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The number of visitors to America’s public lands has steadily increased over the last 15 years, while over the same time period, funding for recreation has decreased more than 20 percent at agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, according to data released this week by Outdoor Alliance, a non-profit working to protect public lands and waters…
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Outdoor Alliance just informed us that the US House Passed the EXPLORE Act. Let’s find out more below!
Avi Kwa Ame is the West’s newest National Monument and was just designated by President Biden. Situated in the pointy end of Nevada and south of Las Vegas, these lands are sacred to a dozen tribes along the lower Colorado River. The 700-square-mile designated Monument creates a much larger interconnected expanse of federally-managed lands with special protections (see the detailed map here). Advocacy for the Monument in recent years brought together a uniquely diverse coalition of tribes, communities, conservation organizations, outdoor groups, and even motorized recreationalists. A wintery three-day ride through the area in January opened my eyes to the beauty of this unfamiliar-to-me area, but basic aesthetics only scratch the surface when trying to unpack the meaning of this landscape.
Today is a hot one in southern Idaho, 90 degrees and rising. My partner, Skyler, and I are stopped for snacks under the few shaded bushes along a lonely dirt road.
We hear the tell-tale signs of a lonely car and a white-haired woman drive towards us. She slows down to approach us cautiously. Her window rolls down as the car stops and from inside we hear “There isn’t a road that goes through there.”
If a trail is made by humans, versus game or erosion, does it carry along with it historical remnants of the trail builder’s psyche? Humans use tools to create trails and these tools are guided by feats of strength, both physical and mental. What happens when strength is combined with emotion? Are those emotional remnants carried along the path, forever altering the harmony of its intentional meanderment? Trails are all about control. Direction. Intention. Is there a marking of metaphysical energy within them?
