30 Great Places: White Mountain National Forest

Region: New EnglandActivities: Fishing, hunting, hikingSpecies: Brook and brown trout; whitetail deer; ruffed grouse; moose Where: The White Mountain National Forest comprises more than 750,000 acres in the eastern New Hampshire counties of Grafton, Coos and Carroll with a small portion of the forest extending into Maine. The forest includes over 100 miles of the…

30 Great Places: Little Mountain

Region: RockiesActivities: Fishing, huntingSpecies: Colorado River cutthroat; Mule deer; Elk Where: The Greater Little Mountain Area (GLMA) is a magical high desert region of over 500,000 acres in southwestern Wyoming’s Sweetwater County. This habitat of badlands, aspen groves and pine forests – simultaneously rugged and fragile – is one of Wyoming’s most sought after hunting…

Rattlesnake Creek dam coming down

By Rob Roberts This week, Missoula Mayor John Engen announced the removal of the Rattlesnake Creek Dam, a barrier on a much-loved trout stream that runs through the city. Beginning in the Rattlesnake Wilderness north of Missoula, Rattlesnake Creek is one of the major sources of trout recruitment for the Clark Fork River and a…

30 Great Places: Tongass

Region: AlaskaActivities: FishingSpecies: Chum, Chinook, Sockeye, Pink and Coho salmon; Dolly Varden; Steelhead; Coastal cutthroat trout; Rainbow trout Where: The Tongass encompasses 17 million acres of public land, spread across much of Southeast Alaska. It’s a wonderland of hulking hemlock, spruce and cedar western hemlock, Sitka spruce, western red cedar and yellow cedar trees, dotted…

Tough year for wildfires … and more to come

NASA satellite image showing smoke over of the Northwest as of Sept. 5. By Jack Williams This past winter was a wet one where I live in southwest Oregon. “Atmospheric rivers” brought record rain and snow storms to the region. We were not alone. Rains and snows drenched California and built big snowpacks in the…