Public lands of the American West, and elsewhere, provide relatively untethered access to open space where I revitalize my connection to the natural world. Remembering that I am a recent immigrant to these lands, where Indigenous connections span millennia, I respect the good fortune I have to satiate my geologic and ecologic curiosities and to experience the highly varied and dynamic landscape, even as the challenges of my extractions and expectations create scars seen and unseen. It is my responsibility to tread as lightly and kindly as I can. This collection of blog-form posts, gathered during reconnaissances (i.e., recces) of living spaces within and surrounding the Great Basin Desert, is my testimony to the beauty, complexity, and challenges of living, working, and recreating here, so that I consider the impact of my (and our) heavy footprint as sanely as possible. As always, I hope to bring a bit of science and art to my personal geography, so that you might appreciate and expand yours.
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Quick camp on Miller Canyon Fan, western Utah
After a warm day of landform reconnaissance in the Great Basin of western Utah, I camped in a small back-berm playette on the broad alluvial fan of Miller Canyon extending from the House Range in western Utah.
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Embracing Distractions: Mason Valley – Seaman Range – Lunar Craters
Maybe high points don’t have to be the goal. I established my High Points quest in the 1990s to encourage my exploration of the Nevada outback. I knew summit goals could guide me as I traversed Nevada’s Basin and Range and grew familiar with its amazing variety of desert landforms. Over 30 intervening years, I was not as persistent in my high-point pursuit as I could have been – I missed several years or went months at a time without visiting a summit, but my exploration has been almost ceaseless as I worked on a wide variety of geoarchaeological projects and managed to summit 130 of Nevada’s 317 (or so) named ranges. I grew more patterned and regular as I began writing about the excursions. I am, however, due for change.
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