Hollis

LATEST ARTICLES ( 441 )

• Beach-combing 11,000 Feet Above Sea Level

  

  My old friend Sparky, on an early Proterozoic beach in southeast Wyoming.West of Laramie, Highway 130 crosses the rolling grasslands of the valley bottom for... Read more

  Posted on 24 August 2016 OUTDOORS

• The Night's Alluring Advertising

  

  Oenothera nuttallii.I awoke in the middle of the night to a powerful fragrance emanating from the kitchen—a mix of jasmine and wintergreen and the benzyl... Read more

  Posted on 16 August 2016 OUTDOORS

• Trees on a Fold

  

  “Forest” on Hutton Lake, next to pale sandstone outcrops. Pattern on lake is windblown waves.Intent on following my serviceberry tree, neglected since March, I... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2016 OUTDOORS

• Fecund Fireweed’s Far-flung Seeds

  

  0.065-0.069, 9, 40, 81, 80,000 and 8,980,000—just a few of fireweed’s impressive numbers.Last week I visited the railroad garden west of my house, and... Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2016 OUTDOORS

• Beauty Amid Destruction

  

  Year #25, dog #3. For 25 years we’ve walked the dirt road to the river—a morning ritual. It runs along railroad tracks that serviced the old packing sheds. Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2016 OUTDOORS

• What’s Your Pleasure? South Pass City Or Miner’s Delight?

  

  In 1868, a gold rush hit the southern Wind River Mountains. Hundreds of men infected by gold fever poured into the gulches, staking claims. Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2016 OUTDOORS

• Should There Be Trees Where Once There Were None—even Though Once (as Now)...

  

  Cottonwoods, boxelder and willow along the Laramie River at Fort Laramie, on a hot day in 2016.In southeast Wyoming, on the Laramie River just above the... Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2016 OUTDOORS

• Yermo--a Flamboyant and Mysterious Rare Plant

  

  Wyoming high desert with red indian paintbrush, blue larkspur, and lots of yellow flowers (in foreground; click on image to view). But where's yermo? Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2016 OUTDOORS

• Plants & Rocks: South Pass Rockcress, South Pass Granite

  

  The lineup.At the southern end of the Wind River Mountains near South Pass—where thousands of travelers on the old Oregon Trail crossed the Continental Divide... Read more

  Posted on 01 July 2016 OUTDOORS

• Granite with the Appearance of Irregular Lumps of Clay

  

  I spent last week on the southern edge of North America. But I wasn’t surfing or beach-combing or sipping margaritas on white sand by a sparkling blue-green sea. Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2016 OUTDOORS

• Northwest Nebraska During Peak Mammal

  

  A Paleocastor walks into a phone booth … (already heard this one?)Take Nebraska Highway 29 from Mitchell north to Harrison and you will drive through miles and... Read more

  Posted on 14 June 2016 OUTDOORS

• Pixelmator-ed Trees

  

  Early June is the time for a tree-following report but … once again I’ve neglected my service berry. It’s become obvious that I picked the wrong tree. It’s too... Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2016 OUTDOORS

• Geo-challenge in Space and Time

  

  The American Serengeti. Where are we ... and when?Be forewarned, happy scavenger—good times never last.The rolling land is covered in grass, for as far as the... Read more

  Posted on 03 June 2016 OUTDOORS

• Geopoetry: Counter Currents, by Danny Rosen

  

  What lies on the counter does not lie, utters no false word, speaks volumes …The edge of an indurated ash spear point says, 100,000 years ago some man he sat... Read more

  Posted on 30 May 2016 OUTDOORS

• Rock Gardens at Scotts Bluff

  

  Scotts Bluff mid-distance, viewed from the Wildcat Hills in northwest Nebraska.Between 1914 and 1918, concerned citizens of Nebraska contacted the Department... Read more

  Posted on 25 May 2016 OUTDOORS

• A Mysterious Contact (Letter to the Earth)

  

  Scotts Bluff in northwest Nebraska, viewed from the Wildcat Hills where I recently camped.It hadn’t been dark long when a loud wailing awoke me. Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2016 OUTDOORS

• Tree-photography, in Lieu of Tree-following

  

  Cottonwoods in spring; Laramie, Wyoming. The middle tree has a magpie nest.I’m a tree-following slacker, with no monthly report. Read more

  Posted on 09 May 2016 OUTDOORS

• The Great Aquifer is Leaking

  

  “Visit Nebraska. Visit Nice.” (more here)Nebraska is nice, as the Nebraska Tourism Commission says, but why are they so modest? It’s more than nice—spectacular... Read more

  Posted on 03 May 2016 OUTDOORS

• Citizen Scientists Awake—We Have Wildflowers!

  

  Laramie botanists are emerging from hibernation, hungry and irritable, in critical need of floral sustenance. But while other plant lovers are gaily posting... Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2016 OUTDOORS

• Re-reading John Muir

  

  John Muir in his mid-30s, ca 1875. Source.In 1969, the exciting ideas transforming the public consciousness finally reached my small conservative working-class... Read more

  Posted on 21 April 2016 OUTDOORS