Conservation
The Prairie Strips of Howard County
Across a single Iowa farm, twelve narrow strips of native prairie are filtering runoff, holding soil, and slowly persuading the neighbours.
weather · The Lead
Pressure Trends and the Walker's Altimeter
A barometric altimeter is also a small weather station. A short guide to reading it that way.
01
This week
In the field
From the editor
"Slow notes from the trail."
02
Dispatches
From the road
03
Beats
Where we file from
04
More reading
Worth your week
05
Stay a while
Long reads of the season
Trails
A Three-Day Section of the South Downs Way
A retired headmaster walks from Eastbourne to Lewes in May, covering twenty-one miles of England's most-walked national trail in unfashionable weather.
Weather
Wind on the Trail: Foehn, Katabatic, and the Valley Breeze
The wind a walker meets is often a local wind. A short guide to the three that matter most.
Maps & Routes
The Cartography of the Fire Perimeter
Wildfire perimeter maps look definitive on the page. The cartographers who make them know they are provisional documents, drawn in conditions that change faster than the ink can dry.
Conservation
The Watershed Keepers of the Upper Clinch
On a slow river in southwest Virginia, a four-person watershed group is monitoring water quality, sediment, and the freshwater mussels that depend on both.
Skills
Weather Reading From a Ridgeline
From a small summit in the Bridger Range one afternoon in late May, Wendell Foss watched a thunderstorm form, mature, and dissipate over the course of seventy minutes. He made the decision to descend at minute twelve.
Field Notes
Five Mornings at a Blind on the Platte
Sandhill crane staging on the central Nebraska river in late March, from a Rowe Sanctuary blind, with a thermos and a notebook.
Wildlife
The Foxes of Suburban Richmond
A long-running study of red fox behavior in the residential neighborhoods of Richmond, Virginia, where the species has become more visible without becoming better understood.
Trails
Three Days Alone on a 28-Mile Wind Rivers Loop
A solo walker covers a small loop in Wyoming's Wind River Range over three days in early June, while the high lakes are still half ice.
06
Masthead
Contributors
The Sunday note
A short letter every Sunday morning.
One piece we published, one piece we read elsewhere, and a sentence on what we're working on next. No ads, no tracking.
Reader letters
What readers write back about.
Corrections, dissents, small additions, the occasional reminiscence about a piece we covered.
Read this week's letters →