An off-roading conservationist navigates some gnarly landscape on the road to more protection for the Utah desert.
Travel
Posted inGoat
Utah denied claim to road in Canyonlands National Park
High Country News has been around for 44 years now … and sometimes it feels like we’ve been covering certain stories for darn near that long too. Like the Animas-La Plata water project in southern Colorado, meant to fulfill the Utes’ water rights, or the Central Arizona Project, which supplies Phoenix, Scottsdale and other major […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Visiting the frosties of the Lost Sierra
The wonders of the classic roadside stands that still dish out soft-serve ice cream.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Touring Indian Country via footrace
How to run in a reservation race that’s both sport and cultural tradition.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Native American tourism quietly thrives
Even the customers seem to emerge from thin air.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Adventure travel vs. conservation
A conversation with outdoor entrepreneur Bill Bryan.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Backpacking with monster skeeters
An Alaska encounter with the fiercest of the 176 mosquito species that roam the U.S.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Strange little museums and zoos enliven the region
British ColumbiaAs you wander the West, keep an eye out for the tiniest, quirkiest museums and zoos tucked in unexpected and obscure spaces. They often provide outsized amusement and – fair to say – unrivaled learning experiences. You can see, for instance, “Canada’s largest ant farm,” along with hulking tarantulas, Malaysian rainbow frog beetles and […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Best place to see a crowd of grizzlies
A few tourists get close to amazing numbers of bears catching salmon at Alaska’s McNeil River Falls.
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
How to travel the West on $5,000 per day
(NOTE this is part of the April 2014 special issue of the HCN magazine devoted to travel in the West.) Hermès Hiking BootsThe Paris company offers a “low boot in black oily calfskin” with a “palladium plated Albion buckle, orange lining … double leather sole and lugged rubber sole, water-resistant.” The Wall Street Journal praises […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2013: Intimate Geographies
Heart-Shaped River: Craig Childs finds his center in Canyonlands
“Not all maps are made of paper. The best ones are spooled in memory.”
Posted inSeptember 16, 2013: Intimate Geographies
Craig Childs narrates a Canyonlands adventure
Images from a month-long trip with friends in 1999.
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Secret getaways of the National Landscape Conservation System
Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. Updated 4/9/13 The only map I have shows the way out of Las Vegas — always a good thing to know. It is crisp and folded-up on the passenger seat and it says to take the eastbound interstate, […]
Posted inOctober 15, 2012: Are you a local?
Vagabond writer Craig Childs on 20,000 years of wanderlust
Savoonga is the place to be on the Fourth of July. The village is a cluster of roofs on the north side of St. Lawrence Island, a treeless hump of capes and dormant volcanoes rising out of the Bering Sea, battered by Arctic weather. The Native Yup’iks here celebrate the holiday with more gusto than […]
Posted inArticles
First impressions: an Easterner’s new life in the West
Photographer Andrew Cullen used Instagram to document his summer 2012 move from Maine to Colorado, capturing Western scenes of surprise, wonder, and delight. Click on the gallery view to see the images full size.
Posted inJune 25, 2012: Special travel issue
Tracking Ice Age people in Oregon
Wind-whipped rainclouds formed a low ceiling over the oceanic buttes and basins of south-central Oregon. The usually sundrenched sage darkened in the weather as I walked, my hood pulled up against the grass-bending tug of the northwest breeze. The air smelled richer than it usually does on the dry side of the Cascades, the sagebrush […]
Posted inWotr
Disaster traveling is my specialty
People who know me refuse to travel with me. I don’t understand this. I think I am the perfect travel companion — curious, unflappable, knowledgeable, cheerful, seasoned, undemanding, prepared. But friends claim that I don’t go on vacations; I go on disasters. People travel for a lot of reasons — to lounge around and do […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Craig Childs walks with desert ghosts on the Navajo Nation
The dogs are getting closer, barking through junipers about a half-mile away. We douse our small can stove, scoop the rest of breakfast into our mouths, and within two minutes are gone. The day before, we were dropped off on a dirt two-track where we hopped a gate and smuggled ourselves into the wilderness atop […]