Sunset in the Potrillo Mountains, part of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in New Mexico.
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In late February, Ellen and I hiked into Aravaipa Canyon in the heart of Arizona’s Aravaipa Wilderness (BLM). A clear stream, unusual in the desert, flowed beneath cottonwood trees, leafed out to gather early-season Arizona sunshine. We disturbed a coati in one of them—it crept slowly to the ground and disappeared surprisingly quickly and a little comically into riparian vegetation. After a fun day of walking and exploring, we set up our tent under volcanic cliffs beside the stream and enjoyed miso soup, freeze-dried dinners, shortbread cookies, and a warm quiet evening under bright stars.
Volcanic cliffs above a side canyon in the Aravaipa Wilderness photographed during a February backpacking trip.
In mid-February, we car-camped with friends on the rim of the Kilbourne Hole, a volcanic maar crater in a remote part of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. We’d spent the day finding petroglyphs and evidence of Pleistocene mammals near a volcanic cone. Our campsite commanded a view across the crater to the Riley Peaks, three high points in the Potrillo Mountains, one of several desert ranges in the Monument. The site had clearly been enjoyed by ORV users, and we spoke with two friendly guys from El Paso in a side-by-side when they stopped to enjoy the view. They were originally from Quebec, and it was surprising to hear French so close to the Mexican border.
Ellen with our friends Steve and Beth Buskirk on the rim of the Kilbourne Hole in the Organ Peaks-Desert Mountains National Monument. February 2025.
Earlier in February, we camped with our Laramie friend, Ed Sherline, in the Uva Mountains near the end of his bikepacking trip around the Desert Peaks. He'd covered sixty miles a day for five days circumnavigating much of the Monument and was feeling (and looking) a little grizzled when we met him on his last night. It was cold at night, but sunrise behind the Organs merited an early wake-up to enjoy layers of mountains and haze in the morning light.
The Organ Mountains at sunrise taken from a camp in the Uva Mountains.
Those are just three of many experiences I had on public lands in February. My life and the lives of many of my friends have been enriched by these lands for well over a half century. Going back further, my father's family loved the West, and tales of their trips from Dearborn, Michigan to the Tetons in the 1940s drew me to them starting in the late-1970s, changing the course of my life. How many American family histories have been influenced by our federal lands? How many of our lives have been changed?
My father, Ed, and his mother, Nelle, on a trip west from Michigan in the 1940s to visit Grand Teton National Park, at that time less than twenty years old. The photo was probably taken by my grandfather, Ken.
In the U.S. today, few issues are nonpartisan, but protection of public lands unites people from across the political spectrum. The freedom to vacation in National Parks, explore National Monuments, hunt and fish in National Forests, birdwatch in Wildlife Refuges, or wander through remote BLM lands is fundamental to our way of life, yet we win public land battles, never the war. Who are the legislators braying loudly for the sale or transfer of federal (our) lands even while their constituents (we) object?
Ultimately, they are driven by special interests that benefit from reduced regulations so that they can more easily exploit our lands for their profit, meaning that it’s worth their while to contribute campaign funds and pay lobbyists. Oil and gas, mining, timber, and large corporate agricultural interests profit while the rest of us stand to lose our heritage, our primary means of recreation, and our avenue for enjoying the open spaces about which Westerners, including many of those trying to take them away, wax poetic with stories of free-roaming cowboys and Big Sky Country.
In 2024, Utah filed a lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court that would have required the federal government to sell or “dispose of” more than 18 million acres of our public lands in Utah despite Utah’s agreement upon being granted statehood to “forever disclaim all right and title” to federal public lands. Twelve states supported this attempt even in the face of broad opposition by the public, but many did not. Martin Heinrich, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico, where I live now, stood against this, declaring, "We must stand united against this un-American land grab to ensure that our public lands remain accessible and protected for future generations. Our public lands are not for sale. Full stop." Thankfully, early this year, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, a battle won while the war continues.
Ellen and our friend, Bay, admiring pictographs in the Bears' Ears National Monument established by Obama, shrunk by Trump, re-grown by Biden, and now vulnerable again. Of course, before Europeans, all lands in N. America were public. Cultural resources like these pictographs deserve to remain protected.
The Wyoming legislature was one of the supporters of Utah’s suit. I lived in Wyoming for nearly 45 years and spent countless weeks in its spectacular public lands along with many of my fellow Wyomingites of all political stripes. Recently, Wyoming legislators tried to pass a resolution transferring much of the federal land in Wyoming to the State. Fortunately, this resolution was defeated even in one of the reddest states in the U.S. underlining bipartisan support for protection of public land. Other efforts in Wyoming this year attempted to limit the right of private landowners to transfer land or land rights to the federal government. Many supporters of these measures in the Wyoming House are members of the Freedom Caucus. WTF?
Sunrise in the Honeycomb Buttes--BLM land in Wyoming's Red Desert. 2013.
Public lands continue to be threatened. NPS, BLM, USFS, and U.S. FWS employees are being fired, National Monument boundaries are in jeopardy, and special interests advocate for sale or transfer of our land. Many across our political spectrum are fighting these threats, but many others are complicit, and the war is never won. We can help by writing letters, attending rallies, donating funds, volunteering, and voting. Don’t let the few take away or degrade lands that belong to us all.
Gated and posted private ranchland adjacent to the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. Private landowners have the right to keep people off of their land, but we don't want our public lands to become private and locked away from us.
