Whose Wilderness is This?

Public land is – or, at least should be – just that: public. But what does that mean? And who should be able to decide how such common ground is used? One person’s wilderness policy may be another’s government overreach. John McPhee (one of my favorite authors)...

Flakes

If you spend any amount of time hiking in the Southwest you will eventually happen upon a scatter of lovely, multicolored stone flakes lying in the sand. In some areas, black obsidian predominates, and in others yellow and red jasper. But most often you’ll find a...

The Karma of Cheatgrass

Cheatgrass is an innocuous-looking plant you’ll encounter everywhere in the Great Basin. At higher elevations, it’s a wispy, occasional presence filling in the spaces between patches of sagebrush. But in the wide valleys between the mountains it reigns supreme,...

The Endless Garden

August 25, 2005 – One of the great appeals to me of the Southwest is the ability to notice and appreciate each individual element of the natural surroundings as I encounter it. Water and nutrients are scarce, so plants keep their distance; some even exude...

At the Dimming of the Day

Had I the power to snap my fingers and transport myself to a favorite place at will, I’m not able to think of a destination more desirable than almost any isolated place in the Southwest at sunset. Each night of this trip I’ve picked up a book as twilight began to...

North of Gerlach, Nevada

If you want to really get away, you should consider Nevada. Esmeralda County’s one thousand, three hundred forty-four inhabitants, for example, had two million, two hundred eighty-four thousand acres all to themselves in 1996. Today, fewer than eight hundred of those...