- bling engine, he yelled himself hoarse ex- the Hundredth Meridian, After Cole, a former Phoenix-area cal ecology, indigenous peoples and res- plaining his project. by Wallace Stegner lawyer, retired in 2003, he and his wife, toration to the books on politics, Eastern At the ranch’s northernmost boundary, Cinda, searched for a patch of land to re- thought and the American Revolution that a line of bright green willows marked the Education Pasadena store. They were tired of city life, and in a already filled his ramshackle,century-old cienega’s mouth. Cole pointed out his first College, on a basketball world threatened by climate change, they ranch house. series of dams, made from juniper posts scholarship. yearned for hope. They found what they One day at a yard sale, a friend stum- or trees pushed across the banks, meant were looking for in the 12,000-acre Pitch- bled upon one of the first scientific papers to slow the water and build up the wet- Criminal record fork Ranch, which harbored remnants of a devoted to cienegas and bought it for $1. land with sediment. So far, those partial Cole and his wife, Cinda, rare habitat: a sprawling, spring-fed des- According to the paper — which Hen- dams have captured almost enough black, were arrested outside the ert wetland known as a cienega. drickson wrote — in order to restore the spongy dirt to bury the 6-foot-6-inch Cole White House during a Cienegas used to be fairly common wetland, Cole needed to recreate the nat- past his waist. 2011 protest against the in Arizona and New Mexico; early Span- ural process that formed it, by trapping But the most dramatic change lies in Keystone XL pipeline. As ish explorers complained about the wide the thousands of tons of dirt that washed the diversity of life — cattails, threatened usual, Cole was dressed marshes, which festered with malaria and downstream with each heavy rain. If he leopard frogs and water striders are all head-to-toe in denim. impeded travel. They didn’t realize that could capture that dirt, the water would thriving in the shady swamp. Even the cienegas also mitigate flooding and en- be forced to slow down and spread out, endangered Gila topminnow finds refuge courage biodiversity, supporting all kinds and aquatic species might move back in. in Cole’s wetland. of fish, birds and plants. Employing his legal talent for argu- “When you see the same location in But since the 1880s, many Southwest- ment and persuasion, he eventually ob- photographs, it’s really sobering,” Cole ern cienegas have disappeared. Dean Hen- tained more than $600,000 in public con- said, recalling his first visits. “It’s almost drickson, a fish biologist at the University servation grants. “If I had a client in all of like a different planet.” of Texas-Austin and an expert on ciene- this, it would be the cienega,” he says. Now, His own past also seems far away. His gas, believes that the most likely culprits instead of advocating to a judge or jury, “I days are no longer filled with the dead- are livestock grazing, groundwater deple- advocate to members of the bureaucracy.” lines and stress of federal court. He has tion and erosion. The restoration struggled at first. coffee before dawn and writes papers on The Coles knew nothing about cienega Cienegas form naturally when a persistent cienega restoration until 3 p.m., when he restoration when they purchased their source of water, like a spring, bubbles over enjoys a quiet dinner with wine. ranch. And the Burro Cienega had been a solid foundation of rock or clay. That at- By 7 p.m., he’s in bed reading. And ev- transformed over the years by previous tracts plants and animals, and over time, ery few weeks, Cole races up to the ciene- nutrient-rich sediment builds up and cre- ga. He doesn’t bring any water, he says. Avery McGaha is an environmental journalist ates wide and biologically rich swamps. Once he arrives, he will just bend down based in Boulder, Colorado. @climatesolitair But when the rains came, they blasted and take a drink.

10 High Country News December 21, 2015 failed nursery seedlings just needed their Fighting fungus with fungus fungal partner. Cripps wasn’t the first to consider the A mushroom called slippery jack could help protect value of mycorrhizae; Austrian scientists have been inoculating European stone whitebark pine from blister rust pine seedlings with fungal spores for 50 years. Today, you can’t walk into a garden- By Ben Goldfarb ing store without knocking over bottles A prescribed fire in of fungal additive. But while most store- the Kaibab National n a cluttered Bozeman laboratory, Cathy ars from plant roots and, in turn, pipe bought products use generic recipes, re- Forest, one type of forest restoration Cripps lays a whitebark pine seedling essential nutrients, like nitrogen, back searchers are coming to realize that local I in the 4FRI plan. across the plate of a microscope, adjusts a to their hosts through underground fila- fungi help native plants more than com- Brandon Oberhardt/USFS few knobs, and peers into the eyepiece. ments. Though most fungi feed on decom- mercial mixes. In a 2015 study, Mia Maltz, The young tree is just a three-inch-tall posing material, many familiar species, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of THE LATEST spray of green needles, bursting from a including chanterelles and boletes, lead California, Irvine, who’s used fungal inoc- carrot-shaped sleeve of black dirt. A con- mycorrhizal lives. ulation to grow sage in soil contaminated Backstory stellation of white freckles, each speck no Cripps especially adores the alpine by borax mines, analyzed 28 fungus-based In 2009, the U.S. larger than a period on this page, dots the fungi of Montana’s Beartooth Plateau, restoration projects. She found that add- Forest Service soil like dandruff. Under the microscope, which colonize stunted shrubs in inhospi- ing mycorrhizae nearly always improved undertook the biggest however, the spots blossom into bizarre table climes. A decade ago, however, she plant growth; that native fungi outper- forest-health project and spectacular structures, with elegant noticed a disturbing phenomenon while formed store-bought products; and that ever attempted, on coralline branches and cotton candy-like traversing her field sites: vast red swaths the benefits endured years after planting. 2.4 million acres of threads that coat the tree’s labyrinthine of dying whitebark pine. The trees, whose Native mycorrhizae may help blue grama overgrown ponderosa roots. These otherworldly bodies are seeds nourish grizzly bears and Clark’s grass withstand drought, sagebrush ward pine in northern mycorrhizal fungi, symbiotic organisms nutcrackers, were falling victim to beetles off invading cheatgrass, and ponderosa Arizona. The Four Forest Restoration that trade favors with plants. and a disease called blister rust, twin pine recolonize disturbed forests. Initiative (4FRI) “It always amazes me how tiny they scourges of the Northern Rockies. To com- aimed to reduce are, how delicate,” says Cripps, a Montana bat the crisis, foresters have tried rais- n 2010, Cripps and a graduate student wildfire danger State University mycologist, who wears ing rust-resistant whitebark seedlings I named Erin Lonergan foraged for slip- in part by having wire-frame glasses and a gray ponytail. in nurseries. But cultivating whitebarks pery jack in the mountains of Montana contractors thin “And yet they do all this absolutely essen- is arduous and complicated — the seeds and Alberta. Back at Montana State, they small-diameter tial stuff.” Indeed, this particular fungus, require elaborate temperature cycles, for used a coffee grinder to mill the mush- trees and produce Suillus sibiricus, may help save the white- example — and rival trees, like spruce rooms’ spore-laden undersides into slurry, wood products and bark pine — with a little help from Cripps. and fir, often outcompete introduced seed- then employed a cattle vaccination gun to biofuel. But continual lings. One study found that just 42 per- inject the concoction — dubbed “Cathy’s delays and serious accusations of ungal partnerships made the West: cent of planted whitebarks survive. magic powder” by some foresters — into agency bias and F Gaze upon a stand of lodgepole pine, a As she wandered through surviving the soil around whitebark seedlings in incompetence sagebrush steppe, or windblown tallgrass, whitebark groves, Cripps, like any good Glacier National Park’s nursery. Finally, have plagued and you’re seeing the fruits of microscopic mycologist, scanned the forest floor. The that September, volunteers planted a the controversial mutualism. Mycorrhizal fungi draw sug- soil, she saw, teemed with S. sibiricus, thousand inoculated seedlings around project and its main whose yolk-colored mushrooms are called Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park. contractor, Good slippery jack. Whitebark and slippery jack Four years later, Cripps and Lonergan Earth Power-AZ (“Lost Correspondent Ben Goldfarb covers wildlife. in the woods”, HCN, @ben_a_goldfarb grew in close companionship. Maybe the reported that the fungal injection had improved pine survival in the wild by 11 per- 9/1/14). cent compared to control plots — a sub- Followup stantial gain, considering the challenges To date, of keeping planted whitebarks alive. They Good Earth has treated believe it will generate even greater ben- just 5,400 acres efits in places that have lost their mycor- of forest, after rhizae altogether. “We’d expect this to promising in 2013 work best where there might not be any to thin 30,000 Suillus left, like intensely burned areas,” acres per year for Lonergan says. “We want to keep these 10 years. Now, its fungi in the system.” subcontractors But that won’t be easy: As whitebarks say the company is perish in the Northern Rockies, Cripps skipping payments. In September and fears their mycorrhizal partners will also October, several vanish, making restoration even more trucking companies difficult. One morning, Cripps drives up and former Good Earth rutted dirt roads into the Gravelly Moun- employees complained tains, three hours southwest of Bozeman, to the Forest Service to check on some rust-resistant seedlings about delayed or she’d planted in a patch of fire-scorched missing payments. earth. On the way, she passes through end- The company is also less groves of rust-killed pines, their gray, enmeshed in lawsuits with one subcontractor, skeletal limbs twisted against the sky. a timber management “Where goes the pine, so goes the company, which claims Suillus,” she murmurs as we flash past it’s owed about Cathy Cripps checks whitebark pine seedlings in the Plant Growth Center at Montana State a ghostly copse. Cripps sighs heavily, $3 million. University, which she grows with the assistance of slippery jack fungal spores. mourning a die-off only she can see. Jodi Peterson Montana State University/Kelly Gorham

www.hcn.org High Country News 11 The Desert that An ancient bone bed in the Nevada desert holds clues to the West’s past — and the

oute 50 across Nevada has long been dubbed tumbledown miners’ cabins stand as shaky monuments “the Loneliest Road in America.” But turn off to a gold-and-silver strike in the early 1900s, and to the it onto Nevada 361 at Middlegate — popula- lives of those who worked it. A bit farther down the dusty tion 17 and the only gas for dozens of miles — road is a monument to another kind of vanished life, a Rand 50’s near-empty asphalt seems congested by com- boneyard from a time not just before humans, but before parison. Here in the back of the back of beyond, cruising dinosaurs — 150 million years before T. Rex. past salt flats and lava tubes and mountains cut like sand Poking out from a hilltop protected by a barn-like castles, you might even imagine you’re the last human structure and scattered among rocks and scree on miles of A ball cap featuring on Earth. Or perhaps the first. Against this otherworldly nearby slopes are the fossilized remains of ichthyosaurs — a prehistoric ichthyosaur rests scenery, it isn’t hard to conjure a landscape long before giant marine reptiles that terrorized Earth’s bygone seas. on the dash of a humans arrived. These bones belong to the species Shonisaurus popu- truck on Route 50 in Nevada, near Berlin- About an hour southeast of Middlegate lies the en- laris, a sort of super-sized dolphin with paddle-like front Ichthyosaur State trance to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. Rising from limbs and a long tail ending in a fin. Among the largest Park. Courtesy the desert’s unpeopled quiet is the ghost town of Berlin, of the ichthyosaurs, S. popularis could reach 40 feet in Nicholas Pyenson/ Smithsonian where a blacksmith’s shop, an assay office and some length, with a 10-foot-long skull, and may have weighed

12 High Country News December 21, 2015 was an Ocean Earth’s evolutionary puzzle FEATURE By Hillary Rosner

as much as 40 tons. (Mass is notoriously difficult to esti- species’ origins and the evolutionary forces exerted by our “Something mate for extinct creatures, particularly those with no liv- planet’s oceans. Throughout Earth’s history, all manner of happened ing analog.) Though reptilian, it gave birth to live young land-dwelling creatures have essentially walked into the in the water. sea and transformed, over eons, into something entirely here. Is this Discovered in 1928 and partially excavated beginning new. Shonisaurus — descended from a reptile that walked a graveyard? in the 1950s, these fossils keep an ancient secret — one on land — is among them. What might its skeletons add Is this a that Neil Kelley and Nicholas Pyenson are determined to to the story of life on Earth? uncover. The two Smithsonian National Museum paleon- To reconstruct a plausible plot with no witnesses and murder site? tologists have assembled traditional and high-tech tools, only spotty evidence, the team must get creative in its We’re trying along with a team hailing from three separate institutions. investigative tactics. Vertebrate fossils, after all, aren’t to figure “Something happened here,” says Pyenson, 35, Smithson- straightforward research subjects “like pressed plants or ian’s curator of fossil marine mammals. “Is this a grave- microscope slides,” says Pyenson. Chasing truth in a pile that out.” yard? Is this a murder site? We’re trying to figure that out.” of timeworn bones demands patience, persistence, and a —Nicholas Pyenson, Smithsonian’s curator The mineralized bones of these animals may also help constant balancing dance between imagination and doubt. of fossil marine shed light on a deeper mystery: one that involves their Please see Fossils, page 16 mammals

www.hcn.org High Country News 13 THE HCN COMMUNITY In the Year 2020... A vision for High Country News’ future

magine this: In late 2015, during a float On the editorial front, in 2020, HCN now has: on the Gunnison River celebrating High • a robust editorial staff, including a dozen field Country News’ 45th anniversary, Executive correspondents, that not only digs up stories Director Paul Larmer thumps his head for the print magazine, but also rapidly turns withI an oar and slips into a coma, just as the around pieces for its digital platforms to pro- organization finishes its 2016-2020 Strategic vide critical context for breaking news. It’s not Plan. Five years later, with the help of a team unusual to encounter two or three new HCN of Burning Man brain surgeons, he awakens stories a day, in print, video and audio formats; to a new world and happily discovers that every few weeks one goes “viral,” much as our High Country News not only still exists, but post on the famed Animas River mine spill did is thriving beyond expectations, even as the in August 2015. Thank you, West weathers tumultuous conditions driven by climate change, globalization and dramatic • strategic partnerships with several regional one and all, demographic shifts. and national media nonprofits. Together, they for keeping In some ways, the organization looks similar produce eye-popping investigations into the to the one he left behind — it still produces a workings (and dysfunctions) of the agencies, independent unique print magazine and website out of tiny corporations, and people trying to conserve and journalism for Paonia, Colorado, and it still serves a region exploit the West’s limited resources. Several gar- resplendent with public lands despite repeated ner national attention and spur policy changes. the West alive attempts to privatize them. But in other ways it On the business front, HCN has: for the past 45 has changed. For one, it now serves a whopping 50,000 • a marketing team that, with the help of a years. Please subscribers, and its website readership has state-of-the-art database, promotes HCN to launch us into tripled to 6 million a year. HCN’s hard-won a citizenry desperately seeking journalism it reputation for fairness and authenticity has can trust. Digital campaigns and partnerships the next 45 made it essential reading for lawmakers, agen- with nonprofits, progressive corporations and by making cies, educators, students, journalists and astute academic institutions have overtaken expensive citizens of all stripes — and helped inspire mail campaigns as the primary channels for a donation meaningful conversations and action. bringing people into the community. “How did we grow so much, so fast?” Paul today, and • an HCNU Classroom Program serves 300 asks. It turns out that, during his blackout, read- professors and their 10,000 students with mind- explore our ers raised an astounding million dollars, which blowing journalism, live-streamed webinars and was wisely invested in staff and technology to history at in-person events. help the organization better adapt to — and hcn.org/45. serve — a changing world. Other than the fact that he is jobless, Paul is thrilled by the new High Country News and humbled by the fact that its existential base — the readers who care about the West — is YES! I care about the West! more solid than ever. As a massive December o $25 Friend Amount of gift $ o Make this amount recurring rainstorm plows into the Rockies, he asks the o $75 Patron o Here’s my check (or voided check/1st month’s gift for recurring gifts) board if he can help write the next strategic o $150 Sponsor o Charge my credit card plan, and suggests two audacious goals: 100,000 o $250 Benefactor subscribers by 2025, and the creation of the Tom Card # Exp. date o $500 Guarantor Bell National Monument — protecting the HCN founder’s beloved Red Desert in Wyoming. o $1,000 Steward Name on card Paaul L rmer o $2,500 Philanthropist Billing Address o $5,000 Publisher’s Circle o $10,000 & up Independent City/State/ZIP Media Guardian

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Photo: ben Lehman DEAR FRIENDS RESEARCH FUND Thank you, Research Fund Holiday Jay Blessing | Atlanta, GA Terri Booten | La Grange, CA publishing break donors, for your past, John H. Boyles Jr., Dayton Ear, Nose and Throat Surgeons | Centerville, OH The holidays are approaching, and Mary Bresnan | Long Beach, CA we’re taking a break from our 22-is- present and future support Winslow Briggs | Palo Alto, CA sues-per-year schedule. Look for High Ann Brower | Sandpoint, ID Country News again around Jan. 25. But new stories will be published on- Since 1971, reader contributions to the Re- Della Bunney | Lakewood, CO Lynda M. Caine | Bozeman, MT line at hcn.org nearly every day. And search Fund have made it possible for HCN Eric Coons | Mesa, AZ David & Ann Burlingame | Fort Worth, TX to investigate and report on important issues Tripp Burwell | Raleigh, NC don’t forget to follow us on Facebook that are unique to the American West. 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Eickstaedt | Olympia, WA primary nuclear waste dump. Marta Steven & Anne Mauvais | Tigard, OR Robert Shellenberger | Golden, CO Ken & Wendy Ensey | Littleton, CO credits HCN founder Tom Bell with get- David Schroeder | Eugene, OR Steve Thompson | Scottsdale, AZ James Euler | Austin, TX ting her started, by hiring her in 1973 Farwell Smith & Linda McMullen | Dave Traudt | Sandia Park, NM Frank Evans | Del Norte, CO as a proofreader. “That was really the Big Timber, MT Jim Ulvestad | Gardiner, NY Roger & Jerry Evans | Great Falls, MT beginning of my environmental/natu- Stan Usinowicz | Lake Havasu City, AZ Bridget & Paul Ferguson | ral resource career,” Adams says. Sponsor Rainer M. Wachalovsky | Petaluma, CA Steamboat Springs, CO We were saddened to hear of the Anonymous William A. 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In honor of Roxane Ronca | Bellingham, WA o Art Arneson | Olympia, WA Jeff Jones | Whitefish,MT T In memory of Don Mabey | Salt Lake City, UT ah

Richard Arnold | Telluride, CO Stephen Jones | Seattle, WA r In memory of Vickie Normile | Columbia Falls, MT Catherine Austin | Seattle, WA Lynn & Beth Kaeding | Bozeman, MT Say Henry Kroll and Carmen Vigil visit HCN. Rick & Robin Blackwood | Bozeman, MT Fred Bell | Henderson, NV Sandor Kaupp | Coronado, CA www.hcn.org High Country News 15 About 250 Fossils, continued from page 13 agenda: to explore how top predators in mands of the marine environment yield the ocean have changed through the ages, the same structures in completely differ- million years On a warm, cloudless morning, Kelley reshaping entire ecosystems. About 250 ent creatures. Today’s apex ocean preda- and Pyenson scout the main excavated million years ago, Earth was rocked by tors are simply the most recent rendition ago, Earth quarry. An 80-foot-wide slice of rock, now the Permian-Triassic extinction — the of a song that Earth has been singing for was rocked by set up as a sort of museum, cradles a largest in planetary history. Roughly 90 a quarter-billion years. smorgasbord of fossils, including some percent of marine species disappeared. Berlin-Ichthyosaur offers a snippet — the Permian- near-complete ichthyosaurs. Dozens of “After that event, ecosystems are built a brief crescendo, like a passage from the vertebrae, each several inches thick and from the ground up,” Kelley says. “Every- planet’s unfolding ecological score — that Triassic nearly a foot in diameter, lie alongside thing changes. Things that build reefs will help Pyenson and Kelley illuminate scores of rib bones stacked in the rock like change, shellfish change, fish change.” It’s how evolution progresses on a grand extinction. fence slats. Jaw fragments show indenta- the first time there’s evidence of land rep- scale. Scientists call it “macroevolution,” Roughly tions from the reptiles’ inch-wide teeth. tiles returning to the oceans and thriving; the natural world’s version of macroeco- It’s Pyenson’s first time here, and he ichthyosaurs appear 7 million years later. nomics: a scaled-up picture that explains 90 percent consults a preliminary digital map the Shonisaurus was the biggest verte- broad patterns at play over eons. team made last summer. He’s dressed in brate yet to take to the water. And ever But first Kelly and Pyenson need of marine a striped Oxford shirt, orange pants, Cha- since, “big predators are continually div- to figure out some more basic things, species cos, and a baseball cap advertising Great ing in from land,” Pyenson says. “All these such as just how deep the ocean here Basin Brewing Company’s Ichthyosaur big, iconic, beloved critters — whales, dol- was. Charles Camp, the University of disappeared. IPA — a nod to Nevada’s state fossil. Kel- phins, sea otters, polar bears. Every time California-Berkeley paleontologist who ley, a 34-year-old postdoctoral researcher it happens, the whole structure of food studied and excavated the site for more Ichthyosaurs at the Smithsonian and an expert in webs accommodates these great preda- than a decade beginning in 1954, believed extinct marine reptiles, wears a T-shirt tors, and they have an influence that’s the ichthyosaurs died after stranding on appear promoting Built to Spill — an indy rock disproportionate to their abundance.” the shores of a giant inland sea. In a slim, 7 million band — Chacos to match Pyenson’s, and Even Shonisaurus’ form is one that trippy volume called Child of the Rocks, a “Yo! MTV Raps” trucker hat. With their reappears throughout time, says Pyen- published in 1981 by the Nevada Bureau years later. identical shoes and scruffy facial hair, the son: those paddle-shaped forelimbs, for of Mines and Geology, Camp imagined boyish-looking scientists could be paleon- example, and a streamlined body ideal for what “pioneer astronauts” from a distant tology’s answer to the Hardy Boys. efficient movement underwater. “When planet might have seen had they touched And indeed, they’ve taken on an am- we see that happen in reptiles, and then down here roughly 220 million years ago. bitious case. Earlier this year, Kelley and much later in marine mammals,” he says, Standing at the “edge of the muddy tide- Pyenson published a paper in the journal “it tells us something really important flats,” he wrote, the visitors would have Science, laying out an expansive research about how evolution works.” The de- come upon the stinking carcasses of dead

16 High Country News December 21, 2015 ichthyosaurs “lined up like logs along the in the 1980s and 1990s for her doctoral ultimately prove nothing more than “the A team from the shore, and rotting in the sun. research at UC-Berkeley, concluded there physics of centers of gravity,” Pyenson Smithsonian was no evidence for the idea that Shon- says. Where clues are scarce, you gather Institution’s National One of the carcasses may have isaurus popularis “frequented intertidal all you can. Museum of Natural seemed fresh as if it had come in waters or was prone to stranding.” History works at on the last tide. Its skin, smooth, Berlin-Ichthyosaur Carefully stepping among the Shon- Gathering the largest clues, how- only slightly lined and crinkled, State Park in Nevada, isaurus bones, Kelley deals another blow ever — the skeletons of 40-ton animals would have glistened in the sun. where they’re using to Camp’s theory. The skeletons, he says, — is an unwieldy process at best. You The great head, with its long ta- 3-D imaging to help look to be belly-up. can’t pick up a giant skull with calipers. pering snout partly embedded study fossils found Pyenson is intrigued. “Cool!” he “Anything bigger than what you can in the prehistoric sea in the mud, lay twisted around responds. hold in your hand means that you can’t bed. alongside the body. Rows of point- Beached creatures, such as modern see everything in one glimpse,” explains Courtesy Neil Kelley/ ed and fluted teeth ranged down Smithsonian whales, usually end up on their bellies. Pyenson, “which has the effect of really the sides of its long upper and The ichthyosaurs’ orientation suggests limiting your understanding.” But Kel- lower jaws. The monstrous eye, that they were already dead when they ley and Pyenson have found a hack: 3-D glazed in death, was a foot across, hit the sea floor. imaging, or photogrammetry, a relatively while the body, eight feet thick, “Unless they were rolled,” says Kelley. new technique for paleontology, which, lay like a half inflated balloon. “They could be rolled,” admits Pyenson. Pyenson says, lets them “search for Camp used his vivid imagination to re- Asking whether the animals floated patterns that cut through the random construct the tragic and compelling scene or sank or stranded is useful, says Pyen- vagaries of what taphonomy leaves for of one reptile’s demise. The poor creature, son, “because what we are really asking, us to find.” A few years ago, for example, he wrote, was “churning the water into whether it be fossil whales or ichthyo- when workers building a new section of a froth with his lashing tail and puffing saurs, is the process of what happens be- the Pan-American Highway in Chile’s out air from his lungs in great agonized tween death and discovery.” That process Atacama Desert exposed a bed of fossil- gasps.” But there’s one crucial problem: has spawned a science all its own, called ized marine animal bones from roughly Back then, the site was almost certainly taphonomy — the study of the dead. As 6 to 10 million years ago, Pyenson and much deeper underwater; it wasn’t a biological evidence becomes locked in his colleagues raced to the scene armed tideflat. stone, key information vanishes. Recon- with equipment that would preserve a “There’s no beach sand in these structing that data from other sources is virtual copy of the excavated site. Time rocks,” explains Kelley. “These are fine- how we ultimately tell the story of lost was short: In just two weeks, construction grained mud rocks that you typically get worlds. would destroy more than 40 complete or in deep-water sediments.” Jennifer Ho- Here, the skeletons’ orientation may partial skeletons — extinct varieties of gler, a paleontologist who studied the site point to something profound, or it may whales and other marine animals, includ-

www.hcn.org High Country News 17 At the Smithsonian’s ing an aquatic sloth. poisonous algae, died within hours, and photogrammetry uses algorithms to National Museum The scientists combed the area for washed up onto the flat sands of an estu- combine exhaustive, overlapping digital of Natural History, clues — in the boneyard, in the rock, in ary. Over millennia, the scenario was images into a high-resolution 3-D model. Nick Pyenson, the surrounding landscape. “We were repeated, and the bones became buried in The result can be easily manipulated Randall Irmis searching for a single good explanation,” the mud. and examined on a computer, aiding the and Neil Kelley Pyenson says, “for why we had the cast of Along with the imaging technology, an hunt for clues. Blundell, who describes compare fossils with 3-D prints and characters and the condition they were understanding of macroevolution helped his background as “nerd,” has also helped images of extinct in.” The skeletons, perfectly preserved, solve the mystery. Throughout history, make other 3-D scanned models, includ- marine predators to lay just meters from one another, piled in four-legged animals that return to the ing an image of President Obama, and — understand the fossil four layers that each represented roughly water dive in at the top of the food chain. as part of an ongoing project — a replica reptiles found at 10,000 years of history. By building 3-D That makes them susceptible to things of the space shuttle Discovery. Berlin-Ichthyosaur digital models, the scientists were able to like toxic algae, whose effects can be mag- In addition to making massive objects State Park in observe the skeletons from angles impos- nified the higher up the chain you go. easier to examine, digital 3-D models Nevada. sible in the real world. “These views gave Pyenson hopes Berlin-Ichthyosaur can bring fossilized bones and other rare Olivier Douliery us the luxury to see every nook, cranny will ultimately prove as scrutable as objects to a wider audience, allowing and overhang, and really understand how the whale bone bed. Inside the Ichthyo- researchers around the world swifter different bones, and the tangled skeletons saur shelter one morning, Holly Little, and longer access. Bones from fossil digs of different individuals, were positioned Smithsonian’s “paleoinformatics special- too often end up virtually reburied in relative to each other,” Pyenson says. ist,” prepares the eons-old fossils for their museum basements. Many of the Shon- The team ultimately concluded that 21st-century moment, carefully sweep- isaurus bones that Camp excavated from the killer was a toxic algae bloom: a red ing away dust with brooms and brushes. Berlin-Ichthyosaur still lurk in cartons tide, like those implicated in the recent Meanwhile, Jon Blundell readies a series at the Nevada State Museum. “A few deaths of Florida’s manatees and bottle- of cameras and laser scanners, mounted paddles are on display, but then there are nose dolphins. Iron eroding from the on tripods that he’ll carry around the site. boxes full of wrapped-up bones sitting un- rocks of the Andes could have caused it. The lasers capture millions of data points disturbed,” Pyenson laments. Who knows The whales and other animals would that essentially describe the surface of what mysteries might be solved if more have eaten prey contaminated with the the objects with sub-millimeter accuracy; eyes could scrutinize those bones?

18 High Country News December 21, 2015 Powerful as new technology can be, paleontology still relies on tools that would have been familiar to Berlin’s miners. Outside the fossil shelter, under a sun growing fiercer by the hour, Randall Irmis supervises a sort of geological scavenger hunt. He’s building yet another bridge to the past, this one using information gleaned from the rock record. With picks and shovels, Irmis and his team dig a trench up a hillside — survey- ing the rock at different levels, above and below the quarry, measuring its layers and taking home samples to test for con- centrations of isotopes, or different forms of chemical elements. That will help determine how the bone beds formed. “It’s pretty low-tech,” says Irmis, a 33-year-old paleontologist at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah who has been involved in the discovery of a half-dozen extinct reptile species. He and Pyenson were housemates during grad school at UC-Berkeley. In addition to containing clues about ichthyosaurs, the dirt and stone at this site can help tell the broader story of Nevada’s prehistoric past — the move- ments of its land and water as well as their inhabitants. The region’s famous “basin and range” topography consists of mountain ranges of very old rocks separated by valleys of very young rocks. It’s caused by plate tectonics. “Forty million years ago, Nevada was half the width it is today,” Irmis says. “It’s been pulled apart to almost twice its original width just in the last 30 million years.” The Pacific plate used to move underneath the North American plate. But now it moves side to side — a switch that put extreme tension on the western side of North America, pulling it apart “like a Snickers bar,” as Kelley says, and leaving chunks of rock separated by thinner layers. Nevada’s mountain ranges reveal the layers of many eras of the deep past — timelines of geologic history scrawled across the Ellis writes in his book Sea Dragons. “We region’s stark scenery. must not be misled by the idea that a The geological slices found at Berlin million years is a mere blink of the eye.” might help explain how these particular One million years is a long, long time. ichthyosaurs died, or how they ended up Ichthyosaurs roamed the planet’s oceans preserved as fossils rather than decom- for roughly 150 million years. The fossil posing like most corpses, their mineral record of whales, by comparison, is only components recycled to the sea. Or they about 50 million years old. might offer answers to questions we Sitting around the campfire one eve- haven’t yet asked. ning, I mentally strip this spot of its con- But visualizing long stretches of temporary features: first the SUVs, picnic change over time, across a physical land- tables and composting toilets, and then scape, is a tricky endeavor. Pyenson calls the piñon pines, sagebrush and Mormon it “the mind-fuck of geology.” To imagine tea plants. I erase the biting red ants what the area around Berlin looked like underfoot and the scorpions scurrying in during the age of the ichthyosaurs, you the shadows. I try to ignore the constella- need to time travel back to a very differ- tion of REI tents on the desert floor and ent planet. The Mesozoic era lasted from instead focus on the dazzlingly starry sky 248 million to 65 million years ago. Try- above — though even this would have ing to fathom that timespan is daunting, looked different to the ichthyosaurs. and the familiar trick of picturing Earth’s In a camp chair beside the rising 4.6-billion-year history as if it’s 24 hours smoke, Irmis — another boyish-looking on a clock seems unhelpful: It minimizes scientist with scruffy facial hair and a the scale, and therefore the scope, of our baseball cap — tells me that the trench At the Natural History Museum of Utah, Fred Lacy cleans part of a awe. “To grasp the face of evolution, we revealed layers of limestone interspersed fossilized humerus bone of a Shonisaurus, top, that was found during a don’t need to speed up the film, we need with the layers of mud that Kelley dig at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. Above, the museum’s paleontology to slow it down,” marine biologist Richard described earlier. “You think about an curator, Randy Irmis, holds a fossilized Shonisaurus tooth. Kim Raff

www.hcn.org High Country News 19 Because it’s easy to imagine all sorts of Paleontologists from crazy scenarios based on strange fossils, the Smithsonian, paleontologists must remain vigilant University of Utah about evidence. What does the geology and University of say? What do the bones say? Which ex- Nevada in one of the quarries in Berlin- planations make sense based on the evi- Ichthyosaur State dence, and which are pure speculation? Park in Nevada, “Complexity is really challenging to keep where scientists in your head,” Pyenson says, “and then believe hundreds you’re always playing this game of, like, of the prehistoric ‘Is what I’m seeing connecting to what I reptiles may be think is going on in my head, which may buried. just be a fantasy?’ ” Courtesy Neil Kelley/ Smithsonian One such story is in part what pro- pelled the team to Berlin-Ichthyosaur in the first place. A few years ago, a husband-and-wife paleontology team “You want ocean environment; it’s got to be fairly sun for a moment, I crouch in the shade proposed a new theory for the Nevada quiet to get mud deposited, but it’s got to of a piñon. At my feet, a mess of reddish boneyard: 100-foot-long, hyper-intelligent, to look be warm enough and fairly close to the rock shards stretches up and down the narcissistic cephalopods with a taste for surface to get calcium carbonate.” Back in hill. “How can you possibly pick out ichthyosaur. out for the the Triassic, when Shonisaurus popularis something like a jawbone — or any fossil “Giant Kraken Lair Discovered,” a crammed the seas of the American West, — when it all looks so similar?” I wonder press release blared shortly after Mark Shonisaurs. eastern Nevada would have formed its aloud. No sooner have I uttered the words and Dianna McMenamin of Mount You’re a little coastline. Despite a distance of 200 miles than I begin to distinguish fossils all Holyoke floated the idea at an annual to land, Irmis says, the ocean here was around me. I start picking up some of the geologists’ meeting in 2011. An article on snack for relatively shallow, maybe a few hundred smaller ones, and soon I have handfuls of Livescience.com explained the McMe- feet deep. bones — bits and pieces of ribs encased namins’ theory that the “markings and them.” The sea Irmis is describing was in limestone. Paleontologists call these rearrangement of the S. popularis bones —Paleontologist part of Panthalassa, also called the fossils “float” — bones that erosion and suggests an octopus-like creature either Randall Irmis, Proto-Pacific, the “super-ocean” that once weathering have left exposed on the sur- drowned the ichthyosaurs or broke imagining what life surrounded the mono-continent Pan- face rather than buried beneath the soil. their necks” before purposefully deposit- would have been like gaea. Much of that land mass floated in But these seemingly trivial rock scraps ing their vertebrae into a pattern like in a Triassic era sea the Southern Hemisphere — meaning can be crucial pieces of the prehistoric the suckers on a squid’s tentacle. “The that our fire pit, at roughly 38 degrees puzzle. They’re the glass shards from a researchers,” the article said, “suggest latitude, sat in a very different part of backwards-gazing crystal ball. this pattern reveals a self-portrait of the the globe. Back in the Triassic, this same Nearby, Paige dePolo, an undergradu- mysterious beast.” spot was at 5 or 6 degrees latitude, in the ate from the University of Nevada, is The evidence for this idea? There isn’t tropics. assembling another pile of float. Pyenson any, save for the way the skeletons’ ar- “So we could be floating peacefully in and Matt McCurry, a research fellow rangements appeared to the two observ- a calm, warm sea,” I venture. from Australia, head toward us, each car- ers. “It is a case of reading the scattered “Except for the giant reptiles swim- rying an armful of fossilized bones. They bones as if they were tea leaves able to ming around you,” Kelley says. could belong to the same individual as tell someone’s fortune,” paleontology blog- “Yeah, you want to look out for the the skull, or represent additional ichthyo- ger Brian Switek wrote on Wired.com. Shonisaurs,” says Irmis. “You’re a little saurs. “The story isn’t nine individuals But though the kraken theory may snack for them.” dying,” says Pyenson, visibly pleased by be more science fiction than science, it the glut of fossils here. “It’s hundreds.” invokes a broader truth about our quest During the years that Charles Camp Berlin-Ichthyosaur’s jawbones in par- for knowledge. Humans are a storytelling worked at Berlin-Ichthyosaur, he excavat- ticular intrigue Pyenson. Some contain species. In science, those stories must be ed about a half-dozen quarries. One is the teeth, and others don’t, making him won- based on evidence. But even when they sheltered bone bed; another lies partway der whether Shonisaurs lost teeth as they are, we often get them wrong. New ideas, up an adjacent slope. But Camp worked aged and their diets changed. “This is new theories, new evidence, new tech- before the days of GPS. Though he made something we see with a lot of big ocean niques — all of these prod us forward, meticulous drawings, his directions left predators,” he says. “They go through dif- and we modify our understanding as we much to interpretation. Part of the team’s ferent ocean niches as they grow.” go. goal is to relocate some of Camp’s quar- He and Kelley are also debating the Scientific inquiry is a process of con- ries. They’re certain that the fossil trove timing of the ichthyosaurs’ deaths. How stant revision. And as any writer will tell has barely been touched. closely together did they happen — over you, revision is where the most interest- On a search for Quarry 4 one after- hours? days? weeks? longer? And how ing things surface. Dinosaurs, we once noon before I arrived, Cornelia Rasmus- long did the bones linger on the ocean thought, were lumbering, tail-dragging sen, a doctoral student in Irmis’ lab, floor before they were buried? Partly from reptiles. Now we’ve come to believe that found a tantalizing piece of jawbone em- studying the digital model of the bone- they were warm-blooded, carried their bedded in the rock. A few days later, we yard, they already have one theory for Hillary Rosner writes tails off the ground, and often came with set off to take a better look. We scramble how some of the bones came to their final about science and feathers. Who knows how future discover- several hundred yards up a steep hillside resting place. “A good analogy is how the the environment ies will change the narrative? covered in scree, to where the ichthyo- corner of a hockey rink sometimes accu- Shonisaurus popularis has a real for Wired, National saur jaw lies in the shadow of a juniper. mulates clusters of pucks, over the course story, a concrete series of events that Geographic, Scientific It’s about 10 inches long, with perfectly of time,” says Pyenson. “Ichthyosaur happened millions of years ago. But to American and other preserved indentations from its teeth. vertebrae start off as a wrapped package publications. She lives recreate it, we must cast back across vast The creature’s whole jaw might have of pucks on their side, and then slowly in Boulder, Colorado. spans of time, assembling clues from each been three to five feet long. More of its unroll, until they collect together again, new lead we unearth. Luckily, technology This story was funded skeleton is likely buried not far beneath given enough time.” The process is a clue improves and dirt shifts: There will al- with reader donations the surface, somewhere on this same hill. to the oceans: It suggests passive cur- ways be another bone that pokes up from to the High Country Partly to keep from slipping down rents making “very organized structures the ground and entices us a little way News Research Fund. the slope and partly to dodge the blazing from basic units.” farther down the path to the truth.

20 High Country News December 21, 2015 MARKETPLACE

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24 High Country News December 21, 2015 WRITERS ON THE RANGE

Ilyas Wadood, right, of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix talks with a demonstrator during an anti- Muslim rally last May. More than 200 protesters, some armed, denounced Islam and its Prophet Mohammed, while counterprotesters shouted, “Go home, Nazis.” Nancy Wiechec/ REUTERS Western nativism has a rotten odor Back in my railroad days, we often said were unhappy when Anglo gold-seekers nary and laundry skills. He was grateful that something had “a bad smell.” appeared. The Ku Klux Klan tried to to Mexicans, who taught us about their “I smell a bad order!” — lingo for a keep out Catholics and “Slavs” in the system of acequia ditches, which divert- car that was rolling wrong and needed 1920s. To some degree, it’s a feeling that ed water from rivers for farming. He was to be removed from the train. The alarm isn’t surprising: Old-timers feel threat- probably no more racist than most in the was shouted down from the conductor ened, and some of them react fearfully. mid-19th century, when he welcomed up in the “angel’s seat” in the caboose, But when intolerance is touted as public the musically talented “Africans,” who, back when a person actually had a job policy, we deny the best in our Western he said, were suited for working in deep riding the caboose. The kid brakeman, heritage of hospitality. mines because they were able to tolerate who, back then, was inevitably me, It’s never possible to keep out a tar- the heat. OPINION BY would trudge up in the snow and dark to geted group for long. Anyone who thinks Gilpin went so far as to argue that Forrest find the offending car, called a “hot box.” there are hardly any Muslims in the our wide-open spaces and mountain air These days, there’s a different kind of Rocky Mountain West needs to talk to would encourage a new kind of humanity Whitman bad odor here in the West, and I’m ready my goat-farmer acquaintance. His place to emerge, with a “hy-brid” vigor based to shout the alarm. in southern Colorado sends off a truck- on mutual respect. He didn’t quite say Each time I read a letter to the editor load of meat goats to market every week. all the children would be brighter and calling for a stop to immigration, the Some of those animals are destined to all the dogs behave, but he came close in smell gets stronger. Lately, I’ve seen become Mexican cabrito, but most are for some of his speeches. True, he did have letters to the editor calling for Islam to Muslim consumption. During Eid, one of land for sale, but sorry, writer Wallace “grow up,” or agreeing with politicians the Muslim holy days, he’ll send off even Stegner, he never said “rain follows the like Republican presidential candidate more. It’s sort of like raising turkeys for plow.” Donald Trump that we need to stop Thanksgiving. The bad smell of nativism can be “Muslim immigration” to the United To be fair, not all the concerns about overcome if we stay true to our tradition States altogether. Some small-town Muslim refugees are caused by nativism. of hospitality. Welcoming all has made publishers come close to saying the same Perhaps better vetting of immigrants us what we are. Old Gov. Gilpin was thing. is needed, though their vetting already probably right about how our willing- I cringe at this kind of talk. Many of takes a couple of years. But when writers ness to welcome whoever had the good us have friends and relatives who are in Western newspapers warn of danger- fortune to get here has strengthened our Muslim. Some of our kids marry those ous “Muslims,” with no qualifiers such as Rocky Mountain population. We’ve never folks. Some of our grandkids grow up in “radical” or “terrorist,” I smell a bad odor. gone it alone in the West; we’ve needed Muslim families — even though the kids Western folks at our best have everybody to create a society. This is no may end up as Buddhists or atheists or always welcomed immigrants, and I love time to get on a high horse and tell some Evangelical Republicans, for all we know. the vision of Colorado’s first territorial people they don’t belong. It smells bad enough that I’m ready to governor, William Gilpin. Though one of call the reaction what it is: a resurgence his books, The Cosmopolitan Railway, is Forrest Whitman writes from Salida, of nativism. full of the usual booster fantasies about Colorado. Nativism is no stranger to the West. the abundance the railroads would bring The belief that those of us already here us, I appreciate his image of railroads WEB EXTRA Writers on the Range is a syndicated service of To see all the current are superior to immigrants is part of “debouching” (his favorite verb) the High Country News, providing three opinion col- Writers on the Range our history. The Native Americans felt peoples of the world to help build the umns each week to more than 200 media outlets columns, and archives, that way when the whites invaded. The West. around the West. For more information, contact visit hcn.org. Latino farmers in the San Luis Valley He lauded the Chinese for their culi- Betsy Marston, [email protected], 970-527-4898.

www.hcn.org High Country News 25 BOOKS Searching for the good fight in the Nez Perce War

William T. Vollmann’s striking new novel, Vollmann finds a clear historical allegory their surrender. Standing in the cemetery, The Dying Grass, chronicles the shame- for America at large — a nation keenly Vollman forms something like a High ful events of the Nez Perce War of 1877, aware of its principles even as it fails to Plains haiku from a simple inscription on when the United States Army tried to live up to them. another gravestone: prevent several bands of Native Ameri- Vollmann is notorious for writing at My precious little girl cans from fleeing to Canada after miners too great a length, but something must be Haylee Roxanne and settlers encroached on tribal lands in said for the book’s word-to-word beauty. June 5 2004 the Northwest, in blatant violation of an He has a tendency to fall into near-verse Oct 6 2004 earlier treaty. Much of the tale — and it’s when describing a scene. Early in the nov- a long one, north of 1,200 pages — is told el, he flashes forward to his own visit to “— my heart is good; from the perspective of Gen. Oliver Otis Chief Joseph’s grave on the Colville Indian my heart is grass; Howard, who led the campaign. Reservation near Nesplelem, Washington, graves in the gravel and golden grass.” The Dying Grass Howard personifies a troublesome where the surviving members of Joseph’s William T. Vollmann wrinkle in American history: the near- band were eventually placed, years after By Daniel Person 1,213 pages, simultaneous fights to emancipate slaves hardcover: $55. and obliterate Native Americans. Unlike Viking Press, 2015. many of his fellow bluecoats, Howard was fiercely opposed to slavery; in fact, he founded Howard University, a black college, in Washington, D.C., in 1867. Vollmann uses Howard’s memoirs to create internal dialogues that show him wrestling with the injustice of American Indian policy. Howard was acutely aware of the fact that settlers were willfully en- croaching on treaty land in the Wallowa Valley. He sees his government as terror- izing the Nez Perce people: “He feels for them, of course. He disapproves not only of our national Indian policy, but also of Wallowa’s heedless seizures.” Yet he still leads the campaign against the Nez Perce and several other Indian tribes. Why? Howard himself struggles with the question: He’s a soldier; he needs the money; he’s proud to serve his country. When all else fails, he reasons that “Washington has given instructions, and there must be an end.” Howard is a tragic figure whose self- An 1877 sketch by General Howard’s son, Guy, depicts Nez Perce Chief Toohoolhoolzote in deception becomes painfully obvious talks with General Howard about relocation to an Idaho reservation. When the chief said he as the long march carries on. In him, wouldn't leave his homeland, he was jailed. Oregon Historical Society

The Corps of Discovery, post-apocalypse edition

“Every story might seem unique and the Sanctuary’s loathsome dictator for example, he writes: “The girl appears particular but is actually recurring, in orders her execution. But others, includ- so thin, like a piece of wood somebody conversation with others,” observes a ing a bold woman named Mina Clark, a whittled and gave up on.” man in Oregon-born writer Benjamin security agent for the Sanctuary, and an Percy has always set his fiction in the Percy’s third novel. “We’re all characters antisocial man named Lewis Meriwether, West, and here he plays with the notion caught in a cycle of ruin and renewal.” who runs a museum of the past, decide to of what heading Westward means to the What if a global flu pandemic resulted save Gawea and set out Westward across American spirit, even when the landscape in nuclear war? The Dead Lands begins the American wasteland. is no longer recognizable. “They are the 150 years after such a catastrophe oc- Percy, who made his name as an same,” Percy writes about two characters curred, at a time when the people living award-winning writer of literary fiction, seeking to upend the standard order in inside a walled enclave known as the has recently incorporated more elements this post-apocalyptic world, “both refus- Sanctuary, formerly the site of St. Louis, of science fiction, fantasy and horror ing to acknowledge that they live in a The Dead Lands have finally begun to wonder whether into his writing. (His last novel, Red place where fantasies must be discarded.” Benjamin Percy anyone else exists in the land that used Moon, concerned werewolves.) The Dead Even readers who lean toward realism 403 pages, to be America. Lands features some of Percy’s finest ought to welcome Percy’s turn toward hardcover: $26. When a strange young woman named work to date, a tale that doesn’t skimp fantasy. The Dead Lands shows what Grand Central Gawea appears on horseback at the Sanc- on rich characters, language and setting, can happen when a talented, disciplined tuary’s gates, speaking of a lush green complete with a suspenseful, anything- writer gives his imagination free rein. Publishing, 2015. land across the country in Oregon, where might-happen plot. Percy’s prose has a kind of civilization has managed not grown more subtle and beautiful, full of By Jenny Shank just to survive but, apparently, thrive, evocative descriptions. Describing Gawea,

26 High Country News December 21, 2015 Essay | By Melissa Hart Bryozoan colony. What IS this? t first, we mistake the bronze balloons for bags tangled and friends. A around low-hanging branches on Coyote Creek. Our 7-year- “I miss oak old daughter leans out of her kayak. “Trash,” she concludes. savannahs,” Jona- I lift a branch holding one of the oblong sacs. It snaps, and than said, navigat- the thing plops into the water. Maia scoops it into her bug net. ing our rickety jeep It’s not trash: We stare at a mysterious translucent thing with down a jungle-bordered star-like patterns embedded in its membrane. In 14 years in dirt road. Oregon, I’ve never seen anything like it. “I miss the seasons,” I I pull out my smartphone. My caption on Facebook: “What said. “I even miss the rain.” IS this?” On a beachside boardwalk, we navigated snowcone carts, bicycles, kids selling puppies. We stepped across My husband moved here from New York 15 years ago; I a bridge and discovered an open-air restaurant cov- came from California. We’re not unusual: In 2014, according to ered in Oregon Ducks flags. United Van Lines, more Americans moved to Oregon than to “What is this?” I studied the tourists and Ticos. any other state. The expat owner hailed from Eugene. We sat Jonathan and I bonded over our shared fascination with the under green-and-yellow flags and looked at each Cooper’s hawks that shrieked through the forest between his other over fish tacos. apartment and my bungalow. We were happiest outside, shiver- “It’s time,” we agreed, “to return to Oregon.” Amanita muscaria. ing or sweating, soaked with rain or river water. At Darlingtonia State Natural Site, we paced wooden walk- Once again, our Honda is stuffed with camping gear. ways between tall yellow-leafed masses of Darlingtonia califor- In the Wallowa Mountains, we marvel at tiny pink nica. “Cobra lilies,” I read. “Insects fly into the plant’s hood and wildflowers. slide down the stalks. The plant digests them. Yikes.” On a coastal hike, we find Amanita muscaria, hallucinogenic We married among Douglas-firs, then added a child to our red mushrooms with white spots. Our consciousness feels altered exploration team. We braved coastal windstorms to study the sea enough by the sight of the rough-skinned newts below them. stack called Face Rock. I read the Coquille Tribe’s legend aloud. “Newts,” I read, “smell their way back to their birth-river at Maia frowned. “How could a sea god turn the princess and mating time. Males grow rough patches on their feet to em- her raccoons to stone?” brace females. They rub their snouts together.” “It’s a legend,” I said. “Not true.” Though I wondered, given I rub my nose along Jonathan’s. Maia giggles and scampers the rock’s resemblance to the upturned, imploring face of a toward the beach. woman. Another day, at a river confluence, a sliver flash leaps up- “What are these?” Among sea stacks, Jonathan examined ward. “What is that?” she yelps. dozens of finned aquamarine discs. “By-the-wind sailors,” I read The migrating salmon hurl themselves up boulders, heading in my guidebook. “They float on the ocean.Wind blows them for their hatching ground, using the earth’s magnetic field like onto beaches.” a map. We rejoiced in the knowledge that individuals are either We visit the carnivorous plants at the Darlingtonia site. right-finned or left-finned and chanted their Latin name: “Vele- Maia wanders the path between thousands of fork-tongued lla velella, you’re a hell of a fella.” stalks. Suddenly, a man runs over. “Bear!” he pants. “Ran across the highway … headed this But then we grew bored. “We’ve lived here a decade,” we told way.” friends. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, Oregon surpris- “So move your couch,” one advised. “Take a vacation.” es. Mystery and discovery sharpen our minds, engage our Instead, we sold our couch, packed our belongings, and senses, confirm that wonder still exists. moved to Costa Rica. At Coyote Creek, we cut open the bronze sac and find gelati- In Costa Rica, nature isn’t subtle. Iguanas and monkeys nous goo. No one responds to my Facebook query. Later, I festoon branches; wonders declare themselves outright. We meet a biologist from Philadelphia. “Bryozoan colony,” he snorkeled with octopus and stingrays. I saw a tapir. Maia found says. “Moss animals. Those star-shaped things on the leaf-cutter ants, the parade of tiny bodies brandished leaf outside? Zooids — individual creatures. What’re fragments aloft like flags. We didn’t miss they doing on the creek?” Oregon. “No idea.” Outside Maia’s new kinder- We grin at each other, garten, students and parents thrilled by what we don’t pointed into the trees at a long know about our adopted hairy creature. “What is it?” I homeland. asked the teacher. So much to dis- “Oso hormiguero,” she cover, still. replied. “An anteater.” Velella velella. Along with monkeys howling at dawn and the blue undulation of Melissa Hart is the author morpho butterflies, we made mun- of the memoir Wild Within: dane discoveries: How to make money, How Rescuing Owls Inspired where to live. We missed our family a Family (Lyons, 2014).

Darlingtonia californica. Photos: Lisa Miller, Dawn and Jim Langiewicz/Flickr, Notafly/ www.hcn.org High Country News 27 Wikimedia Commons, Noah Elhardt/Wikimedia Commons U.S. $5 | Canada $6

HEARD AROUND THE WEST | BY Betsy Marston

THE WEST dable raptor, which flew off. The brothers said Forrest Whitman belongs to one of rural Colo- they had never seen an eagle up close and were rado’s most endangered species: He’s a Demo- struck by its grandeur: “We were just really crat. Nevertheless, this brave man ran for mayor amazed — and still are.” of Salida a few months ago — unsuccessfully, of course, though he got a respectable 44.63 UTAH percent of the vote. He shared with us some of When your religion forbids you to drink liquor, the valuable lessons he learned on the campaign smoke cigarettes or swill coffee, what can you do trail, and the first rule, he says, is to be sure to to be a little bit naughty? In Salt Lake City, de- harp on your roots — assuming your parents vout Mormons can patronize a “dirty soda shop,” were fortunate enough to be born in the county. reports The New York Times, where “sugar But what if you’ve been a resident for three is the vice of choice.” And how sweet it is: At decades and are still considered a newcomer? It Sodalicious, the drink called Extra Dirty Second might help to have a third- or fourth-generation Wife boasts a concoction of Mountain Dew, fruit local introduce you at your meet-and-greets. At syrups and a shot of half-and-half. Meanwhile, such gatherings, he cautions, do not mention down the road, its competitor, Swig, serves up that your son-in-law is a Muslim or point out a calorific brew called the Missionary, which that, in your urban life, you were a professor. combines Sprite, coconut cream and something Your actual qualifications for office probably called tiger’s blood syrup. Unfortunately, the count for little, though it helps if you have a two popular chains are now in litigation over reputation for running the annual community W ASHINGTON When your Christmas tree just who owns the right to call their mixed drinks dinner. Most of all, he advises, always carry dog keeps growing ... Elaine Thompson /AP “dirty.” Swig says it nailed the term first; Sodali- treats and say nice things about people’s dogs — cious scoffs that the word dirty is nothing new; even if the vicious little yappers are nibbling on ELSEWHERE think “dirty martini.” For now, the “soda war” is your ankle. It’s only a matter of time, Whitman New York City’s menagerie already includes deer, galvanizing fans on both sides, though on Twit- optimistically concludes, before newcomers can wild turkeys and hawks. Now, an increas- ter, Rea Perry commented, “Only in Utah would help change things by doing something positive ing number of coyotes have invaded parks a soda shop think they own ‘dirty.’ ” about local economic development, alternative in Queens and the Bronx — even a high-rise A Salt Lake City judge will soon decide wheth- energy and bicycle paths. (An op-ed by Whitman development on Manhattan’s East Side, reports er children as young as 6 were forced to do farm appears on page 25.) The New York Times. In a refreshing response, work under the polygamous sect, the Funda- Sarah Grimke Aucoin, director of the city’s mentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day THE WEST Urban Park Rangers, says residents ought to Saints. Federal attorneys say Paragon Contrac- Mystery solved in Yellowstone and Grand Teton relish glimpsing coyotes, though they should tors violated a 2007 order involving underage la- national parks: The dozen broken toilet seats never attempt to feed them: “People might be bor and should be held in contempt for failing to in outhouses were most likely caused by Asian alarmed, maybe even a little fearful. But the pay 1,400 workers from the sect, including 175 tourists who climbed up on the lids to squat message we want to get out is: ‘You’re lucky. children, who took part in a 2012 pecan harvest. instead of sitting on the “throne,” reports the Enjoy how special it is.’ ” In its defense, Paragon said that because the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Next year, park And in Canada, two 20-something brothers children among the pickers were home-schooled latrines will sport signs illustrating the proper from Ontario became Internet stars after they and with their parents, they weren’t “working use of elevated toilets to visitors more used to rescued a bald eagle, one of whose talons had during school hours,” reports the Jackson Hole porcelain holes in the floor. It might take more been caught in a trap. The Guardian said that News&Guide. than a sign to change the propensity of tourists Michael and Neil Fletcher gingerly approached to crowd and elbow their way through parks, the giant bird, but “as soon as he realized we WEB EXTRA For more from Heard around the West, see where the melee at information desks makes were trying to help, he kind of calmed down.” hcn.org. asking — or answering — questions like “Where It took four minutes for the men to free the Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and is the bathroom?” somewhat difficult. bird’s talon, and after posing with the eagle for often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag a widely shared selfie, they released the formi- photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram.

High So I threw a party. Or rather, I held my first Death Café, Country and it turned out to be a lively, News “ For people who care about the West. invigorating affair. High Country News covers the important issues and stories that are unique to the American West with a Laura Pritchett, in her essay, “He didn’t die with” dignity (so I threw a party),” magazine, a weekly column service, books and a website, from Writers on the Range, hcn.org/wotr hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or [email protected], or call 970-527-4898.

28 High Country News December 21, 2015