In western Alaska, back-to-back fall storms have triggered a humanitarian disaster and the largest air evacuation in state history, writes Tim Lyndon. Across 50 communities, 2,000 mostly Alaska Native people lost their homes and boats, with at least one entire village torn apart. Unfortunately, says Lyndon, climate change is part of their story—one we in the Lower 48 states know little about.

Citing the late Jane Goodall’s deep reverence for quiet and wild places, Stephen Trimble dissects the growing threat to the stillness and solitude of protected landscapes under President Donald Trump's second administration. Under recent proposals and legislation backed by Utah politicians and the Trump administration, off-highway vehicle access would be dramatically expanded, and new coal leasing could bring industrial development to the borders of beloved national parks.Echoing Goodall’s call to "never give up," Trimble urges conservationists to speak out, stay hopeful, and continue defending the quiet beauty that defines the American West.

More grizzly bears are dying in the Yellowstone area, and that’s worrisome, writes Jackson, Wyoming writer Molly Absolon. In total, 77 grizzlies—the highest number recorded—died last year, and as of September 2025, 63 bears were killed. “At this rate, we’ll surpass last year’s high. What’s going on?” Absolon offers some answers to that question.

The reality of artificial intelligence as a threat to creativity has hit home for writer John Clayton: He’s been offered $340 from a company that wants to use his book, “Stories from Montana’s Enduring Frontier,” for “AI training purposes.” Clayton wonders: Is this paltry payment marginally better than outright theft of his book—a not-uncommon practice?

This year was artwork-installer Dennis Hinkamp’s 26th year at the week-long Burning Man festival that’s held in the desolate desert of Nevada. Why do 80,000 people gather in a place that’s hot, dusty and increasingly rainy—not to mention expensive? Hinkamp hates to have to explain that’s it’s something like ritual, homecoming or maybe even shared misery, so once back at home in Utah he tries to duck explaining. This opinion is the closest he can come to sharing what draws him back year after year.

Part of her job at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, writes Marjorie ‘Slim’ Woodruff, is patrolling trails and picking up what hikers forgot or casually left behind. The weirdest find, which earned her the nickname “The lady who found the body,” was a sealed, shiny urn containing somebody’s cremains. There’s always something peculiar or downright perplexing to discover on a trail, she adds, from an empty backpack to a queen-sized bed sheet and just one shoe.

President Trump has turbocharged logging on public lands in ways that are likely to increase dangerous wildfire, writes Mitch Friedman. Inside the “Big Beautiful Bill” that became law this summer, a provision directs the Forest Service to annually increase the timber it sells until the amount doubles to 6 billion-board-feet by 2032. And with many environmental protections dropped, it’s the big trees that will get logged, leaving behind smaller, flammable trees. “This will worsen existing tinderbox conditions, particularly in the West,” Friedman warns.

The Wyoming man who deliberately ran down a wolf with his snowmobile in 2024 didn’t suffer much afterward unless you count a $250 fine for “possessing a live animal.” But as the story and graphic photos of the wolf’s suffering was retold, public reaction could be summed up as “horrified,” writes Wendy Keefover.But nothing changed in the state until last week, when a grand jury indicted Cody Roberts for animal cruelty, a felony. Now, writes Keefover, Wyoming has a chance to change its relationship with wildlife.

In December, residents of Teton County, Wyoming, learned they were the wealthiest people in the country, making an average of $471,751 a year. That news instantly intrigued four, longtime, "dirt bag" residents of Jackson Hole. What would it be like, they wondered, if they lived and worked in the nation's second wealthiest place—Aspen, Colorado? A visit to Aspen by road bike led them to reach at least one conclusion: Second-hand clothing stores are a must when you live cheek by jowl with the rich.

Over the last decade as the failing economics of coal shuttered a series of power plants, the air on the Colorado Plateau—when not sullied by the ever-lengthening wildfire season—became ever cleaner and clearer. Yet in defiance of the free market that boosted cheaper renewables, the Trump administration is throwing multiple lifelines to the flagging coal industry.