No moose at these falls, at least not when I have been there. Too steep, too close to a highway buzzing with autos and motorhomes, even a motorcycle or two, or a whole gang now and then. Refreshing deep waters at their base make these more like summer swimmer falls, inviting on hot days for those who seek out the secluded coolness of this watery wonderland. ♨
Saddleback Mountain stands silent, motionless, stoic above frantic, superficial California as a reminder that some remnant of wildness persists beyond the freeways and strip malls.
Wilderness is a fantasy of human desires born of a false binary of wild nature without people. But imagining wilderness might deliver us to a new geography of hope.
America has long been confused about whether nature is for us to adore and enjoy, or for us to profit from. This confusion has been painfully clear in our divisive attitudes toward national parks.
Spider rock stands as a two-headed spire that rests motionless on its ancient pedestal, like petrified arms stretching upward toward the canyon’s rim. Inside Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Nation, the lithic monument figures into Diné mythic history. ♨
There has been a persistent sense among many Americans that national parks are special places, even sacred. It was Horace Albright, the second Director of the National Park Service, who said in 1930 that “Only God can create a national park.” Such theologically tinged interpretations, of course, borrow on the leftover patriotism of nineteenth-century Manifest Destiny. This story of the…
Veterans of the American Revolution are buried in the cemetery at Mount Tabor Church in Ohio, which al so has graves of Civil War soldiers and veterans of the War of 1812 as well as both World Wars.
