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‘The Last Dive’ Follows a Diver’s 20-Year-Long Friendship with a Giant Manta Ray

Kathleen Rellihan — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 23:06:22 +0000

Sailors have been known for telling tall tales. So when Terry Kennedy, a now 83-year-old sailor, would talk about swimming with his friend off Mexico’s remote Revillagigedo Islands in the late 1980s, it’s understandable why some questioned if it was all true. The charismatic friend he was always going on about was, after all, a 22-foot giant manta ray.

This extraordinary bond between man and manta is the focus behind the new film , premiering at Tribeca Film Festival on June 8th, World Oceans Day. If The Octopus Teacher could change the way the world sees cephalopods, this film will surely move you to care more deeply about mantas. The documentary follows Kennedy on a final expedition, a “dying wish,” to swim with his friend Willy one last time.

An ex-Hells Angel and Vietnam vet sailing Baja’s Sea of Cortez on a boat named Erotica in the 80s, Kennedy is a local legend with no shortage of stories. But the one that forever changed his life—and the lives of the Pacific manta rays in these Mexican waters—was how he became friends with “Willy Wow.”

It all began one morning in 1988, when Kennedy was on his sailboat off San Benedicto, a tiny uninhabited volcanic island in the Revillagigedo Islands chain, 210 miles south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

“All of a sudden, there’s a big old bang on the side of the boat. The boat actually moves about a foot in one direction. I thought we got hit by another boat, but looking around we were the only ones in the [area],” Kennedy shared with ��ԹϺ��.

“I look over the side and here’s this giant manta ray half the length of the boat. And the boat’s 46 feet long. Well, I can’t pass this up,” he recalled. An expert diver who’s clocked more than 14,000 dives, Kennedy has taken a lot of chances in his life. At this point, he had only seen a massive ray in the distance; he had never been in the water with one before. Not wasting a moment, Kennedy grabbed his tank and his fins, and jumped over the side. But once in the water, saw the ray was gone.

“He just vanished. As I looked down to make sure I had my fins on, there he was right below me, about four feet down. Nothing but massive black coming up right underneath me. There’s nothing I could do…but hang on.”

Pacific manta rays can reach a wingspan of up to 29 feet. They are the largest ray species and one of the largest fish species in the world. (Photo: Johnny Friday)

And off they went. Kennedy says he hung on, gently, to the back of this gigantic manta ray while it took him for a ride. “After about 15- 20 minutes, he brought me right back to the boat. And then he did the same thing the very next morning.”

So began a nearly 20-year-long friendship between Kennedy and Willy, his name for his new friend (“Willy Wow” being his full name). “Whenever he’s feeding on the south end of the island, he recognizes the bottom of the boat,” Kennedy believes. With a gentle slap of his wing on the hull of the boat, Willy signals him to come take another dive.

An Unlikely Conservationist

Some of you reading this are likely thinking no one should be touching—and especially riding— a . But these encounters happened over 37 years ago, when little was known about the lives of manta rays, even by marine biologists.

Since no one believed Kennedy’s encounters of riding a magical manta, he started to film them. From then on, when he talked about Willy, he’d be able to prove that these incredible moments happened by pictures and video. It was also Kennedy’s quick camera skills that documented what would become a catalyst to protect these same mantas.

On February 14, 1994, fishermen aboard two Mexican boats moved into the waters around San Benedicto Island with nets, baited hooks and harpoons seeking to catch and kill anything they could—including Kennedy’s friends, two other giant manta rays he swam with other than Willy. Mexican law prohibited commercial fishermen from fishing within two miles of Revillagigedo Islands; these fishermen were only 200 yards from shore.

As eyewitnesses, Kennedy and his then partner, Joyce Clinton, were horrified yet managed to document on video and camera what later would be called . What they captured on camera attracted international news, and the swift attention of the Mexican president to intervene and soon after declare the Revillagigedo Islands a Biosphere Reserve, which increased the no-take zone to 12 miles around each island.

In 2016, UNESCO declared the islands a World Heritage Site, and in 2017,�� it become the largest marine protected area in North America. These islands are now known as the “,” and home to one the largest aggregations of manta rays, and sharks, in the world.

The Last Chance to Find Willy

Kennedy’s incredible encounters with manta rays defied everything that was known about ocean life at the time, and changed irrevocably our understanding of mantas. After , founder and director of the and one of the leading authorities on the species, saw the sailor’s footage, he secured funding for one of the first major manta ray research projects. This work led to an entire field of manta research that tracks over a thousand individual mantas at these islands. The affectionate names Kennedy gave to his manta friends in addition to Willy—Rosy, Chevy, Tippy—scientists still use today.

Kennedy’s bond with Willy goes beyond research, suggests The Last Dive director Cody Sheehy: “Willy wasn’t just tolerating Terry—he was engaging with him, leading him through underwater canyons, protecting him from sharks, or just playing.”

Terry Kennedy and his wife Dawn, watch the sunrise before the last dive. (Photo: Chance Falkner)

For nearly two decades, Willy always found Kennedy, who would then climb onto his back and the two would communicate on a level no one else could understand. Willy could read his mind, Kennedy believes—what Dr Rubin says “isn’t an unreasonable thought.” Rubin’s research suggests that manta rays can identify us by the unique signature of our bioelectric field.

It was another chance encounter that brought Kennedy’s friendship with Willy to the big screen. Sheehy, a sailor as well, met Kennedy while he was anchored off Loreto, a coastal town on Baja California Sur, nine years ago. One evening over sundowners, Kennedy’s stories started to flow. “It became clear that this man wasn’t just another cruiser—he had lived a life most people couldn’t even dream of,” states the filmmaker.

Sheehy, admittedly, was also a bit skeptical at first of Kennedy’s stories about Willy—until he saw the footage. “When I found out about the massacre, and the role that Terry played in bringing attention to it, especially at the level of the Mexican president and the protections that came from it, that’s when I realized this is a great human story, a story of redemption.”

“The reason why the mantas are still there is because of [Terry]. It just shows what one person can do,” says the director. “Think of what else people will be inspired to do [after watching the film].”

As Kennedy aged, his life moved to land. Now in his 80s trips to the islands are more challenging, and maintaining a boat that can make the journey is expensive and tiring. So Sheehy saw a way he could take Kennedy back home to see his long lost friend. The last recorded Willy sighting was in 2012, and giant manta rays have been reported to . So it’s not unreasonable to think Willy could still be around. Kennedy hasn’t stopped thinking about Willy in all these years; he worries his old friend thinks he forgot about him.

Kennedy had a troubled past, but none of that mattered under the surface. He not only found redemption in the ocean, but healing. Blue therapy is a growing body of research that shows time in or near water reduces stress, anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD. Scuba diving, in particular, has proved transformative .

How to Swim With Mantas—Ethically

While Kennedy was the first known person to ride a manta, it’s now considered harmful and extremely discouraged. But the close connection Kennedy made with Willy and all the footage he captured proved there is so much we don’t know about manta rays and ocean life in general. The sailor’s unusual bond ultimately became the catalyst for protecting manta rays and all life around Revillagigedo Islands.

What are the dangers today for the mantas around these islands? And is there still an ethical way to swim with them?

The giant manta ray is the world’s largest ray with a wingspan of up to 26 feet. (Photo: Courtesy of Pacific Manta Research Group)

Today, the biggest threats to mantas are overtourism and boat strikes, both around the islands and on their migratory travels. “As Revilla is a remote location, technically protected by both a National Park and the World Heritage Site, it’s largely a safe space for these animals,” says Karey Kumli, project manager at Pacific Manta Research Group. “However, there is the occasional illegal fishing, primarily at night; we know this as the liveaboards keep their AIS scanner on and watch for lights.”

Yet tourism plays a powerful role in protecting the manta rays. “It wasn’t until all the tourist boats came [to Revillagigedo Islands] that the fishing really was enforced. So it’s crucial that there’s tourists there,” says Sheehy. “The money and the jobs brought to those islands show the Mexican government could justify their position on keeping it in the national park and [staving off] fishing,” he adds.

Now the issue is how to keep tourism here ethical and responsible. Mantas like to come to the surface, but getting hit by boats is one of the biggest threats to them right now.

“The tourism operators are really good about understanding that too many people in the water, and touching and riding mantas, is not going to be good for mantas,” notes Sheehy. “The film, and our team really, is behind the idea of sustainable diving with the mantas.”

In the 10 days they were filming the documentary around the islands, a manta got hit by another boat, adds Sheehy. “If [mantas] get hit too many times, they’re not going to want to be around tourists, right? And then all those diving experiences that the operators are getting money from will disappear, because the mantas won’t come anymore.”

Kennedy’s final chance to find his long lost friend is no fool’s errand. Individual mantas have been identified through photo-ID for up to 33 years—the worldwide age record for the oceanic (giant) mantas. When they look back at photo sets taken 10-40 years ago, ninety-five percent of those animals have made at least a second appearance, shares Kumli.

If you think you spotted Willy or any other manta ray, you can submit photos to the “When divers submit manta images from Revilla to us, we do a quick scan for re-sighted animals. We’d recognize Willy in a heartbeat,” adds Kumli. Willy has four signature black dots in the shape of a diamond on his right shoulder.

Will Kennedy find Willy? You’ll have to watch the film to find out. While their encounters changed so much of what we know about mantas, so many mysteries remain. Why did Willy pick him to be his friend? What is certain is that an unlikely conservationist became a hero for the ocean—reminding us of how much we have yet to discover—and that anything is possible. But bring a camera if you want anyone to believe you.

_________________________________________________________

Kathleen Rellihan is the Travel and Culture Senior Editor at ��ԹϺ�� who swam with mobula rays (Willy’s smaller cousins) in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Seeing a manta ray while scuba diving Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was a lifelong dream. Now another one is spotting Willy herself.��

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Is Conservation Only for the One Percent?

Fred Dreier — Mon, 05 May 2025 20:22:03 +0000

Dear Sundog,

I’m a biologist and land conservationist who has spent the last two decades working with farmers and ranchers to keep their land and way of life intact. I walk their property looking for habitats that might harbor rare plants and threatened wildlife. If the property meets certain ecological criteria, the owner can place the land under “conservation easement,” basically a legal agreement ensuring they will not develop or subdivide the land.

This makes their ranch or farm less valuable on the real estate market; in exchange they get a considerable break on property taxes. I’ve always thought that : habitat for the more-than-human organisms is legally protected into perpetuity, the community retains the working landscapes that give it character and beauty (“cows not condos”), and families are able to continue ranching and farming, rather than having to sell to developers.

But lately the dynamics have changed. I’m starting to doubt the ethics of conservation—and my own role in making it happen. Nowadays many of the landowners making easements are not multi-generational working families, but extremely wealthy out-of-staters with vacation homes and hobby farms. My work still protects critical habitat for plants and animals, but now I no longer feel like I am preserving a traditional way of life and culture of the west—but bringing about its demise. What should I do? —Conserving Our Ground

Dear COG,

You’ve tapped into such a timely and widespread issue. As the economy appears to be more controlled by a select few than ever, the rest of us face the hard ethical choice between participating—which makes us feel complicit—and opting out, for which the financial sacrifice is significant. For decades ; now it feels like collaborating with the dark side. And what an astonishing turn of events: to sense that the movement to preserve a healthy natural world for all of us has morphed into a cynical ploy by the elite.

Yale professor Justin Farrell astutely studies this phenomenon in Jackson, Wyoming and at the Yellowstone Club in Montana, in his alarming book

Farrell notes that for the investor class, conserving land isn’t simple philanthropy, it also allows them to increase their wealth. First, they get a hefty tax break by placing easements on the vast tracts of land of their trophy homes; next, the easement prevents the construction of more homes, exacerbating a housing scarcity which inflates their own property value; and lastly, as the pandemic and climate change incited a real estate bonanza in places with solitude and plentiful clean water, investments in land have appreciated even more sharply than most stocks, funds, or bonds.

To add insult to locals, these hedge fund dweebs cosplaying Yellowstone’s John Dutton in Wranglers and Carhartt coats on their private movie sets can now claim—with some truth—to be saviors of the grizzly bear and the peregrine falcon.

But here’s the hard part: the work of conservation easements is supremely important. Study after study shows that . Threatened species from bears to wolverines to wolves need large continuous stretches of land, free from roads, houses and people. These animals don’t care if they are roaming through national parks or family ranches. As much as we may dislike massive private landholdings, they are scientifically better for other species than subdivided (affordable) ranchettes.

All political successes lay in the ability to build alliances. The beauty of conservation easements, COG, is that they allow a nature-lover such as yourself into partnership with old-time ranchers who might not give a hoot about the spotted owl, but simply want to keep the family land intact. But as you say, those roles and alliances are shifting. As just one example, look at the case chronicled in the new nonfiction book The Crazies: The Cattlemen, the Wind Prospector, and a War Out West by Amy Gamerman, in which a cash-poor Montana rancher who doesn’t believe in climate change sets out to build a wind farm on his property, only to be sued for marring the view by his billionaire neighbors—one of whom made his fortune in fracking in less pristine places, all of whom claim the mantle of protecting the environment.

Here’s another case: for years, green liberals bought Teslas, likely not because they admired company co-founder Elon Musk, but because in an electric vehicle they saw the chance to do good for the planet. Musk played the savior, claiming at one point that he’d done more for the environment than any other human in history.

It turned out to be a deal with the devil. Once EVs made him the world’s richest man, Musk used his treasure to dive into American politics, and has now helped to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, end climate research, and eradicate programs that include the phrase “environmental justice.” He has crippled the agencies that might regulate his own businesses’ ecological practices. The one-time green hero instead joins an environmental rogue’s gallery of fellow easy-to-hate villains: the skipper of the Exxon Valdez, James Watt, and Kelcy Warren, who built the Dakota Access Pipeline over the objections of the Standing Rock Sioux.

The takeaway here is not something simple like “don’t trust the rich.” Rather it’s that saving the planet is most likely to happen in a democracy than any other form of government, and consolidating more wealth among the one percent is bad for democracy. When we see the laudable conservation effort of tycoons like Ted Turner, it’s tempting to cede the movement to the oligarchs; after all they can conserve more land more quickly than the impossibly complex process of government managing its holdings. But if these oligarchs—or their heirs—should like Musk gain enough power to be above the law, their green veneers may quickly erode.

As for your own complicity, COG, I wouldn’t advise quitting your job over it. The work you’re doing is important for saving wildlife, and to put it bluntly, these societal economic changes are not your fault, and reversing them is simply above your pay grade. Wresting power from corrupt and entrenched barons will take—now just as every other time it has been attempted—a national grassroots political movement rising in concert with some elected trustbusting brawler in the mold of a Roosevelt: take your pick between the Republican Teddy or the Democrat Franklin. Keep doing the good work.

Got a question of your own? Send it to��sundogsalmanac@hotmail.com

(Photo: Mark Sundeen)

Mark Sundeen recently published his fifth book: Delusions + Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West.

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Step Into Ocean Conservation

elessard — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 12:13:08 +0000

The ocean is far more than a backdrop for Dr. Guy Harvey—it’s been a lifelong inspiration and the heart of his work. From his childhood in Jamaica to his career in marine biology, Harvey has dedicated his life to protecting the sea. Through his artwork, scientific research, and numerous outreach programs, he has sparked a movement for ocean conservation, educating the public and inspiring others to take action.

Harvey is shaped by the sea, and now he’s partnering with XTRATUF, a brand forged by the same maritime spirit. With its heritage in commercial fishing, XTRATUF has long been trusted by anglers and outdoor enthusiasts for its tough, reliable footwear. The is adorned with Harvey’s marine life artwork, marrying rugged functionality with vibrant ocean-inspired design. But the Guy Harvey collection goes beyond durability and style—it also supports ocean conservation efforts led by the .

The ocean is far more than a backdrop for Dr. Guy Harvey—it’s been a lifelong inspiration and the heart of his work. (Photo: XTRATUF)

��ԹϺ��: How did your fascination with the ocean first begin?

Guy Harvey: My siblings and I grew up in Jamaica on a cattle farm, and our parents loved the outdoors, particularly fishing. From early on, we were snorkeling and fishing as much as possible during school holidays. My love for the ocean became my career in the early 1980s as I went on to complete a Ph.D. in fish biology and fisheries management. I was painting marine life at the same time. By 1985—with a potential career as a marine wildlife artist—I left academia, and my hobby became my profession. In 1999, the team formed the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University, and for the last 26 years, we have been conducting research on sharks and rays, billfish, and tuna.

The XTRATUF x Guy Harvey collection is adorned with Harvey’s marine life artwork, marrying rugged functionality with vibrant ocean-inspired design. (Photo: XTRATUF)

In what ways are you motivating others to understand the importance of ocean conservation?

The Guy Harvey Foundation (GHF) provides students, educators, and the general public with fun, engaging content that highlights the importance of our oceans and what needs to be done to conserve them. With a state-standardized marine science curriculum and resources for educators to utilize the lessons in their classroom, the GHF aims to “Get Kids Salty”, growing their understanding of and appreciation for our oceans. The GHF also produces informative and entertaining videos that give people a peek into the fascinating undersea world.

Through his artwork, scientific research, and numerous outreach programs, he has sparked a movement for ocean conservation, educating the public and inspiring others to take action. (Photo: XTRATUF)

What types of programs does the GHF support?

GHF advances ocean conservation through education and research programs by providing marine science educational materials, teacher development workshops, and conservation initiatives like the Guy Harvey Conservation Education Program. The GHF also funds cutting-edge marine research to support sustainable fisheries, protect marine biodiversity, and improve ocean conservation efforts. GHF collaborates with leading scientific institutions, including the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University, Stanford University, the Harte Research Institute, the Dolphinfish Research Program, and more well-established research partners to conduct studies on species like sharks, billfish, and other pelagic species.

Lastly, the GHF partners with Florida Sea Grant to award scholarships to university students in Florida studying marine science, fostering the next generation of conservation leaders. To date, GHF has awarded $482,700 in scholarship funds to support the research of 98 students at 12 Florida universities.

XTRATUF’s iconic boots now feature acclaimed marine artwork by the world-renowned artist, conservationist, and scientist Dr. Guy Harvey, with a portion of the proceeds from sales benefiting ocean conservation and marine science education through the Guy Harvey Foundation. (Photo: XTRATUF)

How does a product like the XTRATUF deck boot align with your artwork and the mission of the GHF?

The Guy Harvey brand is deeply rooted in marine life, fishing, and ocean conservation, so it was a natural fit for us to work with the XTRATUF team to create a . These boots are trusted by anglers worldwide, making them a great brand partner for us and a great fit for those who have an appreciation for marine wildlife art. It’s also a fun way to share my art with the world, alongside classic items like t-shirts, wall décor, etc. A portion of the proceeds directly funds the GHF’s education and research initiatives, which we are very grateful for!

XTRATUF x Guy Harvey collection: Men's 6-Inch Ankle Deck Boot (XTRATUF)

XTRATUF x Guy Harvey collection: Women's 6-Inch Ankle Deck Boot (XTRATUF)

What are the most effective ways for us to support the GHF and its efforts in ocean conservation?

You can support the GHF through many avenues, including:

Donations: Financial contributions help fund conservation research and education programs.
Product Purchases: Buying items, like deck boots from the , helps fund conservation while spreading awareness.
Volunteer Opportunities: Get involved in GHF events and initiatives to contribute directly to conservation efforts.
Guy Harvey ‘Protect Our Oceans’ Florida Specialty License Plates: Available to Florida residents, a portion of every plate purchase directly supports the GHF’s ocean research and education programs. By displaying the plate, you help raise awareness and show your commitment to protecting marine life.

history in commercial fishing has inspired new styles built for life on and off the boat. From commercial-grade Legacy boots to explorer-grade ADBs and Riptides, XTRATUF is Alaska Proven and Built For All.

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Should We Spare a Cougar That Attacked a Child?

jversteegh — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 11:00:58 +0000

Dear Sundog,��

Last September, in California’s Malibu Creek State Park, a mountain lion pounced on a five-year-old child. The father managed to save his kid by fighting off the cat, and soon after, officials euthanized the cougar. Isn’t this immoral and outrageous? The lion was behaving just as nature intended.��— People against he Unethical Murder of Animals

Dear PUMA,

This is not the only recent alarming attack on humans by a cougar. In 2023, an eight-year-old boy was while camping with his family in Olympic National Park; his mom chased off the cat, and he escaped with minor injuries. Last April, two brothers were out in looking for shed antlers when they encountered a cougar. It attacked both young men, killing one.

As a professional arbiter of ethics, my job is to see at least two sides of any given issue. However, as the father of a five-year-old who I regularly take to the woods and canyons, I am unable to access the other side here, to find what John Keats might have called the “negative capability” to tolerate the mystery that falls outside of reason. My take is strictly Old Testament: I say smite the beast. If an animal tried to drag off my child, my notions of animal rights and equality among the species would go straight out the window. I would try to kill it even if it escaped, assuming that, if left to live, it would try the same thing again.

I seem to be in line among people in positions of responsibility—at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as wildlife advocacy groups. “We don’t have a mountain lion jail,” Beth Pratt, the California state director of the National Wildlife Federation, told the after the Malibu Creek incident. “As much as it pains me, I think the officials made the right decision here.”

The conundrum is not new. But we might say we’ve had a respite. After a cougar killed a human in California in 1909, the state went more than 80 years without another fatality. In 1990, fearing the lion was going extinct, voters passed a ballot initiative to protect the animal. The past four decades have seen mountain lions acting more aggressively. Even so, it’s still a small number. According to the , there have been 26 verified cougar attacks on humans since 1986, four of them fatal.

These ethical dilemmas about what an animal is “allowed” to do pre-date the United States, of course. During the Middle Ages, animals were put on trial for crimes ranging from caterpillars stealing fruit to pigs who committed murder. “Here were bears formally excommunicated from the Church,” writes Mary Roach in her book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. “Slugs given three warnings to stop nettling farmers, under penalty of smiting.”

And yet, buried in my psyche, was the belief that killing a cougar for being a cougar was just . . . wrong? I turned to an expert in the field to see what I was missing. Christopher Preston is a professor of environmental ethics at the University of Montana and author of the book . Because mountain lion attacks are still so rare, Preston thought there wasn’t much official protocol. Bears, however, attack more frequently. When a bear kills or eats a human, it will be euthanized. But if a bear attacks a person while demonstrating what authorities consider natural behavior, it will be spared. “If you surprise a bear with cubs or on a kill, and it attacks you, then the bear can be let off,” Preston told me. “It’s not a pattern of behavior that demonstrates unnatural instincts.”

It’s unclear if the behavior of the Malibu Creek cougar was natural.�� The event that you refer to, PUMA, involved a young lion approaching a group of humans in a picnic area and dragging off a child, a particularly brazen act. Yes, it’s perfectly natural for a mountain lion to haul off a smaller creature in hopes of dining on it. But, said Preston, this cougar had left its natural environment and entered a human environment: a picnic area in a state park. “Where do you draw the line when natural behavior starts to impact us pretty severely?” he asked. We have no problem cracking down, he adds, when forms of life like bacteria and viruses exhibit their natural behavior of infecting our bodies.

Preston made another point: humans are constantly expressing their dominance over the natural world, and if we just kill anything that makes a problem with us, then we’re not learning anything. But in his opinion, even this line of reasoning doesn’t merit a puma pardon. “Someone can feel sympathy for the lion for doing what lions do, but that probably won’t get you a non-shoot order.”

“We need to dial back our dominance, but this case brings it into sharp contrast,” said Preston. “I don’t know how many environmental ethicists would say, ‘Yes, let’s just let lions keep dragging kids out of picnic areas.’”

Preston and I decided to find out. He sent out a note to a handful of colleagues. The first to respond was Philip Cafaro, a professor of philosophy at Colorado State University:

The way I see it, mountain lions and people have a right to live in California (and elsewhere). But there are way too many people in CA (~ 40 million) and way too few mountain lions (probably less than 5,000). It’s way out of balance, way unjustly tilted toward us hogging most of the habitat and resources. So, speaking strictly to the justice of the situation, mountain lions that attack and even kill people should be left alone. We can spare a few people from our teeming hordes, while there are precious few pumas left.

But even he shied away from cougar clemency:

Pragmatically speaking, people are too selfish and cowardly to act ethically in such cases. So, the next best thing is let them kill some mountain lions in the hope that they will leave the rest alone.

A second Colorado State professor of philosophy, Katie McShane, raised other important questions, which perhaps explain why we no longer drag beasts before a judge and jury:

I’m not sure we blame animals very much at all; but in any case, killing the mountain lion isn’t conceived of as punishment, but rather, keeping people safe.

Maybe there’s an animal ethics question about whether killing the lion is the best way to protect people? Given mountain lion behavior, I can’t imagine that confinement would go well. Are there sanctuaries? I don’t know; they’d need to be huge. Anyway, my guess is that killing the mountain lion is the most humane option as well.

The short answer to that is, mountain lions require too much terrain to be placed in sanctuaries. And relocating an animal that’s attacked a human doesn’t mean it won’t attack again. I find myself agreeing that killing is the best option in this difficult situation.

Before Preston signed off, he also speculated that there might be something in the human psyche that calls for harsher punishments for pumas than for other predators—bears, for example. “There is something singular about the lion,” he said. “You get stalked. You don’t know it’s coming. Bears kind of look like people when they stand up on two legs, so we know what they are about. The lion occupies a different place in our cultural imagination: the stealthy undesirable ghost in the forest that we don’t want to empathize with.”

(Photo: Courtesy Mark Sundeen)

Mark Sundeen lives in a canyon in Montana where cougar sightings are frequent, yet in his four decades of exploring and guiding in the West, he’s never seen one in the wild. Sundeen’s new book, ��comes out February 18.

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Share the Joy: Donate Your Old Shoes and Gear

jbeverly — Wed, 25 Dec 2024 13:00:34 +0000

’Tis the season of excess. Of shopping. Of buying shiny new water bottles and cozy new fleeces for friends and family, and maybe sometimes for ourselves. It’s the season of consumerism in overload.

There’s an antidote to all the commercialism though, at least when it comes to outdoor gear. Take those shoes that have lost their midsole pop and that backpack that you never really liked anyway and find them a new home with someone who may love them. It’s a win-win. You’re clearing out clutter and doing good—putting quality shoes on someone else’s feet and maybe helping them discover a love for an outdoor sport or walking in the woods.

Sharing the Wealth

There are a lot of ways to donate gear—a good one being ��ԹϺ��’s—and you can find a lot of articles describing them with a quick search. Instead of repeating these lists, I’d like to tell you an inspiring, real-life story.

My friend, Kristen Mecca, has long made a habit of leaving behind her gear when visiting developing countries. After hiking Machu Picchu, she and her mom gave their boots and headlamps to their porters, which inspired others in their group to gift their sleeping bags. “The porters really valued our gear for themselves,” says Mecca, “and told us there was also a way to sell their gear and make money. So, they were either going to use the good quality gear or feed their families from selling it.”

Mecca always travels with an extra bag of gear, which she’s left behind on trips to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, but she’s also packed out anything she couldn’t give away directly. “I never want to contribute to a trash problem,” she says. “So anything that doesn’t biodegrade, recycle, or add value gets packed back up and taken home with me.”

This fall, Mecca started volunteering as a coach for , a national nonprofit that encourages elementary school-aged girls to be active among a supportive community. Because she’s seen how appreciated lightly used, quality gear can be to people in developing countries, she felt compelled to share the practice with her Girls on the Run group.

Connecting Good Things

Based in Northern Virginia, Mecca says that she was aware of how much money goes into youth sports and activity in general in her area, and figured a lot of lightly used shoes were just lying around in peoples’ homes. She also had a lot of gear herself that she was looking to repurpose. After doing some research, Mecca landed on, an organization that collects shoes and reallocates them to people in developing countries. Sneakers4Good sends people like Mecca large bags to fill with shoes, and a prepaid shipping label. In addition to giving shoes new life with those in need, the company allows the organizer to choose a charity of their choice to receive a check for roughly $1 per pound of shoes donated.

With the help of two high school-aged volunteer coaches, Mecca collected 93 pairs of shoes and soccer cleats from her Girls on the Run training group this fall.

“It was really easy,” says Mecca. She gave the girls a week to gather shoes from within their networks. “The high school girls who volunteer as coaches also reached out to their own communities and helped out. Now I know the potential is there.”

Mecca worked with the local director of Girls on the Run to donate the money from Sneakers4Good to buying shoes for girls in the program who need them to participate in the program’s culmination, a community 5K. She also organized another shoe collection and donated the money to a charity that matters to her—Animal Rescues of the Rockies.

What may be most impactful in the long term is that Mecca is helping one of the high school-aged volunteer coaches conduct her own collections throughout the sports seasons and choose a nonprofit that’s meaningful to her—once she’s done taking the SATs (she’s tied up until then).

“It’s been fun having a creative way to give multiple beneficiaries—those in need of gear, the animal rescue organization dear to my heart, and I’m benefitting too–from all the feel-good hormones and the energy boost from doing something I’m excited about that helps others,” Mecca says. That’s as fitting an antidote to holiday commercialism as I can imagine.

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This Book Is the Cure for Climate Anxiety

Kristin Hostetter — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 11:00:10 +0000

I’ve read more books on climate action than I can count. So I don’t say this lightly: I’m obsessed with the one I just finished, by��Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

In it, Johnson, a marine biologist and co-founder of the nonprofit think-tank , conducts interviews with 20 experts in everything from finance to farming to film and asks them to imagine what a replenished and healthy world might look like if we use the collective wisdom we already have to combat climate change.

I read this book in mid–November, right after the 2024 presidential election, and I was pretty gripped with climate anxiety.

This is not another preachy enviro-book. It’s not pushing hope for hope’s sake down our throats. Instead, it spotlights innovative solutions that are already working—like an increased reliance on renewable energy, greening up transportation and buildings, regenerative agriculture, and reducing food waste—and urges us to consider the possibilities when these things scale. Interspersed throughout the interviews are lists of jaw dropping facts, poems, and essays. And plenty of calls to action.

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There was one paragraph that really hit me. In her interview with Paola Antonelli, senior curator for architecture and design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Johnson asks her a question that recurs throughout the book: “How can we be part of the solutions we need? Is there a call to action?”

“The call to action is really to be better humans,” Antonelli says. “I don’t know how else to put it. Be better humans by understanding that we live for others. Otherwise we don’t have much reason to live. And when I say ‘others,’ I mean also the rest of the environment, all creatures and things. The answer is love.”

I decided to reach out to Johnson for a climate pep talk. The book hit shelves in September 2024, and we’ve had a presidential election—and a lot of global unrest—since then. I was curious how Johnson felt now, and whether her attitude or ideas had shifted with the socioeconomic and political tides. Plus, I just really didn’t want the book to end. Johnson’s casual, conversational style of writing left me feeling like we were already friends and hoped I could glean even more insight from one of the most exciting minds in the climate movement.

OUTSIDE: Talk me off the ledge: the book’s premise��ponders what the��world would look like if we get climate action right. But can we actually get it right? In the time that we have? How?��

JOHNSON: I have a lot of angsty journalists on my calendar right now and I’m just like, at what point did I become everyone’s climate shrink? How did I become the pep talker? It’s sort of funny because I am decisively not an optimist. I’m well aware that this climate scenario could very easily go even further off the rails. But it has literally never occurred to me that we should give up because that’s absurd, right? You don’t give up on life on earth.

And so it just always comes back to the question of what can we do to make it better? Because not trying is not an option. I was raised by two people who were in various small ways active in the movement for civil rights. At no point did people in that movement say, “This is too hard. Let’s just give up and be unequal forever.”

“Half-assed action in the face of potential doom is an indisputably absurd choice, especially given that we already have most of the climate solutions we need—heaps of them,” Ayana Elizabeth Johnson writes in the introduction of What If We Get It Right?�� (Photo: Landon Speers)

Sometimes I think there are a lot of people out there who are just quitters when it comes to climate change. They think the odds are too long and they’ll be gone anyway. But that’s a very weak and sad response.

Part of the problem is that we’ve been told that we have to stop or solve climate change. And those verbs are clearly delusional because we can’t solve it and we can’t stop it. But we can make things much better than they otherwise would have been if we didn’t try.

People just need to roll up their sleeves and get their heads in the game. I don’t really know what to say about the anxiety that most people are feeling except to say this: you will feel a hell of a��lot better if you’re doing something about it.

Most of the people reading this interview care and want to take action. But unfortunately there are so many who don’t, who just go about their lives, and intentionally or unintentionally don’t think about what the world will look like in 50 years. What would you say to them? Wake up! As the saying goes, if you’re not part of the solution,��you’re part of the problem.

You use a Venn diagram exercise to help people find their niche in the climate movement. Can you explain how it works? To ensure a livable future on this planet, we need to move beyond the platitudes of reduce, reuse, recycle. There is no one person or one entity that can fix this problem. We need to create a culture where everyone has a role to play. Are we gonna put our heads in the sand or pitch in?

The Climate Action Venn Diagram is a tool that helps everyone find their unique role by finding the intersection of three questions. 1) What brings you joy? 2) What are you good at? 3) What work needs doing?

The book is the result of my Venn diagram.

The Biden-Harris administration has arguably taken more climate action than any in history. A lot of environmentalists are bummed—even scared—about the results of the recent presidential election. You wrote the book before it happened. How did the election impact you personally and how will it impact your work and message moving forward? The last Trump administration rolled back well over 100 environmental protections and we don’t want that to happen again. In this current environment, I think we may need to do some reframing. We may get more traction if we talk less about “climate change” but keep pushing on the solutions. For example, there may be some openings in just the basics like the government protecting clean air and clean water, and we can reframe a lot of climate stuff in those terms because all Americans care about that.��

When you feel like you’re banging your head against the wall, stop doing what you’re doing and find a different way. Because if yelling climate facts at people was enough, we would have solved this already, right?

I also think it will be really hard for the Trump administration to turn its back on the economic benefits we’ve seen from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Especially when so many red states are benefitting the most. Texas and Iowa lead the nation on wind energy. Not because they’re a bunch of hippies but because the finances just make sense. As of 2022, the clean energy sector employs more than 3.3 million people, over three times more than fossil fuels.

My reaction to this election was OK, what does this mean for me and my work? My answer, after reevaluating all my projects: I just need to double down. That includes focusing on what city governments can do to adapt to climate change, via my think tank Urban Ocean Lab, and supporting the next generation of climate leaders through teaching at Bowdoin college, and consulting with corporations that are trying to get it right since the federal government isn’t adequately regulating their climate impacts.

But overall, the role that I see for myself in climate work is to welcome more people into it. We need way more people working on climate solutions. So how can I help people get creative and find their own personal approach?

Was your book tour, which really wasn’t a book tour in the traditional sense, part of that approach? Yes, the Climate Variety Show, which we put on in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Portland, Maine, was born out of my own complete lack of desire to read my book aloud in bookstores across the country. What could be more boring? People are already bored of climate change, so how do I entice people in? I feel like there are things we haven’t tried yet as far as communications and influencing our friends and family.

Johnson shared the stage with actor Jason Sudeikis during the Climate Variety Show in Brooklyn, New York. She made him (and everyone else) fill out a Climate Action Venn Diagram, which he’s holding up here.��(Photo: Kisha Bari)

So the was all about taking climate seriously without taking ourselves seriously. It was basically like a high school talent show—comedy, dancing, hula-hooping, poetry, games, music, puppets, and magic all mashed up into an evening of delightful chaos.

And everyone there filled out their Climate Action Venn Diagram in real time. If you want to get a sense of what it was like, you can hear audio clips in and see a in my Substack newsletter.

In What If We Get It Right?, you end each chapter by asking your interviewee the top three things they wish everyone knew about their particular area of expertise. So I’d like to ask you: What are the top three things you want everyone to know about your book?

It’s quite a fun, spirited read. I’ve been told the vibe of the book is like eavesdropping at a dinner party with me and 20 dear friends and colleagues, because the book includes interviews with these brilliant folks who are showing the way forward to their “visions of climate futures,” as the subtitle puts it. And if you listen to the audiobook, you get to actually hear these conversations.
There’s magnificent art and poetry mixed in.
I envisioned this book as something that people would read and discuss together, so, for book clubs and teachers, I made .

Oh! And as a bonus, the very last page has , which I spent an inordinate amount of time putting together and includes anthems for victory, love songs to Earth, tunes for tenacity, and sexy implementation vibes.

Here’s my work-in-progress Climate Action Venn diagram. (Photo: Kristin Hostetter)

Kristin Hostetter is ��ԹϺ��’s sustainability columnist. This column is the result of a similar Venn diagram exercise she did several years ago when she became a founding member of the . Follow her journey to live more sustainably by for her twice-monthly newsletter.

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How Indigenous Activists Lead the Largest Dam Removal Project in American History

jversteegh — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 12:00:37 +0000

Molli Myers was pregnant with her firstborn when the salmon began to die. It was 2002, during the depths of a yearslong drought, and farmers far upstream of her community on the Yurok reservation in Northern California had pressured the George W. Bush administration to divert water from the Klamath River in Oregon to irrigate their fields. Water temperatures rose as the river slowed through the summer, and in September, Chinook salmon returning to spawn began to die, littering the banks with as many as 70,000 carcasses.

Two years later, with her young son in her lap, Myers testified in Orleans, California, before a panel of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials charged with renewing the operating licenses of four hydroelectric dams that had contributed to the fish kill. None of the panelists looked her in the eye as she described the structures as an existential threat to the river and the salmon that have sustained her Karuk people since time immemorial.

When the meeting ended, Myers joined a handful of Native people and friends around a bonfire by the river in Orleans to lick their wounds and vent their anger. “That was when we made the decision to dedicate ourselves to dam removal,” Myers recalls. “And that has been our lives.”

The Klamath River flows 263 miles from southern Oregon to far Northern California, through ancestral lands of the Klamath, Karuk, Hupa, Shasta, and Yurok, whose traditions and way of life grew around the river and the abundance it provided. The Klamath once teemed with salmon, but the dams, built between 1918 and 1964 without consulting the tribes, blocked the fish from critical spawning habitat on the upper river and its tributaries. The dams provided no drinking water and almost no flood control. Toxic algae bloomed in their reservoirs, and they accounted for less than 2 percent of the electricity generated by their owner, PacifiCorp. Still, taking them down would involve the largest dam-removal project in American history. The tribes would accept nothing less.

Copco 1, one of four hydroelectric dams removed from the Klamath River, stood 120 feet tall and held 77,000 acre-feet of water in its reservoir. Demolition began in March. (Photo: Paul Robert Wolf Wilson)

They organized protests at PacifiCorp’s Oregon headquarters, then traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to lobby the utility’s parent company, Scottish Power, which proceeded to sell PacifiCorp in 2006. The new owner was Berkshire Hathaway Energy, controlled by Warren Buffett, then the planet’s wealthiest man.

The coalition shifted their protests to Omaha, Nebraska, where Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting packs a 19,000-seat arena. In 2008, 23-year-old Karuk tribal member Chook-Chook Hillman waited in line all night, then sprinted for a microphone and the chance to question Buffett directly. As Hillman introduced himself in the Karuk language, a stunned hush fell over the crowd. Switching to English, he demanded Buffett sign an agreement to remove the dams as Georgiana Myers and Annelia Hillman of the Yurok tribe unfurled a banner proclaiming: BUFFETT’S KLAMATH DAMS = CULTURAL GENOCIDE.

“The world’s richest man doesn’t faze me at all, because in our culture I’m just as equal as any other being on the planet,” Chook-Chook Hillman recalls. “I got my moment and I took full advantage of it.” After two other Klamath River defenders spoke up, Buffett announced that he wouldn’t take any more questions about the dams, and security hustled the remaining activists out of the queue.

The protesters had made their point and could now engage Buffett’s people in a language they understood: the cost of adding fish ladders and bringing the dams up to spec for relicensing was more than it would cost to tear them down—and more than they’d ever earn back. The smart play for PacifiCorp was to walk away. Over the next 16 years, without easing the threat of direct action, the tribes worked with environmentalists, irrigators, commercial fishers, state and federal governments, and PacifiCorp itself to help the utility company do just that.

Families and community members celebrate the Salmon Run, an annual event where participants run from the mouth of the Klamath to one of its headwaters. (Photo: Robert Wolf Wilson)

In 2010, nearly 50 parties signed a dam-removal settlement and an environmental-restoration agreement, only to watch them both die in Congress five years later. The tribes then took the lead in new talks, negotiating an amended agreement that didn’t require congressional approval. The accord formed the nonprofit Klamath River Renewal Corporation to manage the project, with the state of California contributing $250 million in dam-removal and remediation costs and PacifiCorp rate-payers covering the remaining $200 million.

The last major hurdle was approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency Molli Myers had testified to decades ago. In November 2022, as officials met in Washington, D.C., Myers joined friends by the river in Orleans, gathering around a Starlink connection to share the historic moment with their children, now grown, who’d witnessed the dam-removal fight their entire lives, and elders who thought they would never live to see it succeed. “We built a bonfire,” she says. “We pulled out all of our old banners from over the years, and we celebrated.”

Dam removal began the following spring and continued in earnest this year. The largest of the four structures, Iron Gate, stood 173 feet tall and 740 feet long. In May, excavators began reducing the earthen formation scoop by scoop, loading the soil into oversize trucks that would return it to the pit it was taken from decades ago. The same day, crews of young people walked the steep embankments, spreading native seeds as part of a habitat-restoration effort that will go on for years. By August, all four dams were gone, freeing the river to carry on the work of healing itself, and providing migrating salmon a clear route upstream for the first time in more than a century.

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The Worst Kind of Type 2 Fun in the Arctic

Alison Osius — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 12:00:22 +0000

More than 40 years ago, the then park ranger Jon Waterman took his first journey to Alaska’s Noatak River. Captivated by the profusion of wildlife, the rich habitat, and the unfamiliar landscape, he spent years kayaking, packrafting, skiing, dogsledding, and backpacking in Arctic North America—often alone for weeks at a time. After three decades away from the Noatak, he returned with his 15-year-old son, Alistair, in 2021 to find a flooded river and a scarcity of the once abundant caribou. The Arctic had warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the world.

The next year, 2022, Waterman took a last journey to document the changes. The following is excerpted and adapted from his prologue in Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder amid the Arctic Climate Crisis (Patagonia Books, November 12).

A former ranger in Rocky Mountain��and Denali national parks, Waterman is the author of 17 books, including (National Geographic Books), In the Shadow of Denali, Kayaking the Vermilion Sea, Running Dry, and Arctic Crossing. He has made five films about adventure and wild places.

Jon Waterman among icebergs at the end of his 2,200-mile journey across the Arctic in September 1999. (Photo: Jon Waterman Collection)

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The below is adapted from Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder amid the Arctic Climate Crisis.

A Certain Type of Fun, July 10-12, 2022

In eventually reaching the Noatak Headwaters and passing through different ecosystems, Waterman and Chris Korbulic, his partner on the 2022 journey, will see stands of fireweed, known to colonize areas recently burned in wildfires. (Photo: Chris Korbulic)

My hands, thighs, and calves have repeatedly locked up in painful dehydration cramps, undoubtedly caused by our toil with leaden packs in eighty-degree heat up the steep streambed or its slippery, egg-shaped boulders. After my water bottle slid out of an outside pack pocket and disappeared amid one of several waist-deep stream fords or in thick alders yesterday, I carefully slide the bear spray can (looped in a sling around my shoulders) to the side so it doesn’t get knocked out of its pouch, an action I will come to regret. Now, to slake my thirst, I submerge my head in Kalulutok Creek like a water dog.

Kalulutok Creek would be called a river in most parts of the world. Here in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, amid the largest span of legislated wilderness in the United States, it’s just a creek compared to the massive Noatak River that we’re bound for. But in my mind—after we splash-walked packrafts and forded its depths at least 30 times yesterday—Kalulutok will always be an ice-cold, wild river.

Chris Korbulic surveys the Noatak headwaters valley, increasingly overgrown with shrubs and hazed by wildfire smoke; over 3 million acres burned in Alaska in 2022. (Photo: Jon Waterman)

It drains the Endicott and Schwatka Mountains, which are filled with the most spectacular granite and limestone spires of the entire Brooks Range. One valley to the east of us is sky-lined with sharp, flinty peaks called the Arrigetch, or “fingers of the outstretched hand” in Iñupiaq.

As the continent’s most northerly mountains, the sea-fossil-filled Brooks Range—with more than a half-dozen time-worn peaks over 8,000 feet high—is seen on a map as the last curl of the Rocky Mountains before they stairstep into foothills and coastal plains along the Arctic Ocean. The Brooks Range stretches 200 miles south to north and 700 miles to the east, where it jabs into Canada. Although there are more than 400 named peaks, since the Brooks Range is remote and relatively untraveled, it’s rare that anyone bothers to climb these mountains. My river-slogger companion, Chris, and I will be exceptions.

Chris Korbulic (front) and Jon Waterman fly into Walker Lake on the south side of the Brooks Range, in early July 2022. (Photo: Chris Korbulic)

We carry a water filter, but it would be silly to use it. We’re higher and farther north than giardiasis-infected beavers and there is no sign of caribou. The creek is fed from the pure ice of shrunken glaciers above and ancient permafrost in the ground below. In what seems like prodigious heat for the Arctic, the taps here are all wide-open.

An Inuit man praises his qimmiq (Eskimo husky) on the sea ice in Elu Inlet Nunavut, Canada, in May 1999. The qimmiq has served for 4,500 years of travel across the Arctic but is now threatened with extinction by snowmachines. (Photo: Jon Waterman)

Thirty-nine years ago, I decided to learn all I could about life above the Arctic Circle. As a climber, I traded my worship of high mountains for the High Arctic. I felt that unlike the study of crevasse extrication and avalanche avoidance—you couldn’t just read about the Arctic or sign up for courses. You have to go on immersive journeys and figure out how the interlocked parts of the natural world fit together. Along this path, acts of curiosity out on the land and the water can open an earned universe of wonders. But you must spend time in the villages, too, with the kindhearted people of the North to make sure you get it right. And you can’t call the Arctic “the Far North”—it is “home” rather than “far” to the many people who live there.

The author on the sea ice outside the village of Tuktoyaktuk, the Northwest Territories in April 1998, with his dog Elias, preparing to set out on a long solo journey across the Northwest Passage. (Photo: Jon Waterman Collection)

So, after twoscore of Arctic journeys, in the summer of 2022, I’m on one more trip. I could not be on such an ambitious trip without all the previous experiences. (The more I learn, it sometimes feels like the less I know about the Arctic.)

But this time the agenda is different. I hope to understand the climate crisis better.

Chris Korbulic and I are here to document it however we can. Since my first trip above the Arctic Circle in 1983, I have seen extraordinary changes in the landscape. Only three days underway and we’ve already flown over a wildfire to access our Walker Lake drop-off point. And yesterday we trudged underneath several bizarre, tear-drop-shaped landslide thaw slumps—a.k.a. thermokarsts—caused by the permafrost thaw.

Beneath multiple thermokarst landslides caused by permafrost thaw, the author and his friend tow packrafts up Kalulutok Creek in Gates of the Arctic National Park to avoid bushwhacking in the valley, now overgrown with brush. (Photo: Chris Korbulic)

In much of Alaska, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) says that permafrost thaw from 2005 to 2010 has caused the ground to sink more than four inches, and in places to the north of us, twice that. The land collapses as the permafrost below it thaws, like logs pulled out from beneath a woodpile. AMAP believes this will amount to a “large-scale degradation of near-surface permafrost by the end of the twenty-first century.” Roads and buildings and pipelines—along with hillsides, Iñupiat homes, forests, and even lakes—will fall crazily aslant, or get sucked into the ground as if taken by an earthquake.

The Alaskan village of Kivalina—doomed, like many Iñupiat villages, Waterman observes—is surrounded by the Chukchi Sea and the lagoon fed by the polluted Kivalina and Wulik Rivers. (Photo: Chris Korbulic)

On this remote wilderness trip, we don’t expect a picnic—known as Type 1 Fun to modern-day adventurers. A journey across the thaw on foot and by packraft for 500-plus miles won’t resemble a backcountry ski trip or a long weekend backpack on Lower 48 trails. We have planned for Type 2 Fun: an ambitious expedition that will make us suffer and give us the potential to extend ourselves just enough that there will be hours, or even days, that won’t seem like fun until much later when we’re back home. Then our short-circuited memories will allow us to plan the next trip as if nothing went wrong on this one. An important part of wilderness mastery is to avoid Type 3 Fun: a wreckage of accidents, injuries, near-starvation, or rescue. We’ve both been on Type 3 Fun trips that we’d rather forget.

Chris Korbulic paddles on the vast Noatak River in the most recent expedition, two years ago. (Photo: Jon Waterman )

Today, to get Chris, a caffeine connoisseur, to stop, I simply utter, “Coffee?” His face lights up as he throws off his pack and pulls out the stove. I pull out the fuel bottle. Since Chris isn’t a conversational bon vivant, I’ve learned not to ask too many questions, but a cup of coffee might stimulate a considerate comment or two about the weather. As I fire up the trusty MSR stove with a lighter, we crowd around and toast our hands over the hot windscreen as if it’s our humble campfire. We’re cold and wet with sweat and we shiver in the wind. But at least we’re out of the forest-fire smoke—this summer more than two million acres have burned in dried-out Alaska.

Chris Korbulic is able to ditch his giant pack inside the packraft here on the Noatak River headwaters alongside Tupik Creek (Photo: Jon Waterman)

Today, with the all-day uphill climb and inevitable back-and-forth route decisions through the gorge ahead, we’ll be lucky to trudge even five miles to the lake below the pass. Why, I ask myself, as Chris puts on his pack and shifts into high gear, could we not have simply flown into the headwaters of the Noatak River instead of crossing the Brooks Range to get here? I heave on my pack and wonder how I’ll catch Chris, already far ahead.

Shards of caribou bones and antlers lie on the tundra as ghostly business cards of a bygone migration, greened with mold, and minutely chiseled and mined for calcium by tiny vole teeth. We kick steps across a snowfield, then work our way down a steep, multicolored boulderfield, whorled red and peppered with white quartz unlike any rocks I’ve seen before. As rain shakes out of the sky like Parmesan cheese from a can, we weave in and out of leafy alder thickets while I examine yet another fresh pile of grizzly feces. I stop to pick apart the scat and thumb through stems and leaves and root pieces. This griz appears to be on a vegetarian diet.

“Hey, bear!” We yell the old cautionary refrain again and again until we’re hoarse. I hold tight to the pepper spray looped over my shoulder to keep it from grabby alder branches.

A male grizzly (brown bear) grazes like a cow amid willow and fireweed. Several thousand grizzlies roam throughout Alaska. (Photo: Jon Waterman)

A half mile farther the route dead-ends so we’re forced to descend into the gorge again. With Chris 20 yards behind, I plunge step down through a near-vertical slope of alders and play Tarzan for my descent as I hang onto a flexible yet stout branch, and swing down a short cliff into another alder thicket. A branch whacks me in the chest and knocks off the pepper-spray safety plug. When I swing onto the ground, I get caught on another branch that depresses the trigger in an abrupt explosion that shoots straight out from my chest in a surreal orange cloud. Instinctively I hold my breath and close my eyes and continue to shimmy downward, but I know I’m covered in red-hot pepper spray.

When I run out of breath, I squint, keep my mouth closed, breathe carefully through my nose, and scurry out of the orange capsaicin cloud. Down in a boulderfield that pulses with a stream, I open my mouth, take a deep breath, and yell to Chris that I’m O.K. as I strip off my shirt and try to wring it out in the stream. I tie the contaminated shirt on the outside of my pack and put on a sweater. My hands prickle with pepper.

Then we’re off again. As we clamber up steep scree to exit the gorge, my lips, nasal passages, forehead, and thighs burn from the pepper. The pepper spray spreads from my thighs to my crotch like a troop of red ants, but I can hardly remove my pants amid the incoming storm clouds and wind. With the last of the alders below us, we enter the alpine world above the tree line. By the time we reach the lake, the drizzle has become a steady rain. I’m nauseous and overheated underneath my rain jacket with the red pepper spray that I wish I had saved for an aggressive bear instead of a self-douche. Atop wet tundra that feels like a sponge underfoot, we pitch the Megamid tent with a paddle lashed to a ski pole and guy out the corners with four of the several million surrounding boulders left by the reduction of tectonic litter.

Boykinia, one of many protein-rich plants that bears eat, bloom alongside the lake camp on the pass above the Noatak headwaters. (Photo: Jon Waterman)

I fire up the stove and boil the water, and we inhale four portions of freeze-dried pasta inside the tent. We depart from wilderness bear decorum to cook outside and away from the tent because it’s cold and we’re tired. Chris immediately heads out with his camera. His eyes are watery from just being within several feet of me.

I’ve been reduced like this before—wounded and exhausted and temporarily knocked off my game. So, I tell myself that this too will pass, that I’ll get in gear and regain my mojo. That maybe, I can eventually get my shy partner to loosen up and talk. That we will discover an extraordinary new world—the headwaters of the Noatak River—from up on the pass in the morning. And that I will find a way to withstand my transformation into a spicy human burrito.

Snow feels likely tonight. It’s mid-July, yet winter has slid in like a glacier over the Kalulutok Valley.

I am too brain-dead to write in my journal, too physically wiped out and overheated in the wrong places to even think of a simple jaunt through the flowers to see the view that awaits us. I pull down my orange-stained pants and red underwear, grab a cup filled with ice water. I try not to moan as I put in my extra-hot penis and let it go numb.

Type 2 Fun for sure.

Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder Amid the Arctic Climate Crisis (Patagonia Books)

Jon Waterman lives in Carbondale, Colorado. An all-round adventurer, he has climbed the famous Cassin Ridge on Denali in winter; soloed the Northwest Passage; sailed to Hawaii picking up microplastics; dogsledded into and up Canada’s Mount Logan; and run the Colorado River 1,450 miles from source to sea. He is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and three grants from the National Geographic Society Expeditions Council. Into the Thaw is available to purchase from Patagonia Books and for pre-order on Amazon for November 19.

The author, Jon Waterman, in the field (Photo: Chris Korbulic )

For more by this author:

A Former National Park Ranger Reveals His Favorite Wild Places in the U.S.

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Butterflies on the Wall—Part 2

jversteegh — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 11:00:28 +0000

The border wall had an all star cast of political operatives trying to get it built. The butterflies had Marianna Trevino Wright. With the spotlight on The National Butterfly Center, Marianna finds herself absorbing the full weight of an online campaign to discredit her. Then people start showing up in person.

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Butterflies on the Wall—Part 1

jversteegh — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 11:00:49 +0000

How did a US congressional candidate and the director of the National Butterfly Center end up in a physical altercation on the US border with Mexico? When contractors showed up in Mission, Texas to break ground on President Trump’s border wall, they didn’t think there would be much resistance. But when people found out the wall would go straight through critical butterfly habitat, everything changed.

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