Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. People who visit Oregon’s state parks have a surprising desire to stay in yurts, even booking them months in advance. Eighteen state parks offer 96 “standard yurts” described by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department as “really cool” […]
Recreation
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Field notes from a solo paddle in Alaska’s Inside Passage
Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. Mid-day on the last Fourth of July, I sat in my kayak and watched a parade like nothing I’d ever seen: Icebergs shaped like elaborate floats bobbed past me, one resembling an eagle, another a house, still others […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Kids in the backcountry: The earlier, the better
Note: This essay is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. The three of them race out in front of us — dots of colorful energy bushwhacking across the tundra, elevation over 10,000 feet, deep in the northern Wyoming’s Washakie Wilderness. Ruby, 11, Sawyer, 13, and Eli, 14. They […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2013: Uncertain Landing
Technology eases access to ancient ruins, for better or worse
My archaeological quest began in an SUV near Blanding Elementary School, where screaming children played kickball with a potato-shaped P.E. teacher. Winsten Dan, my cattle dog, slept on the backseat as I thumbed my smartphone; I had downloaded an app that saves PDFs from Web pages so they’re accessible outside cell reception. I used it […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2013: Uncertain Landing
Climate change turns an already troubled ski industry on its head
George Shirk sits in his office at the Mammoth Times on a Saturday afternoon, with his dog, Fido, who writes his own weekly column for the paper, curled up underneath the desk. Early December is the quiet time between the Thanksgiving and Christmas rushes at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, and Shirk, a 60-year-old news veteran […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Education in the great outdoors
The following comments were posted at hcn.org in response to the Jan. 21 “Learning by Living” special issue. What will sustain the Outward Bound school is real adventure that the students spearhead (HCN, 1/21/13, “Outward (re)Bound“). Not peaks or rivers the instructors want to climb or paddle, but objectives that the students embark upon, fueled […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2013: Making Good on the Badlands
Boring?!
After reading “Outward (re)Bound” (HCN, 1/21/13), I couldn’t overcome a chilly feeling in response to a student’s description of his three-day solo trip in the Rocky Mountains as “so boring.” I was saddened by this student’s inability to find entertainment in one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in Colorado, and wondered if his response […]
Posted inWotr
Our national parks need room to breathe
In just three short years, the National Park Service will celebrate its 100th birthday. In anticipation, on Aug.25 of last year, the agency released a report prepared by a special advisory committee on the role of science in the parks. That report called for more support of science, more scientists on park staffs and a […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2013: Special issue: Natural resources education
How Outward Bound lost, and found, itself
It’s the second day of Drake Clifton’s three-day Outward Bound solo, and he’s starving. He rattles his small food bag in front of the camera: crackers, nuts, a nub of cheese. Matted blond hair pokes out of his black beanie. “It’s seriously killing me,” he says, pouring crumbs into his mouth. He’s camped in a […]
Posted inRange
Target shooting on public lands: still an issue
So another year has arrived, and yet again we’re mired in a nationwide debate about the role of guns in American society. Let me note right away that this blog post is about guns and public lands, not guns in general. However, some context is in order, and, I think, relevant. As usual, a terrible […]
Posted inWotr
Recreation calls the shots in Moab
Last August, I read that construction would soon begin on a proposed $9 million “Moab Transit Hub and Elevated River Bikeway.” I’d caught only a snippet of the plan a couple years ago. The news story called for a three-mile “bikeway” partially suspended over the Colorado River. There were references to piers and girders and cantilevers. […]
Posted inGoat
Monumental opposition to a monumental proposal?
Obama’s second term has not yet begun and already folks are heaping on environmental demands – things that may have been politically untenable for the centrist president to do in the long run-up to a tough election where the economy and energy policy hogged the spotlight. Last month, the Outdoor Industries Association – a trade […]
Posted inWotr
Utah’s SkiLink closes off public land
Some 80 groups and companies that want public land to remain open to the public have signed a petition to stop a Canadian developer from building a gondola to hook together two ski resorts near Salt Lake City. Traversing about 30 acres of what is now Wasatch National Forest, the gondola would benefit the Talisker […]
Posted inNovember 26, 2012: Casting for Common Ground
Taking it to extremes: A review of Salt to Summit
Daniel Arnold breathes new life into the fabled Wild West as he takes readers on a journey of extremes in Salt to Summit: A Vagabond Journey from Death Valley to Mount Whitney. Arnold blends history and adventure recounting his expedition from Badwater Basin in Death Valley to the summit of Mount Whitney. With a distance […]
Posted inGoat
Computerized canyon
The Grand Canyon is already a public spectacle, with good reason. Every time I’ve visited I’ve been humbled by the frisson of insignificance I feel when peering into its vast orange depths. Ashamedly, I’ve only done the Canyon-lite tour – driven slowly around the car-accessible parts of the south rim, stopping at the viewing points […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2012: Nowhere to run
Legend of the gray-headed hunter
“Red sky at morning, hunter take warning,” I told Jimmy Jack Mormon, as we stumbled along a frozen rutted road in the Montana dawn. “Ssshhh,” Jimmy ordered. “You’re warning the deer.” “Oh, they’ve already heard about me,” I whispered back. I’d missed two the evening before. Beautiful does, both, stepping carefully out of a willow […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2012: Nowhere to run
The violent story of our first national park: A review of Empire of Shadows
Empire of Shadows: the Epic Story of YellowstoneGeorge Black548 pages, hardcover: $35. St. Martin’s Press, 2012. Whenever my country’s absurd politics wear me out, I remind myself that we were the first nation to have a true national park: Yellowstone. Sometimes, I’ll even drive the four hours or so south from my home to the […]
Posted inWotr
Shoot it yourself
People hunt animals for a lot of reasons, from filling a freezer to festooning a wall with antlers. As a meat hunter, I’m looking for a year’s worth of protein, with or without antlers attached. Even though I don’t hunt for the post-kill posing or big racks, as a hunter I’m lumped together with everyone […]
Posted inGoat
The stink over SkiLink
Updated Nov. 6, 2012 Utah’s Wasatch Range promises wintry solitude and deep chutes of fluffy powder for backcountry skiers. Its forested watershed provides more than half of Salt Lake City’s drinking water. But it’s far from untouched: The area also hosts 11 ski resorts that draw thousands of visitors each year for lift-served skiing and […]
Posted inGoat
Flight for life
Something about helicopter pilots chasing bank robbers, busting spies and saving castaways impressed six-year-old Doug Sheffer. The Whirlybirds television episodes, over 50 years ago, were heroic and exciting and everything he seemed born to do. While his father tried to waylay those childish ambitions, it wasn’t too many decades before Sheffer had owned his own […]