All my life I have been drawn to wide-open spaces. I believe that landscape has the power to shape lives. I was born on the prairie and like the poet Carl Sandburg said, “The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know at night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart.” It was the prairie that beckoned me across the Missouri River to explore the way West. Once an ocean of bluestem, Indian and switch grass that covered much of the Midwest,

I still find solace in the remnants that survive in preserves and forgotten corners of the plains. Beyond the tallgrass prairie, farmland turns to rangeland, crops give way to cattle and the land begins its gentle rise to the Great Plains and the mountains beyond. This open country shapes a lifestyle that is both tough and independent and I am drawn to the people who call the plains and prairies home. Whether in small, rural towns or down long dirt roads that lead to ranches miles in the distance, their stories reflect the struggles to live and work in a rugged landscape.  

Beyond the plains on the way West, are the mountain ranges that divide a nation East and West. We are drawn to their majesty and immense size that leave us feeling insignificant but inspired by the powerful forces that created them. We find solace and adventure amid their canyons, wild rivers, and wildlife. Beyond the mountains the desert exposes the powerful forces of wind and water that chiseled the landscape over millions of years. Here under star-filled skies and the sound of coyotes, I can re-connect to the power of wildness. And on my way West, I continue to listen to the land…

At one time North America was covered by 170 million acres of tall grass prairie - today less than 7 million acres remain. The rich soil took thousands of years to form, holding the grasses against the relentless prairie wind with deeply matted roots.  But it only took 100 years to plow them under.  Today, what was once prairie is rich farmland and what remains virgin prairie is one of the world’s rarest landscapes.  Some prairies in more formidable locations has remained intact  – where rugged, remote landforms protected it from the plow.But other prairie is still wide-open, stretching to the horizon. I find solace in the earth-toned hues of prairie grasses set against the blue sky. I get lost in the unbounded, uncluttered horizon that inspires me and gives me a sense of freedom.The prairie gave birth to small towns throughout America’s heartland.

Main Street was the center of vibrant communities, many of which are now aging reminders of a simpler time when we had closer ties to the land. As I travel farther west – beyond the Missouri River, the landscape begins to flatten; tallgrass prairie gives way to short grass plains and farmland gives way to rangeland.I watch the sun tint the evening sky in salmon and mauve as it sets over stretches of that once vast ocean of grass.Somewhere in the distance the grassland will meet the mountains as it rolls onward towards the horizon.But right now, all I see is a long, lonely road and the vast prairie sky beckoning me on the way West. 

I have followed the roads and rails etched that reach across the open landscape that begins in the Midwest.Beyond the tall-grass prairie, the Great Plains flow westward like an ocean of grass, rolling and rippling imperceptibly upward on their long rise to meet the mountains.

The 100thMeridian is where most say the West begins. It marks the edge where the moist Gulf air loses its influence as it pushes north and green farms give way to sprawling rangeland. In summer the wind blows unhindered against your skin and the hot sun and sparse rain shape lives.No longer the home of the buffalo, the Native American culture of the plains has seen many of their sacred places lost or taken, leaving much of their history held fragilely within cherished stories and rituals.These plains are home to sheepherders, cattlemen and miners searching for the new gold rush of oil and gas.

The baseball caps touting seed companies have given way to Stetsons as if to say – you have crossed the divide, you are now West – a state of mind as much as a geographic location. There is no way for me to express how these open spaces of the West overwhelm the senses.I was always curious about the stories along the long back roads. I have met many people who call the High Plains home; who accept its shortcomings and are challenged by its possibilities. I see new life flowing into these old communities.And many keep to themselves in the great wide open, at home with the wind and the stars.Now the boundless sky soars above me and I am bordered only by the plains and the mountains that beckon me the way West.  

It is morning in the mountains and I am met by a river that helped to carve them. Fed by icy snowmelt tucked in mile-high crevasses, the river winds its way to the valleys and meadows below drawing all life to its shores. A layer of mist hovers over the valley and rings the hillsides, turning mauve in the early light of dawn and setting the morning sky on fire. The river reflects the surrounding landscape as it flows on its long journey to the continental divide.I fell in love with the mountains when I first saw the rivers that mirrored them. And at this early hour the rising sun continues to refine the ever-changing mountain light on the way West.

Looking up, I see where powerful forces cleaved the continent, pushing the land skyward over millions of years…My eyes are drawn to mile-high jagged peaks and wide craggy canyons – it is another world from the one I am standing on in the valley far below.Glacial freezing and thawing and relentless wind and rain chiseled these mountains. At a closer look, they appear as sentinels each with their own character and light. Some are all rock and glaciers while deep green forests of cedar and hemlock or Douglas fir and lodge-pole pine blanket others. The sweep of landscape duplicated in the lakes and rivers below.The world is symmetry in all directions – The brilliant hillsides of aspen, poplar, cottonwood and willow blaze orange and yellow reflected in the crystal clear waters of mountain lakes. Then daylight gives way to evening stars and a rising moon casts a purple shade of mountain light to the surrounding peaks.

The mountains are home to elk and bison, wolves and bears and countless other wildlife which spend summers in higher elevations but return to the lower meadows and waterways as fall approaches...I watch as elk follow the sinuous sweep of rivers, winding through pools, wet meadows and rust-gold grasses and sedges. No ritual more embodies this seasonal transition than the elk rut when bull elk gather and defend their harem of cows from rivals. It is a powerful display of survival of the fittest and of the wildness that still exists in mountain regions.With their imposing antlers and regal bearing the bull elk work to keep their harem together and ward off competition - their plaintive bugle piercing the mountain valleys from dawn to dusk. 

Fall winds and rain are caught by the mountains where they play a game of hide and seek creating fearsome displays of swirling, misting, roiling clouds that tower over the highest peaks and shroud the range from view.The mountains are preparing for a seasonal change and the process is dramatic and sometimes dangerous. Mountain storms change the landscape and what was once a scene of fall splendor gives way to a gauzy blanket of white.

Winter arrives early in mountain country. Sometimes it whispers through the landscape tracing the outline of trees and bushes. Other times it shrouds the land completely – revealing the curves of hillsides and valleys.We come to the mountains for solitude – pioneers leaving small footprints in a vast wilderness.Winter snow outlines the sky-high ridges and lofty peaks towering over the valley below. I see the rocky vertebrae of the range that stretches north to south separating a nation East from West…. And as I look across this wide expanse, in the high, thin air I am moved once again by the diversity, clarity and beauty of mountain light. 

Desert Solitaire

I have never tired of how the shifting light of day illuminates every part of the high desert, infusing the landscape with hues of mauve and pink and salmon. I love this open country, it’s unpredictability, its rugged features hued to delicate shapes that look as if they will fall apart if your touch them. The region is a vast chronicle of geologic activity reaching two billion years into the past. It is wild country and I am thankful for those wise enough to preserve this timeless and inspiring landscape where I feel small, in relation to its immensity, and insignificant in relation to its age.

As I journey south from the northern Rockies and the dramatic peaks of the Teton Range, I enter a transition zone, a region where geological forces and the timeless erosion by rivers have created a very different landscape.I look out at a jagged landscape of colorful canyons, towering pinnacles, broad buttes, narrow fins, and spired hoodoos. It is a massive, haunting region where erosion from wind, rain and rivers has peeled back the layers from an ancient past - hundreds of millions of years old.

Carved by the relentless powers of wind and water, the erosion has unlocked a rainbow of colors in the rock; cream, terra cotta, umber and sienna that give a vibrancy to the desert solitude. Pinyon pine and Utah junipers are tucked in rock crevices and arroyos and some sit precariously on towering spires.  It is open, wild country that transfixes me – I have never seen such raw landscape stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions. And part of the wonder is that I can see storms building far in the distance, watch the clouds tower and billow with growing menace and see bolts of lightening pierce the dark sky.

Some storms look like movies playing on different sky-wide screens while others journey in my direction. Rain does not fall gently here. It falls in biblical fashion without mercy. And even a small amount of water can flood desert areas and narrow, slot canyons miles away from the storm event. I have never gotten used to the color at dusk when cloud-reflected sunlight illuminates every part of the desert; the grasses glow, each one gleaming separate from the other, while the hills and mountains are infused with the hues of mauve and pink and salmon.“In the mixture of starlight and cloud-reflected sunlight in which the desert world is now illuminated, each single object stands forth in preternatural though transient brilliance, a final assertion of existence before the coming of night: each rock and shrub and tree, each flower each stem of grass, diverse and separate, vividly isolate, yet joined each to every other in a unity which generously includes me and my solitude as well. 

Canyonlands is a desert landscape that showcases the relentless impact of time, wind and water on sedimentary rock. The millions of years of sculpting and eroding have cut through ancient mountains and left a breathtaking scene of striated, multi-layered and irregular rock formations strewn across hundreds of miles. The erosion has unlocked a rainbow of colors; cream, terra cotta, umber and sienna that catch the differing light throughout the day and evening adding warmth to the landscape. I approach the mountains differently from the plains. Perhaps because I was born on the prairie, the wide-open plains were always inviting, beckoning me with out-stretched arms and I felt free and uninhibited in its embrace. But mountains are intimidating.

They begin as a line across the horizon and build to unimaginable heights, overwhelming me with their sheer size, their stature and their rugged grandeur.So I approach mountains cautiously, with respect and admiration. From the continental divide in Canada to northern New Mexico the Rocky Mountains stretch over 3,000 miles across the continent. A chain of parks and protected lands preserve a refuge for the traveler seeking beauty and wildness.We are pioneers weaving our way through this wilderness, leaving small footprints in a large landscape. feeling small in the face of such immense grandeur, singing a psalm (song) of praise for the wonder that surrounds us.  a geologic as well as a cultural border