Essays

Local entrepeneurs could revive a dying region

Thoughts on tribal culture and “ownership”

Recently, I returned from a second visit to my dentist, who works “en el otro lado” – the other side. I live in Arizona, so that means across the border, in Mexico. Emilia Saenz is a fine dentist, but her assistant, Jose, a gracious young man, is even finer, as far as I’m concerned. That’s […]

We need energy — but not at the cost of clean water

My wife and I have had the good fortune to visit some of the iconic landscapes of the Colorado Plateau in the years BG  — before guidebooks. Back in those days, you could enjoy an hour’s solitude anywhere in the Escalante River’s side canyons. We recently returned to an old favorite in Utah, a colorful […]

We’re a nation in denial. Record heat waves and shrinking snowpacks surround us, yet our appetite for fossil fuel remains unwavering, and, incredibly, some still doubt that it’s a threat to a stable climate. Witnessing this from southeast Alaska, where I work as a wilderness ranger, is a trip right into this odd realm of […]

It covers only 16,000 acres, but eastern New Mexico’s Sabinoso Wilderness could easily provide the backdrop for a spaghetti Western movie. Scrub juniper and cactus shade cow plop among the clumps of buffalo grass and blue grama, while stark cliffs, canyons and deeply cleft trenches loom in the distance, looking a lot like the handiwork […]

Early morning sunrise washed over the Colorado National Monument outside Grand Junction as I headed for a boulder-strewn knoll. There, 110 years ago, paleontologist Elmer Riggs discovered a previously unknown dinosaur that we now call Brachiosaurus. When it was alive some 150 million years ago, the plant-eating dinosaur measured 75 feet or more from teeth […]

Arizona had no big wildfires burning in early September, so in Flagstaff where I live, all eyes turned toward Boulder. The most destructive fire in Colorado history was raging out of control and we all wanted to watch. We couldn’t resist. I think it’s in our DNA. The internal combustion engine, electricity, the Internet — […]