Sunset highlights the many stone shapes in Adobe Town as a storm passes to the southwest. Adobe Town, in Wyoming's southern Red Desert, is a wilderness quality landscape that was formed by ash from an ancient volcanic eruption in what is now Yellowstone National Park. Conservationists are advocating for protection from energy development in Adobe Town.
One of the ways that I stay current on Western conservation and land management is through Google Alerts, and lately I’ve been seeing blog posts with a “wasted government lands” theme. This Arizona Republic article tells us that the U.S. government, mostly the BLM and US Forest Service, manage millions of acres of Western lands that would be better in the hands of locals – because they live here. Don’t be fooled by this thinly veiled Sagebrush Rebellion mumbo-jumbo. (more…)
With all the hype over the “supermoon”, Marla and I went up nearby Lookout Mountain to watch the moonrise. It would’ve been cool if it had risen over downtown Denver, but the moon rose just south of Green Mountain.
While waiting for the supermoon, a powerful storm developed over Golden, flanked by North and South Table Mountain. Mammatus clouds started to form and the wind came up big as darkness fell.
My giant Tre Cime image at the Vibram fivefingers store in Boston, MA. Thanks to PJ Antonik at Vibram for kindly sharing these photos.
I’m proud to be working with a Vibram fivefingers – they’re using an enormous photograph of my Tre Cime black and white photo in their brand new Boston retail store. I must admit that it’s pretty cool to see my image this big, especially since we’ve hiked, backpacked, and trekked on Vibram soles for so many years! (more…)
Gas fracking rig on the Overland Trail, Atlantic Rim north of Baggs, Wyoming.
Last summer I drove from Rifle, Colorado to Pinedale, Wyoming tracing the eastern edge of the Red Desert known as the Atlantic Rim. I was taken aback by the drilling density, then came upon a sign for the Overland Trail. For context, read the quote at the top of the sign in the picture below. A strange juxtaposition indeed.
The last light of the day warms Atlantic Butte and a skelton tree on top of Pacific Butte in the Oregon Buttes Wilderness Study Area. Jack Morrow Hills, northern Red Desert.
Earth Day 2012 is the April 22, and it just seems right to share Wallace Stegner’s 1960 Wilderness Letter here. It is hauntingly prescient 52 years later.
Los Altos, California
December 3, 1960
David E. Pesonen
Wildland Research Center
Agricultural Experiment Station
243 Mulford Hall
University of California
Berkeley 4, Calif.
Dear Mr. Pesonen:
I believe that you are working on the wilderness portion of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission’s report. If I may, I should like to urge some arguments for wilderness preservation that involve recreation, as it is ordinarily conceived, hardly at all. Hunting, fishing, hiking, mountain-climbing, camping, photography, and the enjoyment of natural scenery will all, surely, figure in your report. So will the wilderness as a genetic reserve, a scientific yardstick by which we may measure the world in its natural balance against the world in its man-made imbalance. What I want to speak for is not so much the wilderness uses, valuable as those are, but the wilderness idea, which is a resource in itself. Being an intangible and spiritual resource, it will seem mystical to the practical minded–but then anything that cannot be moved by a bulldozer is likely to seem mystical to them. (more…)
A male greater sage grouse inflates his chest to impress a female during the spring mating season. Grouse use the same "lek" for mating throughout their lifespan and are severely threatened by oil and gas industrialization and habitat fragmentation.
I wrote this article two years ago when Secretary Salazar announced that Greater Sage-grouse are “warranted, but precluded” from protection under the Endangered Species Act. Greater and Gunnison Sage-grouse mate on leks in the sagebrush ecosystem from late March into early May.
Seeing Grouse
“The only good place for a Sage Grouse to be listed is on the menu of a French bistro. It does not deserve federal protection, period.” Congressman Jason Chaffetz (UT-03).
Sitting in a cold, drafty blind on a moonless April morning, it’s so dark that I can’t see the walls that will keep me hidden from Greater sage grouse. The stillness and quiet are pure, the stars like diamonds. I woke at 2:30 for the privilege of a few hours with these iconic western birds – birds that are getting a lot of attention these days.
During the wait for grouse and light I quiet my body, but my mind doesn’t follow. My fatigue-addled state yields a stream of consciousness like a sleepless night with senses alert and thoughts shifting rapidly – “my toes are cold, there’s a breeze – I hope it doesn’t get windy, coffee would be nice.” I think about the buildup to the listing decision and the tin badge politicians carrying on about jobs and energy, what the bird means to so many people and to Western wildlife with their need for expanses of unbroken sage. I reflect on the migrating pronghorn heading back to Grand Teton National Park, the notion that a National Park means the animals are protected inside an imaginary border, yesterday’s gray wolf stalking 1,000 elk stacked up for migration, and my new friends, Buddy and Rick, who traveled all the way from Florida to see and photograph this special bird. I chuckle because I still can’t see a damn thing. (more…)
Cottonwood With Spring Leaves, Red Rocks Park, Colorado
Colors of renewal from spring, 2011.
Students in the Zapata Ranch Sandhill Crane Photo Workshop line up with big glass at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge.
I’ve had a week to catch my breath after teaching three photo workshops in the San Luis Valley in March. The first was a half-day as part of the Monte Vista Crane Festival followed by a sandhill crane workshop at Zapata Ranch with Michael Forsberg, then a student workshop with Second Baptist High School, from Houston,Texas. It’s an honor to work with Mike Forsberg, one of the top conservation photographers anywhere and an ILCP fellow; and working with the Phillips family at Zapata is about as good as it gets. Tess, David, Duke, Janet, Asta, Carla, Chef Mike, and the whole staff blend a remarkable visitor experience with conservation ranching at a world-class venue. I also made a few images along the way, so here goes: (more…)
The imperiled and rarely seen Red Desert Sheep. Southern Red desert, Wyoming. Oves rubrum deserti
Wyoming’s Red Desert, in the south-central part of the state is largely an empty place on most maps; high sagebrush desert that’s demarcated by I80, dividing the northern and southern halves. Anyone who’s traveled the interstate across Wyoming knows that you cross the Continental Divide twice, an oddity because the Great Divide Basin is rimmed by the great Divide; water doesn’t flow out of the self-contained basin. While photographing the southern Red Desert in the spring of 2009, I encountered a herd of the seldom seen, rare Red Desert sheep (RDS), a species that was released to the desert by Spanish conquistadors around 1400 A.D. The black sheep in this image is the most rare – of the roughly 2,000 sheep known to exist, biologists estimate that 20 are the black phase. The white sheep actually seem to surround the lone black sheep, using safety in numbers to protect the special member of the herd. RDS have evolved to graze almost entirely on Wyoming big sagebrush, the dominant plant in the ecosystem. Their primary threat is the mutton poacher, lonely cowboys joyriding on horseback and in Dodge pickups, taking potshots at a herd of these helpless creatures. It is said that Wyoming is where “men are men and sheep are nervous” a phrase that began because of the despicable poachers. One of the least charismatic of the Red Desert species, RDS don’t benefit from the support of advocacy groups or government agencies. They are the rogue sagebrush grazers, noble symbols of the old West, back when John Wayne and Henry Fonda ruled the silver cinema. In closing, Happy April Fool’s Day!
New Event!
I’ll be teaching a new half-day photo workshop at the Gunnison Sage-grouse Festival from 6:30-10:30 on April 14. The cost is only $25 and proceeds go to the fesival for Gunnison Sage-grouse conservation. The workshop will be at Hartman Rocks Park, just a few miles from Gunnison.
Male Gunnison Sage-grouse fight on a lek during mating season. I was photographing from a blind on a private ranch as a guest of the Gunnison Sage-grouse working group. Centrocercus mimimus are one of the most endangered birds in North America and designated "warranted, but precluded" from protection under the Endangered Species Act.
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