Congress is gunning for a national monument in Utah
In backcountry first aid, the rapid assessment of someone injured was for years summed up by the ABCs: check the…
MoreWhat happens to our parks when rangers disappear?
For over a month, the longest government shutdown in American history has left our national parks in free fall. When…
Tourists at North Window Arch, Arches National Park, Nov. 25, 2024.
MorePublic lands are a national treasure and must not be sold
Public lands are one of our country’s great equalizers. It doesn’t matter how much money you have—a billionaire and a…
MoreThe gutting of our national park system
Imagine a million-acre wilderness: Mountain peaks. Rushing rivers. Bears and wolves. Now imagine a city the size of, say, Chicago….
Glacier Park Logan Creek, by Ben Long
MoreRosa Parks gives a talk in my small town
It was 2 p.m. on a recent Sunday in the western Colorado town of Paonia, population 1,500, not an ideal…
Rosa Parks, Unseen Histories, Unsplash
MoreA do-it-yourself, homegrown national park
National parks have been getting a lot of love since the pandemic, so much that this summer you need reservations…
MoreTrump administration legalizes extinction of the Gunnison sage-grouse
Had Donald Trump been president in 1973, when Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into federal law, the Gunnison…
Gunnison Sage Grouse. Courtesy Bureau of Land Management Bob Wickjpg
MoreStates must not determine the fate of grizzly bears
It’s no secret that grizzly bears in the Lower 48 live close to the edge of extinction. Now, with little…
Grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park, photo by Wendy Keefover
MoreCelebrate the nation’s anniversary by speaking up for public land
As we mark our nation’s 250th anniversary, it’s worth celebrating what we the people have in common. What we literally…
Idaho, hiking in the Selkirk Mountains photo by David Gluns
MoreThe Antiquities Act has served Utah and the nation well for 120 years
This June, the Antiquities Act turns 120 years old. Since Teddy Roosevelt signed the law on June 8, 1906, nearly…
Orderville Canyon, Zion National Park, Utah, Stephen Trimble photo
MoreInterior Secretary ramps up assault on public land
For the second consecutive year, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has proposed a budget that attempts to undermine the agencies that…
A young child waits to get through the line at Arches National Park, photo Dave Marston
MoreMust water be enhanced and encased in plastic?
If someone told me 10 years ago that people would willingly pay over $5 for a one-gallon container of water,…
MoreSoutheast county in Utah has a radioactive target on its back
In the early 1980s, southeast Utah was targeted as a potential dump site for high-level nuclear waste, the kind that…
MoreWhat Western writers cared about during a tumultuous year
Once the Trump administration took over the reins of government last year, attacks on public land came fast and furious….
MoreJane Goodall told us never give up
In her “Last Words” interview that was broadcast after her death, Jane Goodall talked about her calm in the face…
The Lee-Curtis proposal would bring OHV traffic into the wildness and quiet of Cathedral Valley in Capitol Reef National Park. Photo courtesy Stephen Trimble
MoreThe West is on fire as Washington fans the flames
This summer, millions of Americans are hiking, camping, fishing and making lifelong memories in our national parks, forests and other…
MoreThe slippery slope of e-bike access
When I visited Bryce Canyon National Park recently, the shared paths were crowded with electric motorcycles. They say they are…
MorePublic land goes back on the chopping block
The radical notion of selling off public lands is back. And this time it seems that only the Congress can…
T. A. Barron
MoreAmericans face a test of community and citizenship
Each of us Americans conducts our daily life in bubbles, all shockingly siloed from each other. These days, we don’t…
MoreErasing history, one park at a time
As the philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It’s true that…
MoreIt’s still the West against itself
Nearly 80 years ago, Bernard DeVoto, the Utah-born writer and historian, wrote an essay titled “The West Against Itself” for…
MoreBeware the Trojan Horse targeting public land
Sometimes when I drive past the little house my wife and I bought when we first married, 30 years ago,…
MoreHey, Utah, Americans love our public lands
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while hoping in vain for different results,…
Natural arch, the terminus of Grandstaff Canyon Trail, near Moab Utah, Dave Marston photo
MoreCulture wars and an embattled Utah monument
Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument rarely leaves the news. The political tussle over this stunning expanse of red rock canyons…
Rainbow over Cheesebox Butte- Highway 95, photo by Stephen Trimble
MoreTown unites to fight a floodplain development
Moab, Utah is a growing town of 5,300 that several million people visit each year to tour nearby Arches and…
Colorado River near Moab, Utah/Courtesy Writers on the Range
MoreOutrage in Wyoming erupts over public land auction
There’s a 640-acre parcel of magnificent, state-owned public land in Wyoming that’s set for auction unless the state changes its…
Pronghorn migrate through the Kelly Parcel, Wyoming, Courtesy Savannah Rose
MoreCreative builders get rural housing done
Here’s a statistic to be unhappy about: Colorado and Utah host the fifth and sixth most expensive housing markets in…
Community Rebuilds houses in Moab UT, courtesy Emily Niehaus
MoreBackcountry heroes always try to bring us back
When I was leading groups into the Wyoming wilderness in the 1990s, once we left a trailhead we were on…
The Tetons in Wyoming, a great place to get lost, photo by Mike
MoreFarmington, a city in need of a jolt
The good news these days about Farmington, New Mexico, is that the air looks clear. That’s a huge change. For…
Blue skies over the closed San Juan Generating Station, Mike Eisenfeld photo
MoreKilling fish to save frogs
By Ted Williams Shortly after World War II, California fish managers had a brainstorm: They loaded juvenile trout into airplanes…
Yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa), courtesy USGS
MoreSome people just like to get things done
Although I’ve lived in a small Western town for 30 years now, I have never known much about one of…
MoreWhen giants fall, we need to listen
“God has cared for these trees …but he cannot save them from fools.”— John Muir In just two years, wildfire…
MoreWildlife watching has been getting a free ride
There’s a new initiative in Wyoming that’s changing the face of wildlife conservation funding, and it’s already seen huge success…
Elk in pine forests on South Rim of Grand Canyon/courtesy NPS
MoreHiking public lands shouldn’t require a ladder
Imagine you were part owner of a nice piece of rural land, maybe with a trout stream running through it….
Lisa Mcintyre via Unsplash
MoreLet’s redefine those bucket lists
What did we learn this summer and fall? We learned that people who’d been cooped up, thanks to COVID-19, flocked…
MorePlease don’t pet the wildlife
“I can’t believe that person is getting that close.” Just off the road stands a bull elk — a 700-pound…
MoreA close encounter with wolves and fear
This summer, three of us were hiking in Alaska’s western Brooks Range when we encountered a pack of eight wolves….
Image by Milo Weiler, via Unsplash
MoreHands off the rocks
Hikers are flooding our public lands, so I ask the question: Why can’t people just leave the poor rocks alone?…
MoreWhen immortals die
Giant sequoias come as close to immortality as living organisms can. Many live over a thousand years despite nature’s challenges. So…
MoreThe Complexity of Color in the Environmental Movement
This summer was a time of reckoning about race in every sector of American life, and many of us are…
MoreCovid-19 And Recreation: Too Much Poop, Too Many People
“Though conservation groups continue to point fingers at logging, mining and ranching, they’ve been slow to acknowledge impacts from outdoor recreation.”
Photograph by Diogo Tavares, Courtesy of Unsplash
MoreLand trades are supposed to serve a public purpose
In late August, national headlines exposed the National Park Service’s efforts to swap land from one of America’s natural crown…
One access to the Blue River that was privatized by last year’s federal land swap. Photo by A. Ezman
MorePublic comments count — keep them coming
Trump’s answer to the 20 or so executives in the room was that they raise him a billion dollars. He was specific about the return — more oil and gas leases auctioned on federal land. He called it a deal.
File written by Adobe Photoshop¨ 4.0
MoreWhen hiking is touted as a piece of cake
Overconfidence can ruin a good hike. When I surf through outdoor sites on social media, here’s the essence of what…
MoreFor a dose of awe, visit Spiral Jetty
Whenever life becomes too turbulent, I like to visit Robert Smithson’s most famous work of art—Spiral Jetty. He completed it…
Spiral Jetty by Dennis Hinkamp
MoreBy now, it’s a bizarre tradition of the West
Going into my 26th Burning Man, I admit I was crestfallen at the news that “Midnight Poutine” was not returning. The…
MorePublic land protectors are ready for a fight
President Donald Trump’s first term was a disaster for America’s public lands. While the prospects for his second term are…
The Citadel, Bears Ears National Monument, Dave Marston photo
More40 years of living with wolves
Biologist Diane K. Boyd has had a front-row seat to 40 years of wolf recovery in the West, but her…
MoreBobcats need protection, not killing for their pelts
Unlike the rest of modern wildlife management, killing bobcats is unregulated, driven not by science but by fur prices. We’re…
Bobcat caught in a trap, photo courtesy of Animal Wellness Action
MoreFreed wolves move into their old niche
What was it like for 10 captured Oregon wolves when Colorado Parks and Wildlife opened their crates on a December…
MoreThe West has too many visiting hunters
Hunting may be losing popularity nationally, but in the West the number of hunters is climbing. According to the U.S….
Dan Vigueria, Paonia, Colorado, Grizzly Longbows LLC
MoreGoats can be a forest’s best friend
Goats are particularly good at one thing: Eating. Unlike a horse or cow that leaves noxious weeds behind, goats eat…
Jonathan Bartley and Adrian Lacasse
MoreLet’s tell the truth about those big, bad wolves
The return of wolves to the West has always been contentious, and the deaths last fall of more than 40…
Hans Veth via Unsplash
MoreWe need every tool to fight today’s fires
We know now that the largest recorded fire in New Mexico history was started by an escaped “prescribed burn,” or…
MoreWind-driven fire ran until gusts died
The Marshall Fire that demolished more than 1,000 homes along the front range of Colorado two weeks ago was not…
Nasa recorded image of MM117 fire via Wildfire Today
MoreA backroad journey through time
Moab on a mid-fall weeknight was full. All the motels, RV parks and tents sites had “no vacancy” notices. Every…
Car Forest is 30 miles outside of Tonopah, NV, photo credit, Dennis Hinkamp
MoreYou can explore the West and escape the crowds
Here’s the dilemma: You want to explore the West’s huge treasure of public land, but you don’t want to be…
Lake Serene Washington, Photo by Jamie Coupaud, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreWolves and lots of People Don’t Mix
“Wolf proponents see western Colorado as an empty wilderness, not acknowledging the combustion engine, or Interstate-70.”
Photograph by Courtney Clayton, Courtesy of Unsplash
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