Cormac McCrimmon

Cormac McCrimmon tells stories where health, the environment and rural life meet, using field reporting and visual storytelling to show how big systems affect everyday risks and care. He is a multimedia journalist and documentary filmmaker with Rocky Mountain PBS, covering communities across Northern Colorado through video, photography and reported features.

Health in the outdoors and environmental risk

Much of McCrimmon’s recent work looks at health as something shaped by climate and landscape. In a photo-driven piece on how public health officials track Colorado’s tick populations, he follows agencies into the field to show how warming winters lead to more ticks and more bites, tying surveillance work directly to disease risk for people who live, hike or work outside. He extends that same lens to avalanche country, reporting on how Colorado’s status as the deadliest state for avalanches is pushing some backcountry enthusiasts to explore artificial intelligence tools that could make their trips safer.

McCrimmon also focuses on the health and safety implications of crowded public lands. In a story framed around the question, “More people are visiting national parks. Is there enough water to go around?”, he examines how surging visitation pressures water supplies in and around parks and what that means for both visitors and nearby communities. His wildlife coverage often doubles as public health and safety guidance: in a piece on moose being native to Colorado, he uses a woman’s close encounter during calving season to explain why moose encounters spike in early summer and how people can avoid being hurt.

Rural access to care and underrepresented patients

Beyond outdoor risk, McCrimmon reports on how geography and identity shape access to medical care. In a feature on pregnant women in rural Colorado who rely on helicopters and hours-long drives to reach higher-level care, he documents the strain that distance places on patients, families and local providers when complications arise. He builds that story around lived experience, centering what it feels like to navigate pregnancy and birth far from advanced facilities.

He also covers how people of color experience the health system. In a piece on medical representation, he explores how many patients of color look for clinicians who share their background and how that search influences trust, communication and willingness to seek care in the first place. Across these stories, his health reporting stays close to individual narratives while pointing to structural gaps in who gets timely, culturally responsive care.

Wildlife, agriculture and community resilience

McCrimmon often connects environmental change to the wellbeing of rural communities and working landscapes. In “Bone dry: Farming in Colorado’s extreme drought,” he reports on farmers trying to keep operations alive amid prolonged water scarcity, showing both the physical toll of drought on land and the economic and emotional strain on the people who work it. A related video piece on ranchers “still scraping by” places viewers alongside producers adapting to a world that has, in many ways, moved away from traditional agriculture.

His wildlife work similarly foregrounds community responses. In “Boulder volunteers harvest local fruit trees to prevent bear incursions,” he profiles residents who organize neighborhood fruit harvests so that ripe apples and plums do not lure bears into town, turning what could be a simple wildlife story into one about civic coordination and safety. In “In search of pika,” he joins researchers studying how a small alpine mammal responds to changing conditions, weaving together ecology, climate and the future of mountain ecosystems. Coverage of Colorado’s bald eagles and other charismatic species rounds out a beat that treats wildlife as part of the social fabric rather than scenery.

Immersive video and photo-driven storytelling

McCrimmon’s background as a documentary filmmaker shapes how he reports. His staff bio notes that he directs, shoots and edits features himself, and his bylines span text, photography and video. In “Night crawlers — Inside the cab with a snowcat operator,” he rides along with a snowcat driver working overnight to preserve ski runs as climate change threatens snowpack, using close-up visuals and access to illustrate how a warming climate changes a single job. A bull riding feature, “All guts and no glory,” follows Colorado teenagers in one of the most dangerous sports, again relying on intimate video to convey risk and culture.

He also produces character-driven shorts outside his core health and environment work, such as a segment on a 12-year-old headed to the Scripps National Spelling Bee and a profile of a landscape photographer capturing the “modern prairie” of Weld County. Even in these pieces, he tends to place individuals within larger systems—education, art, or land use—through detailed scenes and careful visuals. Across his portfolio, McCrimmon consistently uses on-location shooting, strong photography and clear writing to make complex issues in health, environment and rural life immediate and concrete.