Each February, Wallace, Idaho, remakes itself into something no one expects: a snow-filled, high-velocity, urban slopestyle battleground. The quiet historic streets transform into a two-block terrain park lined with lights, cheering crowds, an ice bar, and enough adrenaline to power the town’s neon signs for a year. This is Extreme Skijor, the Silver Valley’s most extreme winter festival and one of the most unusual competitions in the Northwest, happening Feb. 13-16, 2026. 

What started eight years ago as a quirky way to liven up a holiday weekend has evolved into a legitimate draw for high-level athletes. Riders now travel from across the country to throw down in front of thousands of spectators for a share of the $10,000 prize purse. They’re not just here to compete; they’re here to put their stamp on what may be the only event where big-mountain attitude meets urban rail-park creativity, all at 30 miles per hour behind a roaring, tracked ATV. 

A Wild Idea That Became Wallace’s Biggest Weekend 

Traditional skijoring involves a horse pulling a skier through a timed obstacle course. But Wallace didn’t have horses; it had snow, grit, ambition and a fleet of ATVs. The founders decided to do something radical: bring the competition downtown, close the streets and dump in hundreds of cubic yards of snow. The first year drew curiosity. The next year drew spectators. Soon, it became a phenomenon. 

Today, Extreme Skijor is one of Wallace’s busiest weekends of the year, filling hotels, packing restaurants, and turning the quiet town into a shoulder-to-shoulder winter celebration. Families come for the sledding hill and kids’ zone. Adventurers come for the ice bar and nightlife. Riders come to push their limits in a competition unlike any they have encountered before. As Ski Wallace president Siobhan Curet puts it, “This event is for everyone: families, locals, pros and the brave souls who want to send it harder than they ever have. You’ve got to experience it for yourself.” 

Friday Night Lights: The Rail Jam 

This year’s festival kicks off Friday night, Feb. 13, with the rail jam, an event that has earned a reputation all its own. Under the glow of downtown lights, skiers and snowboarders drop into a rail garden built right in the middle of Cedar Street. The setup includes a mellow rainbow rail, a long kink rail, a user-friendly flat rail and a 20-foot fun box. But the showstopper for 2026? A fully repurposed Ford Pinto race car acting as a massive jib feature. 

Riders throw spins, presses, taps and transfers while crowds cheer from the barricades. Creativity and style score big here. Winners walk away with medals, cash and a healthy boost of hometown glory. 

Engineering a Downtown Terrain Park Overnight 

Once the rail jam wraps, the real work begins. An excavator, a loader, a snowcat, and a hand crew take over Cedar Street, reshaping it into a slopestyle course capable of hosting X-Games-caliber tricks. By morning, the transformation is complete. 

The signature format is simple—a tracked ATV tows riders at highway-offramp speed into a 30-foot money booter, sending them skyward. The landing flows straight into the rail garden, where judges are ready to score amplitude, trick difficulty, clean landings, technical rail execution and overall showmanship. It’s controlled chaos; the kind spectators love. Qualifiers run Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and finals launch Sunday at 1 p.m. 

Big Mountain Talent Meets Urban Mayhem 

Wallace Extreme Skijor has quickly become a stage where freeriders, freestyle skiers and snowboarders can show off their full skill set. Big-mountain athletes often arrive with the biggest airs of the weekend, applying their backcountry send-mentality to an urban park environment. Meanwhile, dedicated jib athletes clean up on the rails with tech-heavy tricks that make the crowd erupt. Corks. Switch 540s. Double flips. Disaster transfers. And, of course, the wipeouts, which sometimes earn just as much applause as the podium runs. Extreme Skijor offers multiple categories: youth (rail jam only), women, skier and snowboarder. There’s no age limit beyond the ability to hit the course safely.  

A Weekend That Fuels a Town 

Beyond the snow and spectacle, this event is an economic powerhouse. Wallace sees its winter population swell dramatically as spectators flood into bars, shops and restaurants. Lodging fills up months in advance. Locals plan their winter around it. Extreme Skijor reflects the attitude of the Silver Valley itself: scrappy, creative and always willing to build something wild if it means a good time. 

Why Athletes Should Add Wallace to Their Competition Calendar 

For high-end competitors used to the touring circuit, the Wallace Extreme Skijor offers a unique hybrid format; it’s part freeride, part slopestyle and part urban rail jam, with crowds lining the course and a festival atmosphere. Athletes compete to win big-air, best trick, rail-jam and crowd-favorite cash bonuses, all in a tight, supportive, rowdy atmosphere unlike anything else in the Northwest. 

It’s the rare event where a backcountry charger can throw down alongside a terrain-park technician and both walk away heroes. If you’re a rider looking for a challenge, an audience and a reason to push yourself harder than you have all season, Wallace wants you here! 

A Winter Tradition That Keeps Growing 

In its eighth year, Extreme Skijor has become more than a festival, more than a competition and more than a weekend party. It is a celebration of winter, creativity, small-town energy and the pure joy of watching talented athletes do outrageous things on snow. And in the heart of it all stands a two-block stretch of downtown Wallace, proving that sometimes the wildest terrain isn’t found on a mountain. It’s found right on Main Street. 

Extreme Skijor is organized by Ski Wallace! Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting winter activities in Wallace, Idaho. Funding for the event is made possible through generous donations and fundraising events. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, volunteering or exploring our other events, visit Skiwallace.com. (Article provided by Ski Wallace) 

The post Extreme Skijor Turns Wallace Into an Urban Winter Arena  appeared first on Out There Venture.

Cover photo courtesy of Olivia Dugenet

Washington State Parks is promoting a new health treatment. Anyone can get a prescription. In fact, people are encouraged to write themselves prescriptions. Studies suggest this treatment improves sleep, enhances the immune system, lowers blood pressure, and reduces the risk of diabetes and stroke. There is also evidence to suggest it decreases depression, stress, anxiety, and ADHD symptoms while boosting mood, focus, and cognitive performance.  

The medicine is nature—free, abundant, and often overlooked by busy people who spend most of their time indoors, staring at screens.  

Part of a public health endeavor, Washington State Parks recently adopted a framework called the Parks Rx program—a national campaign to build awareness around nature’s health benefits. Anyone can access the “Write Your Own Nature Prescription” guide at ParkRxAmerica.org, or just grab a pencil and piece of paper. It’s a good idea to use SMART goal principles to make it Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. It’s also a good idea to link the prescription with activities you enjoy. Where will you go? What will you do there? How long will you do it, and how often?  

A prescription for general wellness and disease prevention might look like this: “Read a book at Manito Park for 30 minutes three times per week; walk one mile at Dishman Hills Conservation Area four times a week; snowshoe at Mount Spokane for three hours once a week.” Those hoping to address an existing condition or initiate a lifestyle change should always discuss a nature prescription with a doctor. Time in nature does not replace regular medical treatments. 

The Spokane Public Library offers free “Check Out Washington” backpacks containing a Discover Pass and helpful guides. The City of Spokane and Spokane County websites both offer park-finder tools to help people explore.  

It’s difficult to predict exactly what restorative and preventive benefits an individual may experience with increased access to green spaces. Some changes can’t be immediately detected. For example, research conducted by Dr. Qing Li shows that time spent in nature increases the body’s production of natural killer cells—key immune cells that fight cancer and viruses.   

In the same report, Li points out that trees release volatile organic substances—invisible vapors called phytoncides—that reduce stress hormones when breathed by humans. As stress is linked to conditions like heart disease, depression, and high blood pressure, it’s no stretch to imagine that just breathing deeply in a forested area can have potent impacts on physical and emotional wellness. A self-administered prescription to walk daily along a tree-lined street could benefit health. 

SpoCanopy, an urban forestry project operated jointly by the City of Spokane and The Lands Council, plants trees in urban and low-income neighborhoods with lower-than-average tree canopy coverage to ensure every person in every neighborhood in Spokane has access to trees and green space.  

The modern concept of prescribing nature as a form of medicine originated in Japan in the 1980s. The practice—called shinrin-yoku (forest bathing)—responded to a phenomenon researchers called “technostress,” or unhealthy behavior around technology. 

As technology has proliferated over the last several decades, “technostress” has grown in scope and intensity. Today, according to Dr. Li, it “can arise from all manner of everyday usage, like checking your phone constantly, compulsively sharing updates and feeling that you need to be continually connected. Symptoms may include anxiety, headaches, depression, mental fatigue, eye and neck strain to insomnia, frustration, irritability and loss of temper.”  

A nature prescription involves leaving the phone at home, in the car, or tucked into a bag. A commitment to unplugging for a few minutes in a natural space multiple times each week could be a key element to whatever healing any of us is seeking.  

Olivia Dugenet is a Spokane writer and frequent “Out There Venture” contributor.  

The post Nature Rx: How Washington’s Parks Prescription Program Boosts Health and Well-Being appeared first on Out There Venture.

Cover photo courtesy of Jean Arthur

Sunrise promises a sparkling midsummer morning at 6,644 feet elevation at the summit of Going-to-the-Sun Road at Logan Pass. A dozen vehicles snug into parking spots on an August morning as hikers lace boots for early starts on Glacier National Park’s famous Highline Trail. My family plans to hike another popular trail from the parking lot at Logan Pass, the Hidden Lake Trail to Hidden Lake Overlook, a 2.7-mile climb among wildflowers, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, ermine and the occasional grizzly bear. 

We know from experience that the parking lot—all 236 spots—fills by 8 a.m. on July and August mornings. Until about 7 p.m., drivers will troll the parking lot to find a spot, testing patience and pleasantries. Occasionally arguments break out and rangers must intervene.  

The bustle begs the question: Are we loving our national parks to death? Between resource depletion, crushing roadway overuse, damaging pollution, and resource defilement due to garbage, trampling and theft, park lovers are demanding changes. 

Rangers and park staff can barely keep pace. Since the beginning of 2025, permanent park staff positions decreased by 24% for all parks according to the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association. In Grand Teton National Park, the Trump administration’s budget cuts eliminated 16 of the park’s 17 supervisory positions. 

Glacier, which is America’s 10^th national park and spans 1.2 million acres in northwest Montana, has experienced explosive visitor numbers in the past decade, as have other public lands, challenging the resources, park staff and visitor restraint. 

I have frequented Glacier National Park for five decades. My group and I hit the park early to try to beat the new summer crowds. Tailgate coffee, locally grown fruit and prebaked muffins entice our sleepy crew out of warm vehicles to our truck where my husband cranks up the camp stove and makes a couple of bistro’s worth of coffee. To my family, this morning is reminiscent of two decades ago when there was available parking, room to hike without crowding and lots of wildlife.  

We lock up leftovers and head up the paved trail that climbs to a boardwalk, then dirt, and then a snow-covered route with just a few other humans. Brilliant pink heather hugs the ground. The higher we climb, the more glacier lilies—yellow sprites of the high country—shiver in the breeze. A sizable herd of bighorn sheep skitter across rocks then settle for naps with their lambs.  

With so few boots on turf this morning, it’s hard to imagine the significant increase in visitation that Glacier has endured. In 2024, more than 3.2 million people entered Glacier, its third-highest visitation year ever and an increase of 300,000 visitors from 2023.  

Glacier’s 40 percent increase in visitation from 2012 to 2024 is not an anomaly. According to Zion National Park Superintendent, Jeff Bradybaugh, in a letter to Congress, “There are 423 park units in the National Park System encompassing over 85 million acres across our nation, but visitation trends among the individual parks greatly vary. In 2020, overall visitation dropped to a 40-year low due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.” And then spiked. 

In his statement titled, “Lessons from the Field: Overcrowding in National Parks,” Bradybaugh notes that a third of the national parks saw record visitation during the pandemic as people sought outdoor spaces. In 2021, visitation across all NPS units reached 297 million recreation visits, a year when Utah’s Zion National Park alone saw 5 million visitors for the first time in its history and double the number from 2010. Some mitigation efforts are working. Several parks now use timed entry and ticket systems, including Glacier, which piloted vehicle reservation systems for summer months. Because my crew and I visit Glacier often, we know to use Recreation.gov to purchase a park pass and a Going-to-the-Sun Road ticket.  

On our glorious August morning, the road remained quiet at predawn; we only encountered a pair of motorcyclists who cruised the Sun Road to Logan Pass. But by the time we hiked up to the Hidden Lake Overlook, snapped a few photos and walked back, the parking lot was full and the trail overworked.  

“Pack your patience and plan ahead,” reads Glacier National Park’s webpage, “Tips for Dealing with Crowds.” We’ve also packed out other people’s candy wrappers, broken sunglasses and bad attitudes—a visitor aggressively urged us to rush so they could have our parking spot. We left feeling squeezed and a bit Grinchy about sharing our favorite park.  

For national park gateway communities, the tourism boils down to dollars. According to economists at the University of Montana in Missoula, annual nonresident spending in the state totaled $5.82 billion, a two-year average for annual spending. The Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research found that the region surrounding Glacier saw $2 billion in revenue, while the region surrounding Yellowstone averaged $1.3 billion. Yellowstone’s borders also include Idaho and Wyoming. The two Montana regions collectively saw 57% of nonresident travel spending.  

Oregon park visitor Barbara Nelson and her husband encountered long waits when they entered the park’s west gate at West Glacier this summer, even though they had booked tickets for the road and activities in advance. This was not their first park visit, and they’ve witnessed growing wait times at entrance stations, parking lots, trail heads and concession restaurants. 

“We got stopped in the hot sun and felt crowded,” Nelson recalls. “That morning, we started about 9 or 10 a.m. from West Glacier. A busy, August day. Getting behind those red buses is annoying. We got stopped at [the] top of [the] pass and there was still snow. So we had a snowball fight as we were waiting in traffic.” 

The Red Busses offer interpretive tours on Going-to-the-Sun Road. Free shuttles between Apgar near the west entrance and St. Mary at the east entrance alleviate some vehicle traffic, but hour-long standstills still occur, and not always where snowball fights can ensue. There are just many people who want the Glacier experience—including my crew. The park is on pace for another record-breaking summer as of early August 2025, with early counts showing a sizeable increase of more than 12 percent over 2024.  

Overtourism is defined as the phenomenon whereby certain places of interest are visited by excessive numbers of tourists, causing undesirable effects for the places visited. The global nonprofit Responsible Tourism offers a platform for change, helping travelers and communities take responsibility for making tourism more sustainable.  

Locals grasp at reasons for overtourism: short-term rentals alluring and available which push out long-term renters, post-pandemic need for healthy outdoor travel, alluring Instagram images sans mega throbs of tourists, and the Yellowstone Effect, in which people watch Kevin Costner’s television drama “Yellowstone” and visit Montana, Wyoming and Idaho believing a fictional tale of the American West—and wanting a piece of it.  

The “Yellowstone Effect” brought 2.1 million visitors to Montana in 2021, according to the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research. Fans spent $730 million, yet caused some locals to channel Beth Dutton and mean-mug away visitors—it didn’t work. 

The Tourons of Yellowstone Instagram page, dedicated to documenting bad behavior and egregious offenses, stir up locals’ ire too. The Tourons videos often involve humans (and sometimes their pets) getting too close to wildlife in parks or illegally traipsing near Yellowstone’s extremely hot and fragile hot spring features—and sometimes not surviving. 

Thoughtless visitors trample delicate flora, leave trash and feces, and cause congestion and environmental degradation also felt in housing and infrastructure. Instagrammers sometimes position themselves in precariously dangerous spots for the glory, monetizing the public places. My family witnessed a woman who waded through a swift stream below a waterfall for her ego-driven photo taken by an accomplice. Other visitors, who had to wait 20 minutes for an Instagrammer-free view, did not wish her well.  

The organization Responsible Tourism writes on their website that tourism has breached a tipping point: Hosts and guests are often dissatisfied. “The challenge is to make all destinations sustainable and to avoid spreading the problem. For local government and protected area managers, the key question is: Will the destination use tourism or be used by it?” 

Gateway communities are trying to help visitors find their inner angels. In Jackson, Wyoming, the tourism board adopted a “selfie control” campaign after many tourists got too close to wildlife. Jackson’s “Take care of what takes your breath away” includes signage, advertising and smiling reminders from locals. Bozeman, Montana’s “Becoming Outside Kind” campaign encourages trail etiquette by educating new and longtime residents about how to behave outside. Whitefish, Montana created the “Be a Friend of The Fish” campaign to promote visitor stewardship.  

As Responsible Tourism notes, a global backlash to overtourism and bad behavior has resulted in violence. Protestors in Barcelona, Spain attacked tourists with water guns and called for visitor-accommodation restrictions. Protests against mass tourism and gentrification in Mexico City turned violent, damaging storefronts. Venice banned cruise ships from the city center and instituted a tourist tax. Some cities and attractions now limit the number of visitors, such as Bruges, Belgium, which capped the number of cruise ship arrivals and instead encouraged daytrippers. Solutions remain elusive. 

Summer 2025 saw particularly challenging crowding in Glacier, in part because the much-loved Many Glacier Valley, with its lodge, lakes, campgrounds and trails, underwent extensive utilities reconstruction. Limited parking forced limited access.  

The reward for patience, however, includes spectacular views, cool evenings with remarkable sunsets, and incomparable trails. My crew will wait to camp and hike during the slower season, late September, to avoid the crowds and try to be good stewards of our favorite park. 

Jean Arthur hikes and bikes and boats on public lands and waterways with family, friends and dogs. This fall, she’s picking huckleberries after the early frost sweetens up the hucks and the hues of the backcountry.  

The post Loving a Place to Death: How Overcrowding is Transforming Glacier National Park appeared first on Out There Venture.

At Idaho Forest Group (IFG), conservation isn’t a side initiative—it’s the foundation of our mission. Across every mill, forest, and partnership, we work to responsibly manage natural resources today while preserving them for tomorrow. From trailheads to tree lines, IFG plays a vital role in sustaining the lands, wildlife and waterways that make Idaho unique. 

Our commitment extends through leadership roles in more than 20 conservation-focused groups, collaboration on National Forest plans and direct partnerships with agencies like Idaho Fish & Game and the U.S. Forest Service. 

We back our principles with action: investing in eco-technology, maximizing log utilization, minimizing emissions, recycling water and restoring fire-resilient ecosystems. In 2024, we donated a conservation easement along Prichard Creek to restore an area damaged by historical mining practices and to permanently protect the nearly 2,000 acres of stream and upland habitat from development. 

Just as we care for the land, we care deeply for the people who live and work in our communities. Our teams actively volunteer, and we provide lumber and funding donations for a variety of community organizations. IFG supports rural jobs and provides educational opportunities focused on careers in the forest products industry and the importance of environmental stewardship. Through partnerships with groups like Kaniksu Land Trust and the Idaho Forest Products Commission, we link conservation with public access, outdoor education and community well-being. 

For over 40 years, IFG has worked to ensure Idaho’s forests remain healthy and productive. By uniting sustainable forestry with stewardship and community investment, we protect the landscapes—and the people—that define Idaho’s future. 

The post Safeguarding Idaho’s Lands, Wildlife, Waterways, and Trails: Idaho Forest Group’s Enduring Commitment  appeared first on Out There Venture.

Free Outdoor-Themed Entertainment 

• There are several fee-free days coming up for Washington State Parks (as well as lands managed by Washington Fish and Wildlife and Washington Department of Natural Resources): Sept. 27 marks National Public Lands Day, Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day, and Veterans Day is Nov. 11. Visit Washington parks without a Discover Pass for each of these. 

• Chelan-Douglas Land Trust continues to host monthly guided “Hike for Health” events, with hikes planned on Sept. 13 at Cashmere Canyons Preserve and the final hike of the year on Oct. 11 at Saddle Rock Natural Area. Additionally, the group will partner with the Wenatchee Valley Astronomy Club (supplying telescopes at the event!) for a guided night hike on Sept. 23. 

• Join Inland Northwest Land Conservancy for a free guided hike at Glen Tana in the Little Spokane River Valley on Sept. 13. This recent conservation acquisition is not yet open to the public, so joining one of INLC’s guided hikes is the only way to get a sneak peek.  

Fundraisers, Contests, and Events 

• Dishman Hills Conservancy will host its annual Wild at Heart fundraiser dinner on Sept. 27 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Tickets for the event are available through the DHC website. 

• Join Wenatchee River Institute for its fourth Annual Sunset & S’mores fundraiser on Oct. 1, from 5-7:30 p.m. in Leavenworth. While the event is fee-based, the organization offers “pay what you can” pricing for those wishing to attend. Tickets include dinner, drinks, and organized activities for a family-friendly event. Advance registration required. 

• MedWAR Challenge is coming to Mount Spokane State Park on Oct. 4. Teams of four will tackle an approximately 10-mile course while solving medical scenarios, in an event that is most similar to a Spartan race meeting a wilderness first aid course. A successful team will have a member with a bit of a medical background along with a member who knows a little map and compass (no GPS allowed). Registration of $250 per team includes event t-shirts, post-race dinner, and on-site camping. 

• Washington State photographers, take note. The annual Washington Trails Association photo contest is currently open, with a deadline of Oct. 6. Photographers can submit multiple photographs in each available category for a chance to win fun prizes. There are several main categories, along with a bonus category depicting random acts of kindness captured on trail. See Wta.org for full contest rules and to submit your entries. 

• Have a photo of a National Recreation Trail? American Trails hosts an annual photo contest for photos taken on a designated National Recreation Trail. That deadline is Dec. 15, which gives photographers plenty of time to capture fantastic fall color shots from our region’s trails. 
  
  

Stewardship, Conservation, & Volunteer Opportunities 

• The Idaho chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers will be partnering with OnX for a Public Lands Packout along the lakeshore of the Pend Oreille Wildlife Management Area on Sept. 13. Hike from the Clark Fork Drift Yard Boat Launch, or bring your own boat to explore and lend a hand to clean up the shoreline. The event will start at 9 a.m. and conclude at 1 p.m., followed by a barbecue. 

• Chelan Douglas Land Trust will mark “Make a Difference Day” with a day of maintenance work at Saddle Rock on Oct. 25. 

• Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance is hosting Larch Fest on the Kettle Crest, Oct. 2-5. There are multiple days of riding and socializing, with a trail maintenance project planned for Oct. 4. 

• Friends of Palisades will host its annual fall cleanup event on Oct. 11 from 9 a.m. to noon at Palisades Park west of downtown Spokane. Plan to arrive a little early to enjoy coffee, hot cider, and cookies ahead of the event. 

• Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness will celebrate National Public Lands Day on Sept. 27 with a maintenance project on East Fork Trail #563 followed by a fun cook-out event at the trailhead. The last project of the season will occur on Oct. 1 on the Star Gulch Trail. Advance registration required. 

• Great Burn Conservation Alliance is offering a noble reason to make the trek to Weir Creek Hot Spring on Sept. 20, as they are hosting a beginner-friendly site cleanup activity to mark World Cleanup Day. The group will meet at the Lochsa Lodge to enjoy breakfast, followed by spending a couple hours devoted to the site cleanup, and then participants may choose to stick around for an optional soak in the spring. 

• Idaho Trails Association will celebrate National Public Lands Day on a project with fantastic views. Join them on Sept. 27 for maintenance work on the Chimney Rock Trail. 

• Join members of the Northeast Chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society for a series of fall cleanup events. The group will start on Sept. 5 at Underhill Park in Spokane. On Sept. 13 the focus turns to Polly Judd Park, and on Sept. 19 a project is planned for the Fearn Conservation Area at Riverfront Park. The work will include a general cleanup of each park, along with a main focus of removing invasive plant species in order to replant with native plants. Advance registration is requested. 

• Spokane Nordic will be hosting a series of trail maintenance days, aimed at preparing the Mount Spokane State Park Nordic Trails for early grooming as soon as snow returns to the mountain. Lend a hand Sept. 6, 7, and 27, as well as Oct. 11 and 12. 

• Washington Trails Association will be gradually moving from the mountains toward the valley as the fall progresses, with fall projects planned at Fishtrap for National Public Lands Day on Sept. 27 along with multiple project days at Mount Spokane and Mica Peak throughout September. By October, the work will move to lower areas to provide some fall maintenance for the trails before winter. 

The post Inland NW Trail & Outdoor News  appeared first on Out There Venture.

Cover photo courtesy of Ammi Mdstokke

After years of semi-successful gardening with a low bar, I consider myself a connoisseur of radishes, interbred squashes and edible weeds. The latter being a speciality of mine because weeds are what I most effectively grow. Though I have read many gardening books, I’ve retained very little. If I plant a garden based on companion planting, an aphid plague appears. If I focus on aphid mitigation the next year, some mold appears. And it does not seem to be true that, despite the book’s title, carrots love tomatoes. 

I have decided that the simple foundation of a garden is what supports the amateur gardener in having a less devastating, or expensive, annual experience. Here are my Basic Rules for Winning at Gardening: 

1. Keep out critters. When you’re building your garden, it’s the critters that can destroy months of hard work in a single night. If you have deer, make sure your fence is high enough. If you have rabbits, make sure your fence is narrow enough. If you have raised beds, line them with chicken wire. If you see an aphid, use Neem Oil spray and buy a bunch of ladybugs. If you see slugs, they will make condos out of your cabbage: Sharp mulch, such as pine bark and eggshells, is a great deterrent. Some people call it a garden; I call it a vegetable fortress. 

2. Have the right ingredients. Soil, water, and sun: These are the three ingredients of every plant. Some need more or less, but remember, we’re beginners, so we’ll start with the less finicky frisée before we get to specialized salads. The best gardening investment I ever made was an automatic watering system (known as “my husband”— then he replaced it with a drip system). It was amazing to see my plants still thriving in August long after I cared about gardening anymore. 

3. Start small and pace yourself. It’s true that I dedicated a significant portion of my life each spring to nursing seedlings and drafting gardening diagrams and scouring seed catalogs. By July, I’d be tired of weeding. By late summer, I could hardly bother to water. Consider what parts of gardening you love (harvesting and eating) and which parts you loathe (critter control) and plant your garden accordingly. For example, this spring we’ll dedicate much time to building a new garden, so we’ll purchase starts at the farmers market rather than try to grow them.  

4. Consider the comfort of raised beds. These are amazing when it comes to managing pests, but also lovely for their accessibility benefits. The deep soil allows for dense growing, so you get more garden out of small spaces that are easier to maintain. After much research on metal versus wood, I opted for metal beds this year for their low maintenance, easy movability, and durability. 

5. Grow what you like to eat. Aside from the mental and physical health benefits of gardening, not to mention the potential decrease in your summer lettuce costs and plastic waste, there is nothing quite like wandering into your yard to pick food for dinner. So grow the things you love and slowly expand from there. Just remember, you can only eat so many tomatoes. 

Ammi Midstokke lives on a sunny slope in North Idaho. Her new garden fence can withstand moose, hurricanes and foraging Sasquatch. This summer, she’ll be growing some new radish varieties and maybe even some beets.  

The post 5 Basic Rules for Winning at Gardening  appeared first on Out There Venture.

Cover photo courtesy of Washington DNR

By Bri Loveall 

Think of a big fire. Pull it up in your mind. I can picture the Carlton Complex fire of 2014 in the Methow Valley, when the sun was a constant circle of fiery red, barely visible through the smoky sky, and the AQI (Air Quality Index) hovered in the 500s for weeks. My throat felt raw after only minutes outdoors. I kept Visine in my day bag to alleviate the constant grit I seemed to have in my eyes. The Carlton Complex fire burned a little over a quarter of a million acres in the course of its six-week burn, with almost 3,000 personnel working the fire. And, as you know, there have been many wildfires in the Inland Northwest since then. 

As devastating as it is, wildfire isn’t an inherently bad thing. In fact, fires are an essential part of a healthy forest ecosystem, recycling nutrients back into the soil and clearing out dead or diseased vegetation so that other healthy plants may grow. But the effects of climate change, increased human-caused fires, and other complex dynamics mean that many present-day wildfires are larger, more destructive and difficult to manage.   

Aside from some vague, Hollywood-esque images of firefighters running through a burning forest, I had no real knowledge about how wildland fires were fought. Nor did I understand the complex level of communication and collaboration that happened between multi-jurisdiction agencies, which are dependent upon a healthy working budget and adequate staffing. While budget cuts and seasonal employee layoffs are a routine fixture in any organizational setting, the recent financial decisions of the Trump administration have generated a lot of cause for concern for the coming fire season.  

Monkey Wrenching with Wildland Firefighting and Public Safety 

Initial hiring freezes ordered by the Trump administration in early 2025 sent shock waves of concern through many of the federal and state agencies we rely on to combat wildfires. While wildland firefighters were eventually deemed exempt due to their critical public safety duties, the federal workforce layoffs that followed led some federally funded public land agency employees to take to the internet with tweets, posts and videos lamenting layoffs of critical wildland firefighting support staff, a move they say will hinder wildfire preparedness and response. 

When I spoke with Ryan Rodruck, Public Information Officer with the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR), he assured me that local teams of wildland firefighters would have no trouble managing the fires in their jurisdiction (smaller fires that begin on DNR land) this year.  

Since the DNR is a state agency and adheres to a state budget, it is not affected by federal cuts. In the last three years, 90% of fires in the northeast Washington region have been contained to fewer than 10 acres. This is thanks in large part to the DNR’s aggressive fuel management efforts, forest health management, prescribed burns and other wildfire prevention programs. The concern, Rodruck told me, is in the larger, multi-jurisdiction fires that exceed 10 acres. 

These larger fires are assigned to an incident management team (IMT), a group of people from various agencies: DNR, the Bureau of Land Management, USFS, local fire districts, and even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The people who serve within these organizations typically have day jobs that are unrelated to their roles in fighting wildfires, but they are crucial to the functioning of complex interagency wildfire response teams. With the projected layoffs and budget cuts that multiple public land agencies are experiencing, it’s unclear if the employees with dual roles will be there when they’re needed.  

On the Job as a Wildland Firefighter 

Andrew Stenbeck is a veteran DNR wildland firefighter. During the off season he works with the DNR managing state lands, which includes timber harvest, planting trees, fuel reductions, and firefighting training. During the fire season, Stenbeck is a part of a Type 3 team, one that specializes in responding quickly to local fires and taking over the fire management from local resources.  

As Stenbeck described his 35 years as a wildland firefighter to me, I was surprised by the level of communication happening between multiple public land agencies. At the incident command post, or base camp, a slew of operations management teams (all staffed by members from different agencies) gather morning and night to create an Incident Action Plan, a detailed list that discusses safety, logistics, finances, and media plans. An incredible amount of planning happens before a firefighter ever steps foot onto the fire line, with multiple agencies working together to create a cohesive plan to safely contain a wildfire.  

At an incident command post (ICP) camp, firefighting personnel spend 14 days at a time (but sometimes up to 21 without reprieve), sleeping on cots, in tents, or on the ground as they work nonstop to fight fire. ICPs are usually located a safe yet practical distance from the wildland fire, though Stenbeck says he has been stationed as many as 45 minutes away. “It isn’t ideal,” Stenbeck tells me.  

Rodruck agrees, explaining that driving is the second most dangerous thing firefighters will do during fire season as they move back and forth from base camp to the fire line. Increases in wildlife movement, narrow (and often) gravel roads, as well as general fatigue on behalf of the drivers puts personnel at increased risk for accidents.  

When I ask Stenbeck what he likes about this job, he smiles and says he likes to be outdoors. I try to imagine what the fire line looks like before Stenbeck confirms that yes, it is hot, but the weather is still happening as a fire is raging. During the last fire of the season in 2024, Stenbeck awoke to find frost covering his tent. He then donned his gear—a heavy ensemble that includes Nomex pants and jacket, fire-resistant boots like Nick’s or Whites, as well as a hard hat, water, hand tool, first-aid kit, and fire shelter—and got back to work fighting fire.  

Fire bugs, the nearly 40 species of insects that are drawn to heat and smoke, pose another added risk to firefighters on the line. In the last season alone, Stenbeck watched three firefighters airlifted to medical facilities after entering anaphylactic shock from stings. In one summer, he counted 37 stings himself. Bears, displaced, fatigued, and sometimes injured, remain outside the perimeter of the fire as they search for food, often in the form of a firefighter’s lunch sack. As firefighters traverse on foot toward the fire line, mosquitoes are a near constant whine, and among the litany of precautions a person takes every day, they’ll also be checking for ticks each night.  

Uncertainty as Wildfire Season Approaches 

With recent layoffs across multiple federal agencies, there might be fewer boots on the ground facing those hazards as the summer progresses. For instance the return of Incident Management Team staff meteorologists—team members supplied by the NOAA who are essential to fighting fire—may also be in jeopardy. The meteorologists work closely alongside the DNR and other agencies to give accurate predictions of when fire season might start and how the weather will influence a fire incident.  

“We don’t know what the status of these employees are going to be during this round of layoffs,” Rodruck says. It’s these “small, downstream-type effects,” that will ultimately determine how well agencies are able to fight fires this summer. What will those downstream effects mean for our public lands? According to Rodruck, it’s too early to tell.  

Stenbeck, along with others on his team, will be preparing for the 2025 fire season with the mentality that it isn’t a sprint, but a marathon. “It isn’t a matter of if it starts, but when,” Stenbeck says.  

Will those who are needed make it to the fire line this season? Let’s hope so for the sake of our communities, wildlife and the forests and trails we love. 

Until completing this interview, Bri Loveall had never considered what wildland firefighting looked like. She wishes all firefighting personnel a safe fire season.  

The post Smoke Signals from the Fireline  appeared first on Out There Venture.

The landscape of understanding around mental health is rapidly changing. Where we once were limited to hushed discussions about distant cousins having been checked into asylums, we’re now having more open conversations about the states of our minds.  

Perhaps most importantly, we’re beginning to understand that not being mentally ill does not exactly mean we are mentally well, and that caring for that wellness might need to be an intentional act. This is no less true for those diagnosed with mental illness.  

These days, we’re a society inundated with the unknown impacts of social media and screens; plastics that affect our hormones; information about crises and tragedy occurring real time and globally; the visceral, felt reality of climate change; and yeah, navigating Costco. I’m not sure our brains are evolved enough to handle any of that, not to mention all of that on a Tuesday.  

The World Health Organization suggests that mental wellness is a state of being in which the individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to their community. Perhaps the problem begins right there, because the “normal stresses of life” sounds pretty damn vague and nothing feels normal about life’s stresses right now (see: pandemics, politics, microplastics).  

With that in mind, it is a great time to reevaluate your own mental wellness and maybe set up a bit of a toolkit for support. First of all, grab a copy of Dr. Brown’s book, “Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul.” As a person who struggles to participate in nonsense, understanding the importance of play for the sake of play, fun for the sake of fun, and the benefits of laughter was a game-change in my own self-care strategies.  

Go outside in nature, but don’t always be a warrior about it. Your adrenal glands will thank you for the occasional stroll or, *gasp* sitting on a park bench. And while you’re staring at birds or the slow passage of time on the trunk of a tree, consider the well-established benefits of meditation. I’m not talking about joining an ashram. Just find a soothing voice on an app and tune into a guided session and out of your rambling mind. The Calm app is my favorite and I have an established one-directional love affair with my meditation boyfriend, John, there. 

Set timers for your screens—perhaps connected to electric shock bracelets, especially for news consumption and social media use. Or scrub the latter altogether. Your real friends will call you. This magazine is beautiful in print. Also, manage your self-talk. Erica Barnhart, professor at University of Washington, says most self-talk is trash-talk. “The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you have with yourself.”  

And don’t forget the power of human connection and support systems. Foster relationships that serve you, prune away those that do not. Have more conversations about what mental wellness looks like for you and how you can support it for others. With any luck, you’ll discover one of your friends also loves eating ice cream cones on a park bench. 

Ammi Midstokke maintains her sanity by drinking coffee and running far with her brown dog. This spring, they’re training for the Sun Mountain 50k in the Methow Valley.  

The post Mental Wellness Strategies  appeared first on Out There Venture.

“Invasive mussel introduction and establishment is an imminent threat to our state,” says Justin Bush, WDFW’s aquatic invasive species division manager, in an agency blog about the situation. If these invasives were to become established, mitigation and management costs to vital infrastructure, like drinking water and hydropower, are estimated to cost hundreds of millions annually, he says. “In the last five years, we’ve intercepted 127 invasive mussel infested boats. If just one made it to our waters, we would be addressing the consequences of invasive species introduction today.” 

Invasive mussels and other non-native aquatic species can spread through movement of gear and both motorized and non-motorized watercraft, notes the agency. WDFW says one of the best ways to prevent them from establishing in Washington’s waters is to always clean, drain, and dry your gear, which includes paddles, waders, shoes, life vests, buckets, trailers, and anything else that’s been in the water. Boaters and paddlers should always pull the bilge plug when transporting watercraft and stop at mandatory check stations. 

Environmental threats like increased water pollution and habitat destruction also pose catastrophic threats to threatened and endangered species like salmon and steelhead, WDFW warns. Those impacts can then snowball, negatively impacting populations like resident killer whales that rely on salmon as well as commercial and sport fishing that depend on healthy fisheries.  

It’s no accident that invasive mussels haven’t established in Washington. Decades of prevention efforts throughout the state and nationally in the U.S. and Canada have helped slow the westward spread. Detections of invasive species on watercraft and other aquatic equipment at watercraft inspections stations are a key part of preventing infestation. 

Most western states that operate watercraft inspection stations during the colder months do so with reduced staff and hours, making Spokane one of the few watercraft inspection stations open and fully staffed this time of year. The station is able to operate at normal capacity thanks in part to $3.62 million in additional funding from the Washington state Legislature and federal partners.  

The post Invasive Mussel-Infested Tugboats Intercepted   appeared first on Out There Venture.

Cover photo courtesy of Olivia Dugenet

I was backpacking alone because I had desperately needed a break from my everyday life. I was in the Lewis range of the Montana Rockies, in summer, and I had been rationing a low water supply for a couple of miles. There were no streams at that elevation. Just ragged stone against plump white clouds that stampeded east, shapeshifting as they ran. My thirst compounded with every step. Close to finishing a long climb, I walked in long, fast strides up and over the ridgetop where the wind hit me suddenly with invisible force. 

I stumbled all over the place, shuffling my feet and flailing my arms to maintain balance, but the heavy backpack threw off my center of gravity. I landed hard on my hands and knees and caught my sunglasses with one hand just as the wind ripped them off my face. I shoved them in through the collar of my shirt and speed-crawled to the leeward side of an enormous stone cairn. I sat down, wiggled out of my backpack, and leaned into the stone.  

Some part of me had hoped that immersion in wild nature would produce answers about how to escape the difficulties that had recently plagued me. For example, several days earlier I had accidentally chopped the tip of my thumb off with a kitchen knife. That’s the sort of mishap that makes me want to throw chairs through windows. There were other things: divorce, financial losses, isolation, a child’s health crisis, a car crash, job change, emergency vet, etc. I had handled all that, but I drew the line at a thumb stump, which was now throbbing and wrapped in bloody, dirt-crusted bandages at 7,600 feet.  

I squinted up at the surrounding stone and sky and wondered if I could distill wisdom that amounted to anything more than confirmation bias. I was looking for potent insight grounded in raw physical reality. Sitting there in the dirt, though, all I got was thirstier and farther behind schedule. I recklessly drank my last four ounces of water and stepped back into the barreling wind. 

The trail snaked for miles along a narrow spine, skirting oblivion. Eventually it rose steeply to a lookout platform situated in the middle of nowhere with shock-and-awe views of the surrounding landscape—a massive assembly of towering peaks and arétes, sharp as blades. I scrambled up, uttering expletives to keep my spirit light while gusts hurled me toward the cliff edge. 

An agitated young man stood on the ridge fidgeting and watching me climb. Enormously tall with a wild expression and broad build, he charged toward me. “We’re lost!” he shouted over the wind and waved a GPS device as proof. He blurted out a story about how he’d gotten disoriented and stumbled mistakenly into this unknowable and sinister region. As I was the only other person he’d seen, he was convinced I had also lost my way. 

I don’t know why I believed him. Instantly I felt my heart drop, and dug my phone out of my pack to have a look at my own GPS app. “Where are you heading?” he said. I told him the name of the lake and he shouted in triumph. “I knew it! You are so lost. You’re going the wrong direction. These are the wrong mountains.”  

He held his digital device up so I could see. I leaned in close and studied the one-dimensional black outlines of various peaks that appeared on his screen. Then I looked up and around at the mountains themselves, silent snow-spotted giants. How were the mountains wrong? This guy wasn’t making sense. “Hold on,” I said. “Where are you going?” Watching the worry on his face, I wondered which was more dangerous: getting physically lost in the wild, or mentally lost in a maze of disappointment and despair. 

He told me his destination and I laughed out loud. “You’re not lost,” I said. “I passed that lake earlier today. There is one trail between here and there, and you are on it.” 

“How can that be?” He held up his GPS again.  

“Don’t overthink it,” I said. “I promise you’re on the right track. Just keep going.” 

“But this wind—it isn’t safe. This can’t be right.” he said. 

“That’s true. It isn’t safe,” I said. “This isn’t normal wind. It’s a storm. Be careful out there.” 

I wished him luck and moved on, glad to distance myself from his gloom, but also grateful for the encounter. I thought of Alfred Korzybski, the philosopher and engineer who had offered the simple yet profound observation that “the map is not the territory.” When we find ourselves resisting the challenging terrain of true experience, it’s a clue that we’ve strayed into abstraction. Coming into the trip, I had been sure my difficulties were “the wrong mountains.”   

My mouth imploded with thirst. A few more miles of dry, wind-scattered scree later, my backpack and I were jogging down wildflower hillsides toward the blue lake. I filtered cold, fresh water and marveled at its sweetness, its revitalizing power, its weird, shape-changing properties and the alien feel of it on my lips. The way I was experiencing water felt like . . . potent insight grounded in raw physical reality.  

I walked my whole sweaty, aching body in for a swim. I treaded water with my injured hand suspended above the surface, the aching digit inside its soggy gauze encasement forced into a persistent and involuntary thumbs up. 

Olivia Dugenet is a Spokane writer and frequent backcountry traveler whose left thumb is just a tiny bit shorter than her right. 

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