by Andy Updegrove | Dec 19, 2020 | My Writing, Nature, Wilderness Journal
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)...
by Andy Updegrove | Dec 12, 2020 | Nature, Wilderness Journal
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...
by Andy Updegrove | Dec 5, 2020 | My Writing, Nature, Wilderness Journal
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,...
by Andy Updegrove | Nov 28, 2020 | My Writing, Nature, Wilderness Journal
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...
by Andy Updegrove | Nov 21, 2020 | Nature, Wilderness Journal
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...
by Andy Updegrove | Oct 25, 2020 | My Writing, Nature, Wilderness Journal
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...
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