Thanks but dyeing things rainbow and wearing a fur suit to worship a shirtless man is just a regular weekend for me.

“Many climate activists and psychologists warn that nihilism can be a “luxury” or a coping mechanism that leads to compliance with the status quo, whereas “therapeutic hope”—acting as if change is possible—is necessary for mental resilience and actual progress.”

Some pretty Colorado River watershed pictures and a call to help protect Chaco Culture National Historical Park. open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

This is a graph of snowpack above Lake Powell using 104 snow measuring stations. It was 9 inches of water on March 7, now 6 inches. Other dry years shown.There is no historical analog to this.

New post on Weather West: As historic March heatwave finally fades, a brief cooler/wetter interlude will occur across the U.S. West in early April before warmth & dryness likely return. Also: a deeper dive into now record-low Western snowpack.

Yesterday a plane picked up 5 desert rats to observe Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as the birds do. This is what we saw: open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Join me in Tucson for my book launch! This special event will take place in the San Pedro Chapel, built in the early 1900s & also Tucson’s first historic landmark designated on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors will pass through an intact Sonoran Desert ecosystem right before sunset

I adore that this is the way this poem is introduced to the world. As I replied to Riley, queer history has always been a reckoning between love and mortality.

Reporting on the West’s record heat from below Glen Canyon’s bathtub ring. open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

March 2026 Water Supply Briefing -- Colorado Basin River Forecast Center #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification coyotegulch.blog/2026/03/14/m...

To immersively write about public lands and rivers, I need to be on the scene. If you’re not out there, is the landscape’s voice included in the story? open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Could Colorado River “conservation pools” provide a path out of deadlock? -- Shannon Mullane (Fresh Water News) #COriver #aridification coyotegulch.blog/2026/03/07/c...

This.

Another day of shitty public lands news in Utah. open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

A thorough history of compact details past and present that reveal much about the current Colorado River impasse.

Come write beside the Colorado River. A writing retreat in Marble Canyon, AZ is the perfect fall treat to look forward to. Details here: pronghornexpeditions.com/retreats/ pronghornexpeditions.com/retreats/

This op-ed explains a lot about McCay's effort to destroy this tax relief program for low-income seniors. He's worked against it for years. www.deseret.com/opinion/2026...

Living our best life in the West requires a healthy Colorado River. Do state leaders care? open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

How to Plant a Billion Trees comes out in two weeks. I am so honored that the book is graces with an endorsement from Luis Alberto Urrea: "Nicole Walker’s How to Plant a Billion Trees gives me hope. It has resonance and life, and will always be on my shelf."

Field notes from beside a thirsty river and some book news! #ColoradoRiver open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

I wonder what her Grand Canyon route will be? Adventure aside, her message about the Colorado River’s future is clear and correct. Are the people with puppet strings to the pipelines & dams listening?

The art of not forgetting who we are. open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Entsminger put a 5-year idea on the table at CRWUA2025. Problem is the current state of the basin is dire. No snowpack on top of a dry year in 2025. Time to decommission Glen Canyon Dam.

Wait, wasn’t there already a deadline? The can continues bouncing down the very dry and dusty road alongside the #ColoradoRiver.

Such a memorable river trip with @melissasevigny.bsky.social. Historic inscriptions are fascinating in their complexity, part vandalism part critical documentation. One thing is certain: don’t even think about scratching your name in the rocks today!

Happy solstice! Don’t forget to look up! 🌞https://open.substack.com/pub/wildwords/p/solsticing?r=73kg&utm_medium=ios

There is a major Colorado River water conference this week. Instead of attending as a journalist, I am touring Hohokam canals, bighorn guzzlers, and modern water infrastructure. I’m more interested in what the watershed has to say. open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Want to float the San Juan together? Join me on Glen Canyon Institute’s 2026 Membership trip! glencanyon.org/product/2026...

TONIGHT. www.archaeologysouthwest.org/event/path-o...

Tomorrow I’ll be presenting about the 1920s Bernheimer Expeditions in the Four Corners region for @archsw.bsky.social. Tune in online here: www.archaeologysouthwest.org/event/path-o...

A boat dropped us off along a temporary shoreline to meditate on yesterday, eternal and ephemeral, in the canyon country archive. Nine days to lose count of with no words to find. Just you, me, the desert, and more water and wonder than we can absorb. open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Imagine if Colorado River Basin decision makers considered such expansive views instead of clinging to development plans. With decisions being made by people behind closed doors, what, if anything, has changed since the 1922 Colorado River Compact except less water? open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Last week, more than a dozen tribes across the U.S. commented on a new proposal by the Trump administration to let developers obtain preliminary permits for hydropower projects on reservations in spite of tribal opposition.

The love for the river, and especially Glen Canyon, was palpable at the The Rivers of Change Symposium in Moab last week. I felt like I was going to the Church of the River. substack.com/@wildwords/n...

Tomorrow I’m presenting on the Century Old Dream to protect Glen Canyon at the Rivers of Change Symposium. It’s appropriate timing as Colorado River states drag their feet to change archaic water policy as drought steadily returns Glen Canyon to fresh air (again). www.eventbrite.com/e/rivers-of-...

Sounds like every non-committal situationship to me!

Calling all writers rooted in the Colorado Plateau! The Entrada Institute’s Writer-in-Residence program offers $5,000 and up to two weeks in Torrey, Utah, to create work inspired by the region’s ecology, culture & history. Open to poets, fiction, and nonfiction writers of all levels. bit.ly/43fBAJp

Books should be included on a menu to nourish our ability to learn, grow, question, resist, discuss, help each other, and advocate for the rights of nature, which includes humans. open.substack.com/pub/wildword... @hellsbackbonegrill.bsky.social

I just want to say that I’ve hiked a great deal on the Colorado Plateau and your dispatches reawaken my connection to those places. Thanks!

As our human line of sight shrinks ever further into our phones, I believe it is critical right now to dream at a landscape scale. To seek a place, even in our backyards, where our strength and characters is drawn. open.substack.com/pub/wildword... open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Meandering around the next bend. 〰️

Instead of writing last week, I was walking around dressed like Edward Abbey in the desert, apparently.

Was visiting my dad with son and grandkid, missed this. There's a link to a comment by Oct 24th you might be interested in

The ESA protects wildlife and its habitat by preventing illegal “Take“, a legal word meaning “harass, harm, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect or attempt to engage in any such conduct“ except by federal permit. Removing HARM protection will increase their greatest threat: habitat loss.

We must point ourselves downstream, square up to the rapids, ready to carry ourselves and each other through the muck. Here are a few news items for you, desert rats, and far-flung lovers, to keep on your radar: open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

Pushing a canoe downstream, it’s comical to imagine decision makers hanging foolishly onto the belief that they can continue to develop the West beyond its means with this vanishing river. open.substack.com/pub/wildword...

The Endangered Species Act has protected species and their habitats for over 50 years. A single word change could significantly alter the way the law is implemented. The only beneficiaries of this plan are extractive industries. 🌎 by @morgansjogren.bsky.social

Momentary time travels to desert treks of yesteryear are vital escapism right now. 🤎

This is the way "I did not want to be told where to go. I wanted to learn from the desert"

When I’m 80, I hope to be hiking to protect public lands like my friend, Rudi Lambrechtse. substack.com/@wildwords/n...