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A couple of pictures of the White Cliffs of the Missouri Breaks. There aren't very many! Click the bottom one for full-size, but it actually looks better at this size.

A new image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows baby stars sprouting in the backwoods of a galaxy -- a relatively desolate region of space more than 100,000 light-years from the galaxy's bustling center. The striking image, a composite of ultraviolet data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and radio data from the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array in New Mexico, shows the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, also known simply as M83. In the new view, the main spiral, or stellar, disk of M83 looks like a pink and blue pinwheel, while its outer arms appear to flap away from the...

The parents of the 11-year-old boy killed by a black bear last summer in American Fork Canyon are suing the U.S. Forest Service and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. They say more should have been done to prevent their son's death. Step-father Tim Mulvey, his wife Rebecca Ives and Sam’s father say they have lived with the horror of that father's day weekend every day since and now they want to make sure it never happens to anyone else's family. It is grief beyond comprehension for most of us; a child ripped away from his family in the middle of...

Mountain bikers worry proposal could kill ‘epic ride’. Many of the area's skilled mountain bikers are concerned about a proposal that would ban them from some of their most-prized local trails, including a segment of the Colorado Trail. The proposal is part of a draft plan by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to guide management of 2.4 million acres of public lands in Southwest Colorado. The plan recommends classifying 55,000 acres as new wilderness, including 51,000 acres west of Hermosa Creek. Congress is ultimately responsible for establishing wilderness areas, which cannot be used by motorized vehicles...

“To Fulfill What Was Spoken by the Prophet: ‘The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness’” (Matthew 3:1-12)Last week we entered what I called, “The Year of St. Matthew,” a new church year in which most all of the Sunday Gospel readings will come from the holy evangelist Matthew. We said that one of the characteristics of Matthew’s account is his frequent use of introducing quotations from the Old Testament with a “fulfillment” formula, something like, “This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet. . . .” Something like that. In fact, today is the second of...

Mother-in-law of shooter says he had no choice but to shoot. A man who shot and killed a mountain lion last week in defense of his puppy should face criminal charges in the incident for "baiting" the animal, a wildlife-advocacy group said Tuesday. Wendy Keefover-Ring, director of the Boulder-based Sinapu Carnivore Protection Program, said state prosecutors should cite Jeremy Kocar for baiting the mountain lion by leaving his dog tied up outside overnight. Kocar also should face charges of shooting a cougar out of hunting season, which runs Nov. 20 through March 31, shooting without a hunting license and animal...

In the mid 1990s, while living in southwest Montana, I did a lot of hunting and exploring around the mountains in the area. This included those ranges bordering the Beaverhead, Ruby, Red Rock, and Big Hole Rivers. I also got up on the Bitteroot and over the mountains onto the Selway which is where this web page and story has its origins. I learned of a road out of Darby, Montana that followed the Nez Perce indian trail over the monuntains into Idaho, which conected to a primitive road that continued across the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Chuirch - River...

Gov. Schwarzenegger recently escalated a battle of words with federal officials over how to manage the remaining wilderness areas in Southern California's national forests. In an August letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Schwarzenegger accused the federal government of not doing enough to make sure wilderness in the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Angeles and Los Padres national forests is protected from road construction. The state and environmental groups want more restrictions on forest roads than are outlined in new forest management plans, 10- to 15-year master plans for land use in the forests. Schwarzenegger charged the federal government with not...

Firefighters in this mountain resort town love to tell the story of the couple from Texas who wanted to know where they could buy one of those beautiful red evergreens that surround Lake Dillon. They offered the couple a chain saw and told them to take as many as they wanted. The trees aren’t red, they’re dead. The stately green lodgepole pines that once provided million-dollar views high in the Rockies are turning red and then brown in waves as tiny bark beetles eat their way across the Continental Divide. But environmentalists say that’s no reason to chop them down....

'Utterly cared for': Minister writes of finding peace, link to God in nature http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070726/Lives/707260476/1047/Lives http://tinyurl.com/2uf995 Jul 26, 2007 CHRISTINE COX Tribune Staff Writer John Lionberger, a United Church of Christ minister and religious author, admits there are times when he is tempted to not believe in God. "Faith just isn't a head thing at all. I could talk myself out of God just in a heartbeat," he says in a telephone interview. "But if I listen to my heart, I think that's the truer voice. That's the grounded voice. I guess, the ancient voice." It's a voice he didn't hear...

The words “roadless” and “wilderness” should be of utmost concern to all those whose recreational pursuits include snowmobiling and other activities that require motorized access to public/federal land. Knowing their meanings will help readers understand my concerns as stated in this article. “…there shall be no temporary road, no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area.” – The Wilderness Act of 1964. Many elected officials in America’s western states have cast a pall over the 110th Congress, which is ominous...

Conservationists say U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer's plan to designate 2.4 million acres of California mountains as wilderness ---- including areas in San Diego and Riverside counties ---- would preserve a back-country treasure for future generations. But off-road enthusiasts say Boxer's new wilderness bill would lock up that treasure forever so that only a privileged few could use it. California already has one of the nation's most extensive wilderness systems, one that covers more than 14 million acres or 13 percent of its sun-splashed lands. Local examples include the 16,000-acre Agua Tibia Wilderness just north of Palomar Mountain along the San...

Millions of acres of prime recreational opportunities in Montana are threatened with closure. Your action could mean the difference between a "closed" sign and a "trail open" sign. Please take a moment to read the information below and act on the action items. the U.S. Forest Service is planning a de-facto Wilderness management regime on all "Recommended Wilderness Areas" (RWA). Under normal circumstances, the "Recommended" Wilderness classification is just that: a recommendation. The decision of "whether Wilderness" is supposed to be left to Congress and the American People. Sadly, the Northern Region of the U.S. Forest Service seems to think...

The federal judge who overturned the Bush administration’s Roadless Rule declared Wednesday that energy companies can’t set up their drill rigs on any undeveloped oil and gas lease issued since 2001 within a roadless area. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte ruled in September that President Bill Clinton’s 2001 Roadless Rule be reinstated, protecting 4.4 million acres of roadless areas in Colorado national forests and more than 58 million acres nationwide. Her ruling Wednesday prevents the U.S. Forest Service from approving or allowing any surface disturbance of a mineral lease issued after Jan. 12, 2001, on which drilling or development...

After 18 hours in the snow and cold at 12,000 feet, three 9-year-olds and a mother arrived at the aptly named Lost Man parking lot to cheers from dozens of waiting family members and search-and-rescue teams that had worked through the night. The Lost Man Loop Trail, a popular hike just west of Independence Pass, is a partial loop with two trailheads on Highway 82. Rescuers couldn't confirm exactly how the group got lost, but several members said it was likely the hikers thought they began at the upper trailhead, when they were actually at the lower trailhead... The snow...

The ongoing wildfires that are currently burning, or that have already burned this summer in Washington State and all across the western United States, may be a shock to some people, but isn’t this what some of our appointed public land managers and many of our elected officials have been allowing to happen for quite some time by not properly managing these public lands that belong to all of us? At last count when I wrote this article on 9/8/06 there has been more than 8.5 million acres that have burned nationwide, with Washington State leading the pack with 310,966...

Scouting survives: Even in high-tech age, youths learn to 'Be prepared'http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=144116 Sunday August 6, 2006 by CANDICE BOSELY candiceb@herald-mail.com TRI-STATE - These are a few of their favorite things: Cell phones and cookies, iPods and pop-up tents, video games and wilderness badges. Seeing teenagers - and children even younger - talking or sending text messages on cell phones, fiddling with mp3 music players and playing video games are common sights. Girl Scouting and Boy Scouting might almost seem passé, given the associated images of camping, surviving in the wilderness and sleeping in wooden cabins at camp. But it's not antiquated...

A boy tries to light dry grass under a pyramid of twigs. Eventually, it catches and he lies on his side to blow the embers into crackling life. Tonight he and his friends will dine on a thin stew made of thistles and heather leaves, cooked over the fire. They will sleep in a makeshift bivouac on a bed of ferns. This is not a scene from Swallows and Amazons. It is an increasingly popular kind of educational holiday for children. On this particular course, groups of children aged from nine upwards will be pretty much alone. They have a...

As many as 200 people may be stranded on the middle fork of the Salmon River. Debris from two flash floods is completely blocking the river 21 miles downstream from the main put in at Boundary Creek.

WASHINGTON The House approved legislation Monday to create about 277,000 acres of federal wilderness in far northern California, one in a series of bills to protect national forest land in Western states. The bills would create nearly 670,000 acres of new wilderness areas and protect 47 miles of wild and scenic rivers in California, Idaho and Oregon, as well as ban drilling in northern New Mexico's Valle Vidal. The House also passed legislation to establish National Heritage Areas in several states, including New Mexico, Utah and Nevada. The three wilderness bills would protect about 277,000 acres in California, 315,000 acres...

Nearly 4,000 firefighters worked in blistering temperatures Saturday to corral a huge complex of fires in rugged wilderness while investigators found the body of a man who vanished in the flame-blackened area days earlier. The body of Gerald Guthrie, 57, was found shortly after 11 a.m. by a search-and-rescue crew, said Cindy Beavers of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Guthrie had been missing since Tuesday, when fire swept through the historical community of Pioneertown. His body was found in a charred area at the base of a small hill less than a half-mile from his two-story domed home, which...

Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday became the first Western governor to petition the Bush administration for protection of all roadless national forest land in the state. "I'm going to fight to protect 1.7 million acres of pristine New Mexico land," he said in a national telephone news conference. "New Mexico's roadless areas promote the health of rivers and streams. Roadless areas support significant and complex wildlife communities and ... create unique valuable recreational opportunities." Richardson has been a vocal critic of President Bush's decision to replace a Clinton-era rule protecting all roadless forest land with a state-by-state petition process. Richardson...

Sheep don't mix well with grizzly bears and wolves. Now they won't mix at all on more than 70,000 acres in the Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness. A 74,000-acre sheep grazing allotment south of Big Timber in the Gallatin National Forest has been permanently closed and the ranchers who used it for generations have been paid to move their sheep elsewhere... The agreement is the eighth -- and second-largest -- in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem in recent years that has led to the retirement of about 300,000 acres from grazing. The latest involves the Ash Mountain and Iron Mountain allotments used for generations...

Kathy Kelly was arrested at Senator Richard Durbin’s office in Chicago, on April 5, along with three other anti-war activists.  The Senate Appropriations Committee is to consider a spending bill on April 6 to provide nearly $80 billion more to fund the war in Iraq.  They sought a pledge from Senator Durbin to vote against the bill. Kelly was informed that that Senator Durbin will vote for the supplemental spending bill.  Kelly and her group then disrupted the operations of the senator's office by reading the names of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives in...

Other group helping in Iraq not prosecuted Friday, March 07, 2003By Renee K. Gadoua The same federal act used to indict three Central New Yorkers accused of illegally sending money to Iraq has not been enforced against at least a dozen local residents who openly violated U.S. law by traveling there. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorizes U.S. sanctions against Iraq. Four Muslims, including three Onondaga County residents, were indicted Feb. 26 on charges that include violating the act by using the Syracuse-based charity Help the Needy to send money to Iraq without a license. About 600 people have...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

Finally, more than four years after its hideous birth, the Clinton "Roadless Rule" is dead. The Bush administration and the Forest Service just announced a final rule that effectively undoes Clinton's reckless decree. Dying with the "Roadless Rule" are the following: - threats of catastrophic wildfire - threats of forest infestation and disease - lack of public access to public lands - improper resource management - unhealthy forests - top-down federal overreach Recall that Bill Clinton, just eight days before he left office, in the dark of night, penned his infamous, unilateral, executive order that locked up over 58 million...

Arnold pledges to save trees Governor says California's roadless areas will be safe from Bush policy Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed Thursday that the Bush administration's attempt to open a third of national forests to logging, mining and development will not diminish protections for California's remote forestlands. Announcing an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to protect about 4.4 million California acres left vulnerable to construction under the new Bush administration rules, Schwarzenegger said those largely undeveloped areas will remain untouched. "I am committed to protecting the vibrant health and sustainable future of our forests," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Roadless...

Most timber wars between tree-huggers and tree-harvesters occur in Oregon or Washington. But as Sam MacDonald writes in his new book "The Agony of an American Wilderness," environmentalists and loggers are engaged in a fierce and potentially precedent-setting struggle in the Allegheny National Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania. Allegheny National Forest's 513,000 acres had been clear-cut by 1923, when it became a federal forest and was known as the "Allegheny Brush Heap." Over the last 80 years, however, it has been turned into a vast and profitable ocean of black cherry, a hardwood valued for making furniture. It also has more...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a government-approved program used by five Western states to improve their air quality and visibility in national parks and wilderness areas. Siding with an industry coalition, the court said the states' program was based on Environmental Protection Agency methods that the court, ruling in a case three years ago, had found to be "inconsistent with the Clean Air Act." Friday's decision deals with efforts by Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming to cut sulfur dioxide pollution that contributes to regional haze, particularly at the Grand Canyon. Mike Leavitt, now...

WASHINGTON - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed a North Coast wilderness bill that swiftly cleared a Senate committee Wednesday, and proponents said they hope the legislation has the momentum to be enacted into law. The legislation sponsored by California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, in the House, would designate more than 300,000 acres of federal lands as protected wilderness. "This bill protects the natural beauty that is at the heart of California's identity," Boxer said of the measure. --snip-- Last year, the legislation was approved by the Senate but died in...

RENO, Nev. - President Bush (news - web sites) has signed into law a measure creating what conservationists say will be the largest piece of federally protected wilderness in Nevada — an area about half the size of the state of Delaware. The measure is seen as a compromise between environmentalists and developers who want to tap more water for the Las Vegas area. It creates 14 wilderness areas measuring a total of about 1,200 square miles, but also establishes a utility corridor that would allow authorities to build a pipeline to tap into groundwater in the region. Officials want...

Five Hunters Killed in Wisconsin Dispute BIRCHWOOD, Wis. — A deer hunter shot and killed five people and injured three others in northwestern Wisconsin following a dispute about a tree stand during the hunt's opening weekend, authorities said.The 36-year-old alleged gunman, who lives in the Minneapolis area, was arrested Sunday afternoon, Sawyer County (search) sheriff's officials said. Jake Hodgkinson, a deputy at the county jail, identified the suspect as Chai Vang but would give no additional details.The incident began when two hunters were returning to their rural cabin on private land in Sawyer County when they saw the suspect in one of...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a lower court's order that reduced the number of commercial wilderness tours in the Sierra Nevada. At issue are so-called "packstock" operations, for-profit companies that carry campers and sightseers deep into the wilderness using horses. The High Sierra Hikers Association and the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics - consisting of current and former rangers and other forest workers - sued the U.S Forest Service, charging it failed to study the cumulative environmental affects of 17 companies the agency permitted to trek thousands of visitors through the forest. A...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A sweeping wilderness bill affecting 300,000 acres of Northern California forests, mountains and coastline is needed to shield some of the region's most spectacular areas from development, California lawmakers said. "The area is absolutely beautiful, it's breathtaking, it needs to be protected," Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said Wednesday at a Senate Energy Committee subcommittee hearing on the legislation. Thompson's Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, sponsored in the Senate by California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, would designate 300,000 acres in California's northern coastal counties as wilderness lands. The areas include portions of the...

BOISE, Idaho - The Bush administration Monday proposed lifting a national rule that closed remote areas of national forests to logging, instead saying states should decide whether to keep a ban on road-building in those areas. Environmentalists immediately criticized the change as the biggest timber industry giveaway in history. Under the proposal, governors would have to petition the federal government to block road-building in remote areas of national forests. Allowing roads to be built would open the areas to logging. The rule replaces one adopted by the Clinton administration and still under challenge in federal court. It covers about 58...

Bird’s-Eye View of the Amazon Airborne Archaeologist Challenges the Myth of a Pristine Wilderness by Ted Mann In the office of a typical archaeologist, you would expect to find things like stone tools, pottery fragments, and maybe even a few Wooly Mammoth bones. But Clark Erickson is no typical archaeologist. Oversize rolls of aerial photographs are stacked into tubular pyramids on a desk and worktable in his University Museum office. They fill up file cabinets and populate a storage room. At last count, he had about 700 giant aerial and satellite images—almost all of them picturing some region of the...

Saturday, February 28, 2004 Roundup Shuts Gila Forest Site By Richard Benke The Associated Press Gila National Forest officials say they're closing the Diamond Bar allotment to the public this weekend to allow a contractor to prepare for a roundup and impoundment of all cattle on federal land used by the ranch. "The area closure goes into effect tomorrow," Gila public affairs officer Andrea Martinez said Friday. "That's to allow the contractors to begin their preparation." A contractor who would round up more than 400 cattle from the Diamond Bar was found during the past week, she said. The preparations...

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed off on a plan Thursday for opening most of an 8.8 million-acre swath of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development. Some of the drilling could occur in areas important for migratory birds, whales and wildlife. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (news - web sites) will use the plan to manage a northwest portion of the government's 23.5 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Geologists believe the reserve may contain 6 billion to 13 billion barrels of oil. It is located just west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where President Bush...

Thanksgiving is more than just a word or a holiday for Mischelle Hileman and her family. Mischelle and her parents, Jan and Benny Hileman, who all live in rural Lostine, weren't sure last week if they'll be eating turkey or pizza on Thanksgiving Day, but they did know they would be together and it wouldn't be in a hospital. "Last year they chopped my legs off on Thanksgiving eve," said Mischelle, not a person to mince words or evade the truth. All of Wallowa County knows the basic story of how Hileman miraculously survived a week in a rugged deep...

<p>Suburbanites must learn to kill again.</p> <p>BY GEOFFREY NORMAN Friday, December 5, 2003 12:01 a.m.</p> <p>After decades of assuming that civilization is bad for wild animals and nature--as seen on PBS--humans are learning that things can go the other way. It's not a pretty sight. Consider New Jersey, where, if things go according to plan, some 7,000 hunters will take to the woods next week and kill up to 500 bears. The rationale for the state's first bear hunt in more than 30 years is simple enough--too many bears. In 1995, there were 285 complaints about bears plundering birdfeeders, getting into the garbage, menacing pets and generally behaving like bears in territory claimed by humans. Last year, there were some 1,175 such complaints.</p>

<p>I.B. Hale, father of Bobby Hale, now known as Papa Pilgrim, was a two-time All-American football player for Texas Christian University. He later was an FBI agent and chief of security for General Dynamics.</p> <p>McCARTHY -- Robert Allan Hale's father was a big football hero. In Texas the heroes don't come much bigger.</p>

<p>McCARTHY -- Like most people who meet the Pilgrim family for the first time, Walt Wigger was mightily impressed when they showed up to buy his mine in the Wrangell Mountains.</p> <p>Wigger, a crusty Fairbanks miner in his 80s, was struck by the size of the family and its energy and obvious unity of purpose. He was also impressed by the $30,000 in $100 bills that Papa Pilgrim pulled from his coat pocket -- money from cashing the family's Alaska Permanent Fund dividend checks.</p>

Scout Troop 328, Wilderness Camp Sea Foam Lake, River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho By : Jeff Head August 17, 2003 Our new scout troop, Troop 328, conducted a wilderness camp in the Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness Area in our home state of Idaho during the week of August 11th, 2003. Pictures of that trip and narration follow. Leaving Emmett, Idaho, we followed the Payette River from Emmett to Horseshoe Bend and then to Banks, Idaho where we took the East Fork of the Payette and followed it to Garden Valley and then to Lowman,...

<p>A WAR IS RAGING. It involves lands essential to our nation, and will dramatically affect future generations. No, I am not speaking of Iraq or Afghanistan. This war is right here: the Bush administration's radical, all-out attack on America's wilderness and public lands.</p>

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. God Bless America...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. Welcome to "Warrior Wednesday" Where the Freeper Foxhole introduces...

A federal judge Monday struck down a ban on road building in one-third of America's national forests, saying the Clinton administration rule illegally created wilderness areas a power reserved for Congress. It was the second injunction issued by a federal judge against the ban. The first, on behalf of Idaho in 2001, was overturned in December by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco. Monday's decision sends the case, brought on behalf of Wyoming, to the more conservative 10th Circuit in Denver. If the two appeals courts issue opposing rulings, the case could go to the...

<p>A federal judge Monday struck down a ban on road building in a third of America's national forests, saying the Clinton administration rule illegally designated wilderness areas.</p> <p>It was the second injunction issued by a federal judge against the so-called roadless rule. The first, in 2001, was overturned in December by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco.</p>

A few months back I reported that Gale Norton (Secretary of the Interior) had announced that her department would no longer inventory and classify vast tracts of land as federally-designated wilderness. Actually, Norton didn’t so much as announce her decision, as allow it to leak out in a few letters sent to conservative congressmen. It was a fairly typical move from an administration that has taken great steps to cut back regulations designed to protect the environment. Back in Reagan’s day, there’d have been a press release explaining how the proposed deregulation would give power back to local governments and...

<p>MONTICELLO, Utah -- A narrow, grass-choked path branches off from a gravel road miles from the nearest town, meandering through juniper and pinyon trees for a few hundred feet until it ends abruptly at an overlook of spectacular red-rock canyons.</p>