My husband Jack Cramer filmed, directed, and edited this trailer to help me explain what my book is about....
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...
We were skiing into Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument against the better judgement of the woman in charge of hut reservations. We were aiming to spend a night at Big Springs Hut, which is normally accessed by a five...
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...
I hike through forest where the air is green and damp in the early morning. Pale rays of light filter through the tall evergreen branches, leaving me in the dark and open understory. My footsteps are silent on a soft...
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...
Smoke hazed the horizon. Fires raged all over California. Veronica and I spent the night of July 22, 2017 on a rocky outcrop in Berryessa Snow National Monument, and just the day before both the Garza fire in Fresno county and...
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...