Comments on: More thoughts on the once and future Bears Ears https://pmags.com/more-thoughts-on-the-once-and-future-bears-ears Practical advice and musings on the outdoors, hiking, backpacking, ski touring, and camping. Wed, 22 Jul 2026 02:59:02 +0000 hourly 1 By: ASW https://pmags.com/more-thoughts-on-the-once-and-future-bears-ears#comment-723876 Tue, 21 Jul 2026 21:20:04 +0000 https://pmags.com/?p=44263#comment-723876 You can’t care for or respect a landscape unless you know something about it. Unless you have been cold or hot or exhausted or dehydrated while walking across it.

If you ask most of our key government decision-makers about how they get outdoors they might tell you about their golfing exploits, if they get outside at all. Awesome.

Those folks will never see a desert or forest or mountain as anything other than a blank spot on the map that has not yet been exploited for economic gain, whether that’s a golf course or luxury hotel or energy/mineral extraction.

All a “regular Joe”-type person can do is keep volunteering, keep speaking up, and try to get as many young people as possible out into the natural world. In the best-case scenario they will be the future bulwark against this stupidity; in the worst-case scenario they will at least have a memory of what used to be.

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