If the causes of Western wildfires were as simple as ‘log more trees,’ we would have solved this a century ago. History tells a messier story—one shaped by ranching, profit, fire suppression, and our refusal to think beyond the present moment.

A visual guide to the best parts of the season.

Friday night, I was racing my mountain bike through red rock desert with a group of friends high above the Colorado River, watching a nearly full moon rise up above the canyon on the wings of a bald eagle who lifted like one great feather on a hundred-foot thermal.

By Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in stalled traffic on an eight-lane highway outside of D.C. for a mandatory work trip.

As the van climbs up La Sal Loop Road, I watch the colors shift from warm desert sienna browns to crisp fall reds and yellows. Someone says the riders in the earlier shuttle hit snow this morning. Late in the morning it’s just wind and sunshine now, but I’m wondering if I should have packed one more layer.

Float back now to the surface and follow the hull of this primordial ocean, in all its vastness to a clear, warm continental shelf, where the ecotone of empty rock and empty sea meet. This gently sloping mantle of tepid sea water, filled with piercing sun is where it all begins. It starts where everything starts, on the bottom of the ocean.

Your job might be boring, but you aren’t, babe!

Our careers are the least interesting things about us

Easing in is not for me

It's certainty

And also mourning. And also being really frustrated.

It is fully, truly, wonderfully summer on the Western Slope

What I learned last year

How to develop resiliency

Why you should do a lot of things

Because life doesn’t come with guarantees

Fulfilling deferred dreams

The most impactful action you can take right now

Big themes for next year

And miles to go before I sleep…

Let’s not talk about the elections just yet.