Written in the Trees
THE EYE FOLLOWED ME. As I bent around the aspen for a better look at the symbol carved into its trunk, a gray pupil seemed to track me. A wind stirred in the forest crown. In the dappled light, I…
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Category: Nature & Wildlife
Restoring Life to the Lordsburg Playa
IN THE FIRST BLUSH of dawn, the Lordsburg Playa conjures a mirage—a layer of dew rising from its fractured, elephant-skin crust, glistening with bright promise. Maybe the land has learned something, I…
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5 Must-Do Nature Tours
Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary. Take a Friday-afternoon docent-led tour of the mid-1900s Randall Davey House and Studio at the property, which also offers free guided bird walks every…
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Forged in Fire
IN APRIL, Kathryn Mahan and her husband, Jamie Knutson, picked their way over trees strewn across the Rito Chavez Trail #220, near San Ignacio on the eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains…
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Dig Deep into Zuni Farming Traditions
FROM THE FRONT, Ts’uyya Farm looks like an unassuming adobe in Albuquerque’s South Valley. But as I follow farmer Reyna Banteah behind the terra-cotta-colored walls, she reveals an agricultural oasis…
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Our Water Issues Threaten These Species
RÍO GRANDE SILVERY MINNOW About 25 years ago, the collapse of the Río Grande silvery minnow population alerted people that the river itself needed water. Despite a decades-long effort to reshape water…
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Worth Every Last Drop
CANOEING A RIVER with ecology-minded people changes the view. Where many boaters see hazards in sandbars and downed trees with their knotted roots scrubbed bare and aimed skyward, Casey Ish recognizes…
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The Ultimate Summer Adventure Guide
MY FAMILY ROAD-TRIPPED throughout New Mexico in the summers when I was growing up, tent-camping out of a Ford Econoline van. Opportunities for outdoor fun seemed to await us around every corner: We’d…
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Running with the Pecos River Current
THE FIRST FISH CATCHES US BOTH BY surprise. I’m practicing flicking my rod to set the fly into a deeper stretch of the Pecos River when the indicator twitches. I tug back, just attempting to unhook…
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Smokey Bear Turns 80
“SMOKEY BEAR’S ‘GOTCHA DAY’ is in May,” says Smokey Bear Historical Park manager Mary Lavin, using the modern term for pet adoption anniversaries. The real-life orphan cub, who’d been badly burned in…
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