After a year of serious drought, anomalously wet weather blew into southwestern Colorado in September and October, riding on moisture-laden winds from several Pacific hurricanes. Raging rivers and flo...

Our high-country autumn in the San Juans gives us a precious few weeks to savor and revel in the glorious gold accenting our yards, lining our town streets and blanketing our towering mountain slopes....

Stepping into the athletics and activities director position at any high school may not be akin to ascending Jacob’s Ladder, but it captures the gist. Bethany Geist, Ridgway School District’s recently...

Summer 2026, from June through August, was over-the-top hot in the Lower 48 states and Ouray as well. It was also the warmest summer “in 132 years of record-keeping.” (Ava Berger, “This summer was hot...

Wow, what a summer. Is it just me, or does it seem like we’ve been trapped in the UFC Octagon under the Claw on the White House lawn since June getting the stuffing knocked out of us by a tag team of ...

Sometimes, I journal to process major life events. I’ve lived in a lot of places worth journaling about and my latest move is no exception. I’ve been in Ouray for six weeks now and I’m struck by the s...

Last month Colorado celebrated its 150th anniversary of statehood. Many of us assume that statehood was inevitable for this place we love. However, the 17-year quest was met with significant resistanc...

Fall is in the air, and so are volleyballs arcing over the net for remarkable rallies and soccer balls rocketing into the net for breath-taking goals. Fleet feet are crisply hitting the street to conq...

Situated on debris fans created by Portland and Cascade creeks, Ouray lies in a 5,000-foot deep rock bowl drained by five major creeks emptying into the Uncompahgre River. It’s not surprising that for...

“Hey Landfill, you malignant festering heap of methane-spewing, planet-warming garbage, Recycle and Compost just ate your leftover lunch!” This summer’s concert series was Ridgway’s first ever zero- w...

Two weeks ago, the southwest monsoon arrived, bringing relief to these parched landscapes and their residents. Most afternoons since then, Ouray has had measurable rain. But the condition of these mou...

I'm not a Jeep enthusiast or an off-highway vehicle user, but I am a hiker and photographer who cares deeply about our high-country environment. After recent discussions at county commissioners' meeti...

If you look east from Ridgway, the view of the Cimarron Range is usually a masterpiece of sharp, clear angles. At the center of it all stands the unmistakable spire of Chimney Rock. Together with its ...

By some stroke of luck or simple habit of missing the moment, I’ve had a knack for dodging disasters around here. A decade ago, I rolled into Silverton for a seasonal job nearly a year after the Gold ...

The green gentian is blooming all over Colorado in the montane zones between 8,000 feet and 12,500 feet in elevation. This event has a special name – a mast bloom – which is a term for when a large nu...

Ouray County remains in serious drought, as it was last month. Most of Colorado’s mountains are in extreme/ exceptional drought; the northern San Juans remain in the severe category. (U.S. Drought Mon...

When I called to inquire about purchasing refurbished newspaper racks, the gal seemed a bit surprised. "We don't sell many newspaper racks," she said. "Most of the calls we get are people wanting to k...

The "power of place" is the theory that physical locations shape our lives, identities and ultimate destinies. This concept suggests that a geographic location is never merely a dot on a map or a set ...

We used to be able to say, “Seeing is believing.” Now we’re learning to be more discerning about images and videos we see posted online. We’re counting people's fingers in photos, looking for clues ti...

A “9,000 mile “freight train of warm water” — a Kelvin wave — “hundreds of feet deep” in the Pacific Ocean has surged eastward toward Peru since April. Scientists are monitoring its progress. Named af...