Published
Our ethics columnist weighs in on the dilemma about when a predator has the right to act like a predator—and when it crosses the line
The pros and cons of plugging in when your lifestyle takes you off the grid
For decades, field technicians have scoured the Mojave Desert monitoring threatened tortoises. Their searches sometimes uncovered human remains. Our writer untangles a mystery dug up by the turtle counters.
Navigating the ethics when resort-town absentee landlords crack down on law-breaking locals
A frustrated reader knows it's bad form, but wants to break the rules to secure a riverside site anyway
A frustrated reader feels taken advantage of. But should he?
A reader and their partner recently squared off over the $10 cancellation fees on campground reservations
A worried reader wants to ban Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider from our wild places
A frustrated reader asks if we can prohibit Sprinter-van telecommuters on their laptops in the great outdoors
With Lake Mead drying up due to drought and climate change, the famous desert reservoir is revealing grisly secrets from the past, including the remains of people thought to be victims of Las Vegas foul play. Mark Sundeen hits Nevada for a freewheeling exploration of dark deeds, a rapidly unfolding apocalypse, and a parched future that will dramatically affect the entire American Southwest.
It’s not easy being a progressive who works for a middle-of-the-road president. Mark Sundeen sizes up the interior secretary’s first year in office—which has been a disappointment to climate-change activists—and decides she’s most likely to make a mark through a historic reckoning over the U.S. government’s shameful running of Native American boarding schools.
What I learned about love, loss, and landscape over two decades of living in a 1961 Artcraft mobile home in the Utah desert
In the spell of a week, a mysterious monolith appeared in the Utah desert and was subsequently removed by some slackline bros. The saga has raised more questions than answers.
As red-rock meccas like Moab, Zion, and Arches become overrun with visitors, our writer wonders if Utah's celebrated Mighty Five ad campaign worked too well—and who gets to decide when a destination is "at capacity."
On a plane ride over the Mountain West, a grieving father retraces his adventurous youth and searches for solace in the rugged landscapes that molded him
Golf courses! Water parks! Man-made lakes! If Utah has its way, the retiree oasis of St. George will explode with growth, turning red rock to bluegrass and slaking its thirst with a new billion-dollar pipeline from the Colorado River.
A swanky night out with the mutts saving our veterans' lives
Nowhere is the quest for simplicity and freedom more pronounced than in the tiny-house movement, which has grown from hipster alternative to mainstream phenomenon faster than an Amish barn raising. Mark Sundeen joins the believers to ask: Has the dream gotten too big?
The decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to block the Dakota Access Pipeline arrived just as internal tensions threatened to fracture Standing Rock's Oceti Sakowin camp
Two impassioned mass protests: one led by white people with guns, the other by nonviolent Native Americans. Taken together, they shed light on the centuries-old myth of the valiant cowboy and savage Indian—and on white privilege and institutional racism in America.
Two of our country's biggest issues, racism and climate change, have collided on a North Dakota reservation. This week, I loaded up my station wagon with water and supplies and drove down for a look at a historic demonstration that could shape the national dialogue going forward.
Cheryl Strayed's memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, Wild, offers a refreshing take on outdoor writing by reminding us that a journey through the wilderness can help in overcoming the most wretched of conditions
He was a proud Marine who survived three brutal tours in Iraq and had plans to redeploy with the national guard. But when 30-year-old Noah Pippin vanished inside Montana’s remote Bob Marshall Wilderness, he left behind a trail of haunting secrets—and a mystery that may never be solved.
Their fathers were titans. Their family defined conservation in the West. Now, with two Senate seats up for grabs, cousins Mark and Tom Udall have the chance to bring green leadership to Washington when it's needed most. Can the boys man up the way their dads did a generation ago?
Fall in Yakutat, Alaska, means camouflage, salmon, and the sweetest swells on the far north shore
With "the death of environmentalism" being debated across the land—and with the mainstream movement under siege from without and within—it's time to meet the winning side in America's new green wars. Here they come, ready or not: the 20 most powerful voices leading the environmental counterrevolution.
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! Thar she... might blow! When Mount St. Helens, America's very own all-natural weapon of mass destruction, threatened to go postal again, 24 years after her last tantrum, disaster groupies rushed to the crater—and hoped for the worst.
The Dolores used to be one of the mightiest whitewater rivers in the West. Then politics and dry weather got in the way. But neither drought nor dam nor partisan bickering can stop Mark Sundeen from floating (and walking and driving) the entire course of the Rio de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.