At the end of a dirt road along the northeastern edge of Montana's Crazy Mountains, a simple sign warns visitors they are now entering private property. For fifth-generation Montanan Brad Wilson, the notice marks a defeat with implications far beyond the Crazies. "The fate of our public lands and our rights are in jeopardy right now," Wilson told Floodlight.
The fact that the Burns Paiute and Bannock Shoshone tribes are still battling our government and politicians for protection of the sagebrush steppe habitat and our native sage grouse isn't spiritually uplifting.
I'm not so sure that I've changed. I do not believe that we're going to go out and wholesale land from the federal government. Federal law says that we can't do that from the BLM itself.
By midwinter, Los Angeles is defined less by cold than by light. Cool, clear mornings give way to afternoons shaped by the low winter arc of the sun, painting the mountains in long shadows and the sky in improbable color. And as that low light settles in, my whole body shifts in spirit. Somewhere deep in the limbic system, a synapse fires like a flare, tracing the old circuitry of migration and memory - that annual pull toward the wide-open deserts of the American Southwest.
What begins as a high-stakes ski expedition quickly evolves into an exploration of the "public land paradox"-millions of acres that technically belong to all Americans, yet remain unreachable because of blocked access points, disputed easements, or unclear boundaries. Post leads a small crew of athletes, including snowboarder Eric Jackson and skier Emilé Zynobia, through some of the most remote terrain in the Lower 48.
In June, when Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee moved to force a sell-off of up to 3.2 million acres of public land, he insisted he was solely interested in combatting America's housing crunch and that the bill only targeted "unused, garden-variety" federal parcels - not national parks, wilderness areas and other "crown jewel" lands. Few bought what Lee was trying to sell.
It was March 2025, a little over a month after Outside Magazine had laid Keyes off as editor-in-chief. He'd been at Outside since 2007. "I really thought I was done with journalism, just because it's been such a roller coaster," he told me. But still, in the back of his mind, he had the germ of an idea for a newsroom dedicated to covering public lands.
In June, a long-standing effort to sell off massive chunks of federal land grew closer to fruition than ever before when a provision mandating such sales was slipped into President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill." The bill passed, and selling public lands easily could have followed. But it didn't, largely due to a fierce public outcry led not just by pro-public land progressives but by a surprisingly broad coalition that included horseback riders, ATVers, backpackers, birdwatchers, hunters, anglers and tribal nations
In the latter part of the 19th century, prospectors flocked to the Red Mountain Mining District in southwestern Colorado, staking hundreds of 10-acre claims alongside streambeds, on aspen-covered slopes and just about anywhere else in the "public domain" they thought might hold gold or silver. After five years, federal mining laws would allow them to patent, or take title to, the claims they wanted.
Keep Big Sur Wild maintains 'all capacity has already been exhausted' according to the land use plan. It allowed for a maximum of 300 units to be built. By our count, the cap has been exceeded by at least 5 units.'
'If approved as currently written, the provision could lease in perpetuity land near Minnesota's Boundary Waters wilderness, an enormous complex of pristine lakes and untrammeled forests, to Twin Metals Minnesota.'
I think it was just a combination of how powerless you feel in the sense when you're met with natural disasters. There's a lot of resilience, both in the natural world and in human communities, that comes together after natural disasters.
