Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY)

"Even as Idaho has sold more than 14,000 wolf-hunting permits, the first 10 days of the first legal wolf hunt here in decades have yielded only three reported legal kills."

"With four gray wolves having been killed in Idaho since Sept. 1, a federal judge has cleared the way for legal hunting of the once-endangered predators to proceed."

"The American West is losing its autumn colors as global warming begins to bite and there is far more at stake than iconic scenery."

"PAVILLION, Wyo. ... residents outside this small rural, farming community blame their water woes -- and what they perceive to be the unusual health problems in their midst -- on hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' a common technique used in drilling new oil and gas wells."

"Wolf hunting season opened Tuesday in the state of Idaho."

A rare chance for people to walk through the mile-long tunnel that gives entrance to Zion National Park was part of the park's centennial celebration.

"Federal environment officials investigating drinking water contamination near the ranching town of Pavillion, Wyo., have found that at least three water wells contain a chemical used in the natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing."

"Researchers found that two of the Tetons' biggest glaciers have lost more than 20 percent of their surface area since the late 1960s."

Some residents are worried about a rural Nevada dump where decades of toxic refuse lie buried in shallow trenches.

In the Yaak Valley of Montana, environmentalists have been talking to loggers, snowmobilers and other longtime opponents of wilderness protection about the future of public lands. Rick Bass writes of his involvement in a cooperative effort that could lead to the first wilderness-area designation in the state in a quarter-century.