The perfect tree. It’s a ponderosa pine, an old-growth yellowbelly, one hundred fifty feet tall, one hundred fifty years in the making, with thick, jigsaw-puzzle bark that glows as if illuminated from within and smells faintly of vanilla. Where the green arboreal maze of Arizona’s Kaibab Plateau gives way to the red stony absence of … Read more
AJ 30 • Recommended Reading Recommended Reading Ocean depths, Grand Canyon botanists, wildfire in a hotter world, and the radical joy of mending By Stephen Casimiro Issue 30 Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World John Vaillant · Knopf · 2023 I’ve long loved John Vaillant’s award-winning nonfiction The Tiger and The Golden … Read more
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Smokejumping might be famous for its daring, but for some jumpers, this elite form of firefighting is also defined by a quieter skill
A classically trained chef turned backpacking food entrepreneur crafts Japanese- and Southeast Asian-inspired meals for fall days, whether cool or warm
Those paths don’t make themselves. Here are a few of the underpaid, under-appreciated people who build and maintain America’s parks
In a cold and beautiful Canadian fjord, questioning authority is a matter of protocol
Riding the rails begins with a cold, scary, mistake-filled trip through a very long night
