

In 1973 Barr had dropped out of college and made his home an abandoned mining shack at the base of Gothic Mountain, a 12,600-foot stone buttress. “I didn’t know anything about climate change at the time.” By no means, Barr told me, having skied down from his cabin to use the nearest phone, did he set out to make a vital database for climate change scientists. It started as a curiosity, a task to busy his mind during the winter. It was a year into his life alone in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains when Billy Barr began his recordings.
