Author: zpodmore

A trip along the Rio Grande reveals President Trump’s one-sided war —READ STORY ON SIERRA MAGAZINE’S WEBSITE.

To understand why San Juan County Commissioner Willie Grayeyes’ Utah residency was recently challenged in court, it helps to understand the area where Grayeyes is registered to vote. Grayeyes was born on Piute Mesa, a remote strip of redrock on the Navajo Nation in southern San Juan County, Utah, and he has held a grazing…

Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness Amy Irvine Softcover: $11.95 Torrey House Press, 2018 Reviewed by Zak Podmore My mother-in-law often borrows a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut to describe the south Denver suburbs where she lives. “The neighborhood of broad yards and narrow minds,” she calls it. Seen from above, the winding streets…

From Bears Ears to the Grand Canyon, Indigenous activists are standing up to uranium. —CLICK HERE TO READ ON SIERRA MAGAZINE’S WEBSITE

On December 4, 2017, President Donald Trump jetted into Salt Lake City to sign two executive orders that would amount to the largest rollback of federal lands protections in U.S. history. “Under my administration,” Trump told a crowd of supporters, “we will advance…a truly representative process, one that listens to the local communities that knows…

After six months and 2,000 miles of hiking, Tenny Ostrem and Claire Wernstedt-Lynch finally reached the Gulf of Mexico. Read on OutsideOnline.com

Will a struggling Central American country become the site of the largest earthmoving project in history? Three paddlers set out to cross Nicaragua before the canal. —READ FEATURE STORY ON CANOEKAYAK.COM

Jason Nez studies something that’s too often forgotten amid the awe-inspiring views and canyon walls: those who live there —READ ON OUTSIDEONLINE.COM

Legal battles are draining the coffers of San Juan County, Utah. Does bankruptcy loom? By Zak Podmore © Four Corners Free Press After six years of voting-rights litigation with the Navajo Nation, Utah’s San Juan County could be pushed to the brink of bankruptcy in the near future. According to the state auditor’s office, at…

San Juan County is celebrating President Donald Trump’s recent decision to cut over 2 million acres from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. The move amounts to the largest rollback of federal land protections in U.S. history. By saying San Juan County, however, I mean the county’s conservative leadership and not the majority of…