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Never has getting outside been a more conscious, deliberate activity. But when you get out, where goes your brain? Assuming you’re alone, do you focus on emptying your mind and being ‘present?’ Or, do you let your mind flit restlessly from topic to topic, like […]

Mountain conversation oddly civil

While my Maine friends lobby to have Governor LePage impeached and the Pine Tree State stays mired in a certain degree of discontent, discord, and intransigence, folks in Utah seems downright ducky and team-spirited. It might have something to do with the pro-business environment and […]

Backpacker as a museum piece

“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” John Muir Reality is scary and boring. Wilderness is beautiful and tiresome. Getting Out is serene and challenging. Getting Out, […]

Exploring the divide: Inside Outside

I always figured folks viewed the wilderness like I did: A place to cherish and protect. A place for quiet observation and reflection. A place where humans could be brought to their knees by the elements or by simple wonder. As I get older and […]

Species Parade, Week Two

I’m reading Wallace Stenger’s Beyond the 100th Meridian, John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West. In 1883, Powell was telling Westerners and prospective Westerners: “Gentlemen, you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights, for there is not […]

A rare pair: Women and Fire

My first journalism job was as a sports reporter for the Providence Journal-Bulletin in Rhode Island. I was the only woman in the department. At games covered by multiple papers, I was always the only female reporter. Decades have passed. Women now make up […]

In the Line of Fire, Part I

From UtahOutsider’s perspective, it seems folks here take the “Worry Later” approach when it comes to the state’s fast-moving development and population growth. But behind the scenes, especially within certain pockets of government, there is plenty going on. Read one planning official’s comments here. […]

Kissing Farmers Goodbye

Population growth and housing development are strong, brotherly winds that Utah farmers have leaned into for years. They’re as relentless as the passage of time. “You can fight it, but you can only fight it for so long,” said Randall Ercanbrack, a fifth-generation farmer in […]

Babbitt to Outdoor Industry: get your act together now

Utah and Bruce Babbitt have a history. In the 1990s, when he led efforts to designate nearly two million acres of the Grand Staircase Escalante area as a National Monument, folks here hung him in effigy. How foul was the vibe? The ceremony had to […]

Finding Mob in Moab

Finally, a trip south! Sure, UtahOutsider checked out Lake Powell last year. But we’d yet to visit Moab and parts in southeastern Utah. With Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire tucked in the glove box, we headed to the country’s park showcase (There are a whopping five […]