He Spent 40 Years Alone in the Woods, and Now Scientists Love Him

For four decades, Billy Barr has lived in Gothic, Colorado, the only resident of a long abandoned (and creepily named) settlement. He spends lots of his time recording nature – rain, wind, snowpack. Those snowpack measurements have turned out to be a treasure trove of climate data. Sometimes, it’s not fancy computer programs and models that we need. Sometimes it’s just old fashioned observation and note taking.