While studying the snow science of avalanches, Dr. Ian McCammon began researching avalanche decision making processes used by backcountry skiers, paying special attention to resulting deaths. He expanded those studies into how people assess risks in an array of outdoor activities. Friday night he’ll share his observations with us.

The Returning Rapids Project with Mike Dehoff

The Returning Rapids Project is a group of river-loving folks based in Moab, Utah. Their project seeks to document the recovery of the Colorado River in Cataract Canyon, Upper Glen Canyon and the San Juan‒areas once inundated by a full, but now receding, Lake Powell reservoir. Check out their remarkble findings.

With Lake Powell receding, the Colorado River above Glen Canyon Dam is changing rapidly in dramatic and unexpected ways. Buried rapids are rising and channels are reappearing. The Colorado River is righting itself from this inundation.  But there are also emerging features that pose a potential threat to riparian ecosystems, archaeological sites, and reservoir management. The first group to observe and document these changes is the Returning Rapids Project, a group of river guides turned citizen scientists, who work in partnership with scientific researchers.

 Mike DeHoff leads The Returning Rapids Project. According to this month’s feature article in Rolling Stone Magazine, “Without DeHoff, this environmental miracle may have gone entirely unnoticed on the national stage.”    https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/lake-powell-cataract-canyon-rapids-returning-1234959159/

 DeHoff will present his team’s latest findings on how homeostasis is at play in this environment, and the challenges which lie ahead in managing what he terms as our diminishing water savings account, Lake Powell.

This lecture is produced together with Conserve Southwest Utah, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, the Glen Canyon Institute and the Returning Rapids Project.

150 Years of Questionable Endeavors with Brad Dimock

 Navigating the rapids of Grand Canyon began in the 1860s. Although most boaters turned to the more practical inflatable rubber boat after they became available in the late 1940s, there is a surviving faction that quixotically prefers to run wooden boats. Brad Dimock, a Grand Canyon boatman for a half century, researched the evolution of wooden boat designs, built replicas of each iconic style, then actually rowed them through Grand Canyon. In this humorous, informative, and mildly horrifying talk, he will take you through that story, illustrated with historic and modern footage of the boats in action.

 Brad began running Grand Canyon in 1971 and never had the sense to move on to something more respectable. For a decade he spent his winters running international rivers in South America, Central America, and Africa. He later penned biographies of three iconic boaters, each a winner of the National Outdoor Book Award. About twenty years ago he began building boats—historic replicas and new variations of modern dories. He now teaches boatbuilding around the country and operates Fretwater Boatworks in Flagstaff—the most prolific producer of whitewater dories in the country.With Lake Powell receding, the Colorado River above Glen Canyon Dam is changing rapidly in dramatic and unexpected ways. Buried rapids are rising and channels are reappearing. The Colorado River is righting itself from this inundation.  But there are also emerging features that pose a potential threat to riparian ecosystems, archaeological sites, and reservoir management. The first group to observe and document these changes is the Returning Rapids Project, a group of river guides turned citizen scientists, who work in partnership with scientific researchers.

Two of America’s finest writers have also proved prescient. David began writing about crossover diseases beginning with Ebola, then HIV, and now COVID. Betsy embedded with Cliven and Ammon Bundy’s group before their Malheur occupation (listen to her podcast here “American Zion.” Each offer troubling insights into what has proven to be two critical strands of our current imbalance, the physical and our beliefs. Together on Monday night they’ll discuss a further, disturbing emerging trend: What has gone so very wrong that we believe increasingly bizarre, and indeed damaging stories?

Check out a brief video of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRtXrUvhslc

BLOOD RIVER‒Music & Musings with Craig Childs & Greg Istock was a brilliant evening of improvisations between noted naturalist author Craig Childs and musician Greg Istock, riffing on ideas of flow and change.

Craig Childs has published more than a dozen critically acclaimed books, including “Tracing Time,” “Stone Desert,” “Virga & Bone,” and more. He will speak about the rock art of the Colorado Plateau and the wonders of a winter in Canyonlands in his newest books.

Greg Istock provided a hypnotic musical interpretation that spoke to the places and experiences in Craig's writing. Greg’s recent work, composing and performing with 3hattrio, focused on interpreting America’s Southwest deserts: http://www.3hattrio.com/

This event was presented as part of a Canyon Community Conversations series and sponsored by the Zion Canyon Mesa,  Zion National Park Forever Project, and Torrey House Press.

Please join Zon Canyon Mesa, Zion Forever and Torrey House Press for “Creative Tensions: Wild Words & Wild Places,” an interactive community conversation with Kase Johnstun, Laura Tohe, and Kirsten Johanna Allen. Using a format known as “creative tensions,” host Kase Johnstun will lead participants Laura Tohe and Kirsten Johanna Allen, as well as the audience, through this unique approach to group dialogue. Creative Tensions encourages openness and inspires empathy as we explore topics that lie at the heart of what it means to be human.

Laura Tohe is the Navajo Nation Poet Laureate and an award-winning poet. Her books include “No Parole Today,” “Making Friends with Water,” “Sister Nations,” “Tséyi/Deep in the Rock,” and “Code Talker Stories.”

Kase Johnstun is a novelist and essayist who lives and writes in Ogden, Utah. His novels “Let the Wild Grasses Grow” (October 2021) and “Cast Away” (coming in 2024) are published by Torrey House Press. He teaches at the Creative Nonfiction Foundation, the Graduate School in Creative Writing for Southern New Hampshire University, Barton Community College, and Weber State University.

Kirsten Johanna Allen is the Publisher and Co-Executive Director of Torrey House Press. Since co-founding THP in 2010, Kirsten has published more than 70 fiction and nonfiction titles and continues to oversee acquisitions, editing, production, and marketing.rite something here

Here’s a link to a creative tensions event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MttYjJil68

*NOTE: Covid precautions and pre-conditions to follow soon. We intend to err on the side of caution. The event may be outdoors depending on the weather, and masking is likely if the event is indoors.

Can something that is inherently placeless help us save our most important places?
The answer, believes Buntin, is yes. In this lecture, the journal’s founder and primary editor will discuss how Terrain.org–the world’s longest publishing online environmental literary journal–came to be, how it has evolved to be more responsive in our rapidly changing physical and political environment, and the imperatives and opportunities for Terrain.org and other digital media to help preserve our most important landscapes.

Register in advance for this webinar:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lZuCkwhbTqyY-13ZSTyaCQ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Simmons Buntin is a project manager, editor, writer, publisher, marketer, communications manager, team leader, facilitator, thinker, creator, dog walker, and all-around good guy.

He is the editor-in-chief of Terrain.org, which he founded in 1997. He is also executive director and president of the board of Terrain Publishing, the small parent nonprofit organization that provides the business structure for Terrain.org and related educational, scientific, and literary activities.

Simmons is the co-editor of the anthology Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy and the author of a book of community case studies — Unsprawl: Remixing Spaces as Places — as well as two books of poetry published by Ireland’s Salmon Poetry: Bloom and Riverfall. He has also published literary and technical writing, as well as a few photographs in such venues as Orion, ISLE, Kyoto Review, North American Review, and Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society. He also teaches the occasional course at the University of Arizona Poetry Center and lectures on web project management, community design and sustainability, editing, and writing.

Currently, Simmons is the director of marketing and communications for the College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona. In that capacity, he is responsible for marketing, branding, communications, media relations, and storytelling for the college and its programs. For more than a decade, he was also president of Ocotillo Design, though that side business is now static.

Simmons is certified by the Project Management Institute as a Professional Project Manager (PMP), the highest certification for the project management profession. He received his undergraduate degree in political science from Auburn University, his Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Colorado at Denver (where he was chosen as the program’s outstanding 1997 graduate and his thesis on redeveloping suburban downtowns using principles of sustainability won an American Planning Association – Colorado award), and his MFA in creative writing (nonfiction) from the University of Arizona. He also holds a certificate in energy management from North Carolina State University.

https://www.terrain.org/
https://www.simmonsbuntin.com/

*NOTE: This event will be indoors and masks will be required of all attendees. We will update this page if Covid precautions change. We intend to err on the side of caution.

To watch this conversation via Zoom, please click here.

Or copy/paste this into your browser: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nYg9uVqbRUKL3HLxToQ6Iw

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

A lifelong interest and concern for trees led Dr. Nalini Nadkarni to an academic career to study and understand trees, and to innovate activities and programs that raise awareness of the importance of trees and nature to others.

Dr. Nadkarni is a rainforest ecologist, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a science communicator. She was a faculty member at The Evergreen State College for 20 years, and in 2011, joined the University of Utah as a Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education. She received her B.S. degree from Brown University and her Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship, the 2011 NSF Public Service Award, and the 2012 AAAS Award for Public Engagement, and the 2013 Carr Medal for Conservation. Her research concerns the ecological roles of canopy-dwelling biota in forest ecosystems. She has published over 100 scientific articles and four scholarly books.

She is deeply interested in public engagement of science, and has given two TED talks, and has been highlighted in magazines such as National Geographic, Glamour, and Playboy Magazine. She created the “Research Ambassador Program” to train scientists to engage the public in non-traditional venues, such as churches, pre-schools, tattoo parlors, and sports stadiums. In 2005, she co-founded the Sustainability in Prisons Project, which brings science, scientists, and nature to incarcerated men and women, and which is now being expanded to a national level.

https://nalininadkarni.com/