Letter: Trump is coming for Grand Staircase-Escalante, with the full support of Utah’s congressional delegation. We must bombard their offices with calls to stop this.

It never ends. www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/trump-and-congress-are-coming-for-your-favorite-national-monuments #parkchat

85% of the nation's trails are on public land. According according to a GAO report, only ~25% of these meet agency standards for maintenance and public & environmental safety. Story co-published w/ @republiclands.bsky.social

The nonprofit seeks records on a Trump-era review of park history displays.

A few seconds with a small stream in a Northland New Zealand forest. You can hear a Tui call and the sound of cicadas.

Highly recommend a visit to Sanctuary Mt, NZ for a taste of the lush forests that used to cover the North Island. We were lucky to see a Kaka with chicks in a huge Iron-hearted tree. Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari | Ecological Bird & Wildlife Reserve share.google/GwWPkOUImRNS...

Q7 Announcements: The #parkchat book club is discussing "Defending Our Wildlife Herratage" by Terry Grosz.  Our meetings are a relaxed, no pressure zoom call the 3rd Tuesday of the month. We would love for you to join us! Contact @ocparkbuilder.bsky.social for details. #parkchat

Q5 It's Christmas morning. You get up early, before the sunrise. You go through your morning ritual: coffee or tea, some breakfast & then, because you are a dedicated NPS park ranger, you head to work. Where are you? What kind of work will you be doing today? #parkchat

A5 The visitor centers are closed, but people are still visiting the parks. I like to think there is a ranger, maybe on snowshoes or skis at places like the sledding hill at Olympic National Park. (Photos from a visit with my daughters on New Year's Day, 2015) #parkchat

Lee, a Republican, had proposed removing part of a spending bill requiring that national park lands be maintained as federal lands. The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks shot back, saying the move could “green-light the selling off, transferring and giving away of national parks.”

Utah Sen. Lee backs off change that advocates called a ‘green light’ to sell national parks | News | stgeorgeutah.com share.google/lNCBKLACuZuj...

This is how much water fell over flooded parts of Western Washington. It doesn’t take into account the rain that fell elsewhere. That’s A LOT of water.

Most WA foodbanks currently have plenty of food. If you want to help, give them $$, not goods. $$ goes to food items needed but not on hand, to food next month when the state purchased** food goes away, for repairs to delivery vehicle, fridges for fresh food, extension cords, etc. ⬇️ footnote

“I think that if there is a place that can galvanize across the geopolitical spectrum, it’s the treasure of our public lands, waters, wildlife and fisheries,” www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Lake Washington sunset tonight.

Karma

Salmon returning to Alameda Creek in Ca: YouTube search.app/9NwZs

NW River Forecast Center - another reason taking dollars & staff away from NOAA & NWS is stupid. This work saves lives. Northwest River Forecast Center share.google/CexFnW5Itgvb...

Just depressing. #parkchat www.kqed.org/news/1206592...

My friend @alexiscoe.bsky.social made my week with this kind LinkedIn post on Tuesday. As absolutely shitty as my last two months have been, I’ve been very humbled & gratified to get such incredible support from friends, former bosses and co-workers, other historians, and the Bluesky community.

Yosemite National Park Land’s Original Owners Rejoice As It’s Finally Handed Back 175 Years Later share.google/mQbV3CYfNZH6...

What America Can Learn from Its Largest Wildfire of the Year www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Oregon Public Media did a really beautiful mini doc about the first descent of the undammed Klamath River that is worth a watch youtu.be/4FuGuWeAra4?...

Suggested reading: "Is a River Alive" by Robert MacFarlane www.kuow.org/stories/can-...

Spill-response crews planned to start digging up a blueberry farm near Everett on Tuesday to find the cause of a jet-fuel spill that shut down the Pacific Northwest’s primary oil pipeline.

An annual art festival in Utah drew more visitors than usual amid the shutdown.

“The State of Water: Understanding California’s Most Precious Resource” would make a good Christmas gift. Bay Area nature writer says his book is being banned from Yosemite share.google/FEOgVUMGV1Uf...

ZOMG LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE SHALE Okay, so the Burgess Shale is a fossil bed in British Columbia that contains a whole bunch of fossils of weirdass creatures from the Cambrian era, over 500 million years ago. But the great thing about the shale is that it has fossilized SOFT PARTS!

The map submitted by Republicans “does not comply with Utah law,” Judge Dianna Gibson wrote. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/11/11/gerrymander-utah-judge-rejects-gop 

For all you fans of the new @netflix.com series “Death by Lightning,” here’s the table of contents for my book “The Last Lincoln Republican: The Presidential Election of 1880.” It covers much of the ground the series explores. It’s published by the University Press of Kansas.

Got to watch a barred owl in our yard today. We occasionally hear them at night, but I've never seen one during the daytime. Crows were screaming at it, but the owl just took a nap.

Future of the NPS: (great job if your financially self sufficient but like working full time): #parkchat Yosemite Opens Full-Time Unpaid Ranger Position, Gets Backlash - Backpacker share.google/hceKjHsvZEX6...

Rainy fall day in the PNW on a trail along the Pilchuck River.

STORY HERE: https://bit.ly/3L37EtN

Court documents filed today reveal that the Trump administration intends to fire dozens of Fish and Wildlife Service staff. The firings are part of a larger move to cut more than 2,000 jobs at the Interior Department. Get the rest ➡️ bit.ly/3WgcdTO

Federal Lands Need the Public's Help: northdakotamonitor.com/2025/10/13/f... #parkchat

View from the Big 4 area, Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest on a clear October afternoon.

And, if you like birds but haven't seen this, you really should watch: youtu.be/zl-wAqplQAo?...

Putting on the To Watch list: Quannah ChasingHorse Says The Colorado River’s Survival Is About More Than Water www.huffpost.com/entry/americ...

Pink Salmon cruising around riffles in the Snohomish River, Wa doing pink Salmon stuff.

Just seemed like the kind of news story we need: make time to get outside, shut off the modern world. It will catch up with you later . Nobel Prize winner was hiking in Yellowstone with phone set to airplane mode. He'll keep doing it for work-life balance | Fortune share.google/0Yn1wznyXo4l...

Quote post a pic of a National Park. Sunset over the Grand Canyon, looking west from Fire Point, Grand Canyon National Park, North Rim - about 20 miles west of where the North Rim Lodge once stood. #FindYourPark #ParkChat #allpubliclandsmatter

#parkchat A Washington hiker’s guide to the 2025 federal shutdown — Washington Trails Association share.google/XJWG31i8ka5E...

"Journal of Public Economics found that when an existing park was upgraded to National Park status, both employment (4%) and income (6%) increase in the surrounding area" #parkchat Big Idea: Western Pennsylvania should have a National Park | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette share.google/NklxP8XZBB6L...

Link to Public Comments Due Sept 30th: USDA Opens Public Comment Period on Department Reorganization Plan | USDA share.google/VI6TOj6frZXs... The dismantling of the Forest Service - High Country News share.google/3Oo5FqQHyL7r...

Decades of public-lands planning, overturned in a day - High Country News share.google/IKTztC8JUsFJ...

"Most on both sides of the debate agree that without Redford's efforts, particularly in the mid-1970s, there probably would be no Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument today." #parkchat REDFORD FIGHTS ON TO PRESERVE UTAH – Deseret News share.google/6w2vpPihDwYg...