Environmentalism dictates that you are not supposed to love a place like a contaminated nuclear site, but the sense I get at Hanford Reach is that this place is very much beloved. And its not just the easy-to-love elk and...
We were trespassing. We parked the van by signs that read “Danger Open Pit” and “No Trespassing.” I could see a huge hole in the ground with pink terraced walls in a modern geometric pattern. We walked up a loose...
I got it into my head that I wanted to hike the 9 Peak Challenge. This is a link-up of 9 summits in the San Bernardino Mountains, one of them being San Gorgonio, the highest peak in southern California. Hiking...
Gila Cliff Dwelling NM is an interesting foil to Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks. It was established as the eighth national monument by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, only a year after the Antiquities Act became law. Following his interpretation of the Act’s...
Outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, my mom and I went on a walk in the Organ Mountains—named because of the resemblance of the granite needles to the gleaming pipes of an organ. We walked toward this jagged skyline under ethereal...
Last Tuesday I woke up, made coffee, and sat on my couch scrolling through Google alerts about national monuments. One article I pulled up mentioned that public meetings were being held for the management plan of the new Grand Staircase-Escalante...
We began our hike through Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in a dry, open riverbed. It was cold for spring, and snowflakes whirled around our heads. After half a mile the riverbed ended in a deep fissure in rock. This...
Veronica and I scramble among volcanic tuff boulders and twisted juniper trees at Shaman Knob in the Mt. Irish Archeological District of Basin and Range National Monument. A large round figure dominates a curved rock panel that rises to just...
“Look behind you,” Veronica said. I stood up and saw a pink ceiling covered with faint handprints. Handprints of varied sized decorated the wall well above our heads. Large masculine handprints next to tiny childlike prints. We stood shoulder to...