For the world to meet its climate goals, a third of the world’s oil, half its gas and 80% of its coal must stay underground. The sheer scale of the fossil fuel reserves that will need to be left unexploited for decades if world leaders sign up to a radical climate agreement is revealed in a study by a team of British scientists. It shows that almost all the huge coal reserves in China, Russia and the US should remain unused, along with over 260 billion barrels of oil reserves in the Middle East – the equivalent of Saudi...
read moreUp on the mountain this week, one of those “moments of clarity” hit people across snow country. What they saw was like looking into a crystal ball and seeing their future. With clear weather, plenty of snow and a firm snow surface, all of the stellar trailheads were popular destinations with snowshoers. For many, the exhilaration was pure ecstasy: their first snowshoe romp in years after enduring the California drought. At the Castle Peak Trailhead along Interstate 80, across the road from Boreal (near Donner Pass), every parking space was...
read moreWho is the one person you can always count on to go for a hike whenever you feel like it? Well, it’s not a person. It’s man’s best friend: your dog. A fit, healthy dog will likely be more excited to hit the trail than you. Most dog breeds will enjoy a jaunt in the woods, but some dogs have backcountry survival in their blood. If you’re a hiker of the avid variety, you need to choose a dog that will be comfortable in the forest and on mountain trails. You’ll need a dog with good recall (comes when called) so it won’t go chasing...
read moreTim Breuer doesn’t ask the question unless he knows the answer will be “yes.” Sometimes, it takes awhile to get there. In the case of the most recent easement agreements between the city of Boise, Idaho, the Land Trust of the Treasure Valley and Grossman Company Properties, it took 20 years. “The first time I walked on [Upper Dry Creek] with the landowners was in 1994,” said Breuer, who has been the executive director of the Land Trust for eight years. At the time, he was the Ridge to Rivers coordinator for the...
read moreJoin Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy on Saturday, January 17, 2015 at Camp High Rocks to hike to the summit of Rich Mountain. With a stop at Cathedral Rocks en route, this hike is a beautiful upward trek to a scenic mountain top. Hikers will have a choice of stopping at Cathedral Rock or continuing up to the top of Rich Mountain. Camp High Rocks is a summer camp for boys founded in 1958. The camp is in the midst of 1,000 acres of camp-owned mountain woodland, with an eleven-acre lake, at an elevation of 3,000 feet. Hiking distance is 2.7...
read moreA different kind of spire is jutting into the iconic red rock vistas of Moab, Utah. It is the scaffolding of drilling rigs, and it heralds a new chapter in Moab’s long history of energy extraction. Moab may have been comfortable with the uranium industry that put it on the map in another century. But having an oil patch in the midst of this area’s popular national parks and renowned recreational backcountry is jarring to some residents. Oil and gas wells have been drilled piecemeal around here for decades. But today’s wells...
read moreGreat Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the world’s most beautiful places to take in everything the great outdoors has to offer. During the annual Wilderness Wildlife Week events in Pigeon Forge, you’ll have a chance to learn about the fauna, flora and folks who call this rustic region home. This year’s 25th Annual Wilderness Wildlife Week takes place January 24 through January 31, 2015, and is based at the new LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge. This week-long event features a series of free, family-friendly activities designed to educate...
read moreIf you want to go out and get working on that New Year’s resolution of getting fit and getting outside, consider exploring Long Island’s major hiking trail system – the Greenbelt. Long Island’s Greenbelt Trail is a 31.8-mile hiking trail that was completed in 1982 and extends from Sunken Meadow State Park on the Long Island Sound to Heckscher State Park on the Great South Bay. After the original Long Island Greenbelt was completed, the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference made the push to create several more “greenbelt” trails across Long...
read moreUsing government grants and private donations, the N.C. Forest Service and its partners have now acquired more than half of the land necessary for a new 8,000-acre state forest in Transylvania County. The Forest Service was able to purchase another 1,018 acres in the East Fork of the French Broad River from former U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor in 2014, bringing the total acreage acquired to 4,229 acres. “When we started this process (in 2013), we thought it would be a three- to five-year acquisition period,” said Assistant Regional Forester...
read moreAfter listening to my sister’s stories about her Georgia-to-Maine adventure on the Appalachian Trail, I’m thinking it might be a good idea for us all to spend some time on foot in the deep woods. Life on the trail, from what Pat tells me, while hugely demanding physically and emotionally, seems a lot like life ought to be here in “civilization.” On the trail, everyone is on equal footing, literally and figuratively. The back country is a very accepting place: Pat encountered older people, kids, men, women and individuals of all varieties of...
read moreThe Elkin Valley Trails Association (EVTA) is bringing hiking — and much more — to Elkin, North Carolina and much of the surrounding area. Trial hikes along portions of the trail between Stone Mountain and Elkin have already taken place. The EVTA trail is part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail that will stretch, when completed, from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks — more than 1,000 miles. About 300 miles are complete — from Clingman’s Dome to Stone Mountain Park. There are other pieces of the trail completed adding another 200 miles...
read moreLocated less than 2 miles from Panthertown Valley in Jackson County, a new conservation easement will provide a critical wildlife corridor, connecting three other easements. The 48-acre Black Bear Trail property, now held by the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust, becomes part of a continuous natural area of more than 1,000 acres, including habitat ranging from forest to rocky outcrops to water. The land includes about 5,625 linear feet of perennial headwater tributary streams, including at least two springs, which join to feed into Cedar Creek....
read moreThe “lost and forbidden” kingdom of Upper Mustang, tucked away in northern Nepal, is an arid and ancient land, like a flashback to the Tibet of the 1950s, when the Dalai Lama still reigned in Lhasa. Virtually untouched by modern civilization and isolated by rugged mountain terrain, the old way of life of the Lobas (people of Mustang) still exists, while its ancient Buddhist monasteries are still intact. It was led by King Jigme Palbar Bista until 2007, when Nepal was declared a republic. Trekking in the Upper Mustang is comparatively less...
read moreIt takes a certain masochism to experience Death Valley National Park as it’s meant to be seen. But torture yourself just a little, take a few extra steps, and you’ll be rewarded with a combination of natural and historical wonders that no place on Earth can match: gorgeous sand dunes sculpted by wind; a dried-up lakebed named the Racetrack for its power to move rocks; ghost towns from a failed mining rush; a medley of rock layers rising thousands of feet telling a visual history that goes back millions of years; and so much more. Don’t be...
read moreFrom the end of October through the New Year and onto Valentine’s Day, it’s easy to forget that the holidays we celebrate are simply cultural constructs that we can choose to engage in — or not. The concepts and ideas we celebrate — like our spiritual beliefs and daily habits — are a choice, though sometimes it feels like we “have” to celebrate them, even if we don’t feel like it. Culture is ours to do with as we choose, and that means that we can add, subtract, or edit celebrations or holidays as we see fit. If...
read moreIn 1976, it looked like a good idea: to divert the waters of the Danube into a salt-water lagoon on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, and irrigate millions of hectares of arid steppe land. But the result has been human and environmental disaster on an epic scale. Some environmental disasters happen in the blink of an eye, much too quickly for anyone to react: an oil spill, a nuclear explosion, the sudden collapse of a tailings dam. They are often the result of an operator’s error, or sloppy inspection, or adverse weather conditions no...
read moreIf you’re like most people, all of your good intentions, inspired by the illusion of some cosmic do-over that comes with the new year, are already well on their way to oblivion. In one year and out the other, as the saying about resolutions goes. The problem with many resolutions is that they’re simply too vague. So maybe you’ve made a resolution to hike more in 2015. That’s a perfectly noble goal but what does it actually mean? Perhaps we always vow to hike more, both for body and spirit. So the following suggestions are less about helping...
read moreWhen David Crites walked out of his apartment last month, he was greeted by a line of six or so bison standing shoulder to shoulder in the front yard. He sidled over to his truck, staring at the huge animals, slipped into the front seat, then closed the door and turned on the ignition. As the pickup slowly made its way down the driveway, the bison lumbered alongside. “It was like I was in Yellowstone,” Crites says. But he wasn’t. His temporary job is to remove trees and install fences in the Nachusa Grasslands of north-central Illinois—where...
read moreAt the end of 2015, the nations of the world will meet in Paris and attempt to hammer out a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. And Pope Francis hopes that the world’s Catholics, as well as other major religions, will be a big part of serious climate action. This includes a series of steps next year. Francis is expected to tell the planet’s 1.2 billion Catholics why acting on climate change is essential to the faith using an influential church document called an encyclical. This has been long-rumored, but will reportedly be released...
read moreDeath Valley is an imposing place to go for a hike, though the staff at the national park is encouraging visitors to experience the park on a hiking trail through a new program that debuts in January. The Hike Death Valley program offers a list of hikes for visitors to take. Each hike has a point value assigned to it. For instance, hike the half-mile to Scotty’s grave behind Scotty’s Castle and you’ll earn a point. Hiking to Wild Rose Peak, on the other hand, an 8-mile trek, will earn you four points. Some of the hiking...
read moreDon Barger can tell from his commute to work that air quality in East Tennessee has improved in recent years. Barger, the southern regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the views of the Great Smoky Mountains on his way to work from Norris to Knoxville are evidence enough without the need to consult any data. “We’ve got our mountains back,” said Barger, whose NPCA serves as an environmental park-protection organization. Barger said that faraway points in the Smokies — including the...
read moreIn his book “This House of Sky,” Ivan Doig described them as a “steel-blue army of mountains, drawn in battalions of peaks and reefs and gorges and crags as far along the entire rim of the earth as could be seen.” “Summit after summit bladed up thousands of feet as if charging into the air to strike first at storm and lightning, valleys and clefts chasmed wide as if split and hollowed by thunderblast after thunderblast,” Doig wrote. The Rocky Mountain Front, a marriage of opposites between the plains and...
read moreHis job wasn’t difficult, but it wore on him all the same. He craved adventure. He had to do something. That something, it turned out, was hiking the venerable Appalachian Trail in an unbroken streak from Georgia to Maine and, that not being enough, paddling a green canoe from the headwaters of the Mississippi River all the way to Baton Rouge, La. Jared McCallum hadn’t even backpacked before. The 28-year-old spent much of his high school life like any other kid in suburban America, hanging around with friends, whiling away the...
read moreCollisions between vehicles and wildlife are a big problem on U.S. roads. Each year, on average, 1-2 million collisions with large animals, especially mule deer and white-tailed deer, end in 200 fatalities, 26,000 injuries, and costs exceeding $1 billion. About a third of the collisions reported on rural roads are wildlife-related, and two-lane highways with speed limits exceeding 55 miles per hour are particularly problematic. Deer see things differently in a highway situation. Instead of tracking movement by following objects with their...
read moreHeavy rains on the Hawaiian island of Kauai led to major rescue efforts by the Kauai Fire Department. Dozens of hikers are lucky to be alive on Christmas Eve. More than 60 of them had to be rescued from Kalalau Valley on Kauai that morning. But officials say some of them weren’t even supposed to be there. A total of 62 stranded hikers were air lifted out of the valley after multiple streams became too dangerous to cross. Some were campers who had been there for days, but others had ignored warnings that the conditions were dangerous because...
read moreStart your New Year off on the right (or left) foot with a First Day Hike at a State Park. Explore history, view winter wildlife, enjoy fresh air and connect with nature at these fun, family-friendly events. First Day Hikes are a healthy way to rejuvenate with family and friends after the long holiday rush. These free, guided hikes are usually easy to moderate in difficulty and have a wide range of miles. Hikers should dress for winter weather, wear sturdy hiking shoes or boots appropriate to the conditions and bring water and snacks. First...
read moreWhen power plants burn coal, they’re left with a coal ash residue containing arsenic, mercury, lead, and selenium. Until today, there were no federal standards for utilities to dispose of it. Utilities produce more than 100 million tons of the stuff annually, and what’s not recycled into concrete is spread across the country in 1,400 dry and wet ponds. The problem, environmentalists say, is that the coal ash is sometimes dumped into unlined and open-air pits and seeps into the ground, gets picked up by the wind, and occasionally spills into...
read moreNational Park Service Chesapeake Bay was one of 37 national parks selected to receive a 2014 Active Trails grant from the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America’s national parks. Now in its sixth year, the Active Trails program supports healthy living by getting people out and active in national parks through projects that help restore, protect, and/or create land and water trails across the country. These projects include hands-on learning, hiking, kayaking, snowshoeing, volunteering, and more. “Through the...
read moreThe latest addition to Governor Jack Markell’s First State Trails and Pathways initiative opened in Dover December 18, 2014. State officials cut the ribbon on the Capital City Trail, a 10-foot-wide multi-use path near Legislative Hall. The trail connects to the St. Jones Greenway on its southern end and the Silver Lake Trail system to the north. Jeff Niezgoda, the program manager for the First State Trails and Pathways program, said the multi-use trail is accessible to Delawareans of all ages. “These types of facilities, being offroad, are...
read moreThe EPA has confirmed that on Friday, Dec. 19, 2014 it will release its first-ever regulations on the second-largest form of waste generation in the United States: coal ash. When it is is finalized, the rule is expected to include requirements on how coal ash should be disposed, how existing coal ash pits should be cleaned up, whether coal ash should be designated as a hazardous material, and who should be responsible for enforcing the rules. Coal ash is a byproduct of coal burning, and often contains chemicals like arsenic, chromium,...
read moreIn celebration of 100 years of trails and recreation, Rocky Mountain National Park officials are encouraging people to get out and enjoy the vast park’s excursions in 2015. Julie Nelson, of Loveland, CO advocates going further. She and her father, Bill Perry, have made a goal to hike 100 miles next year in celebration of the park’s 100th anniversary. She is encouraging the community to do so, as well. It’s called the Rocky Mountain National Park Centennial Challenge. “It seemed cool that it’s the 100th...
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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