Hollis

LATEST ARTICLES ( 440 )

• Mssr. Nicollet & I Consider Glacial Theory in Northeast South Dakota

  

  Courtesy NASA.During my visit to northeast South Dakota last fall, I bumped into the great surveyor Joseph Nicollet and discovered we had similar goals. Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2023 OUTDOORS

• Sica Hollow—whoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oooooooo!!

  

  Tree Spirit?Before my visit to Sica (shee-chah) Hollow in northeast South Dakota, I was warned by the State Parks website that "Sioux legends of Sica Hollow... Read more

  Posted on 08 January 2023 OUTDOORS

• Tree Following: Tree in a Tree & a Geography Challenge

  

  Where was I?The large trees on the shore of this small shallow lake, one of many such lakes in the area, are Plains cottonwoods. Note they have green leaves in... Read more

  Posted on 14 December 2022 OUTDOORS

• Devil's Playground—another Intrusion, This One with Wildflowers

  

  Late afternoon at the Devil's Playground in northwest Utah—my kind of #vanlife.I ended my tour of Utah and Nevada last May with a stop at the Devil's... Read more

  Posted on 08 December 2022 OUTDOORS

• Tree-following Therapy

  

  Quaking aspen near Pole Creek, Laramie Mountains, November.It's November, and in the Laramie Mountains much of the color is gone. We're left with black, brown,... Read more

  Posted on 12 November 2022 OUTDOORS

• House Range: More Than a Tertiary Fault Block

  

  Sun sets on the House Range, west central Utah. Thanks to Mike Nelson for photo and info.Last month I wrote about my stay in the House Range, a large mass of... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2022 OUTDOORS

• For the Times They Are A-changin' (tree-following)

  

  Autumn is hardly as revolutionary as the Sixties, but Dylan's words still come to mind as nights lengthen, days cool, the outdoors goes silent except for the... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2022 OUTDOORS

• Haunted House Range

  

  Camping in a Paleozoic sea in the House Range (#notvanlife).Last May I visited part of the great Paleozoic Sea that covered much of today's Great Basin for... Read more

  Posted on 21 September 2022 OUTDOORS

• Trees Are Our Silent Partners ... (tree-following)

  

  "Trees are our silent partners, sensing us as we move about, providing shelter, offering us beauty, and nurturing and protecting the earth. Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2022 OUTDOORS

• Blue-eyed Marys in the Forest

  

  Blue-eyed Mary, Collinsia parviflora.The piñon forests of the Great Basin lie in a great rain shadow. Air traveling east from the Pacific coast gets sucked... Read more

  Posted on 02 September 2022 OUTDOORS

• Ecology of Dakota Landscapes, a Book Review

  

  Twenty five years ago, Carter Johnson and Dennis Knight were fishing together in eastern South Dakota, where both were born and raised. Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2022 OUTDOORS

• August Tree Following—good News & a Mystery

  

  Balsam poplars c. 0.5 mi west of the Happy Jack Trailhead, Laramie Mountains.Last month I didn't post a tree following report because when I got home from my... Read more

  Posted on 06 August 2022 OUTDOORS

• Geology of Slim Buttes II—a Literary Perspective

  

  [For geological detachment and unconformity at Slim Buttes, see previous post.]The Mystery of Slim Buttesby Danny RosenThe mystery of Slim Buttes is that,laid... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2022 OUTDOORS

• The Puzzling Geology of Northern Slim Buttes

  

  Slip slidin' away?The Slim Buttes of northwest South Dakota are not your typical textbook buttes—not isolated hills with steep sides and flat tops. Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2022 OUTDOORS

• Wildflowers at Slim Buttes

  

  There are flowers in the grass among the Castles in the Gap in the Buttes on the prairie.In Harding County in northwest South Dakota, roughly 40 miles east of... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2022 OUTDOORS

• The Charm of Northwest South Dakota

  

  "... only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would only be sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2022 OUTDOORS

• Belated Tree-following at Fossil Lake

  

  A lake in southwest Wyoming, lined with palm trees!This month there's little to report about the trees I'm following aside from a bit of green in the aspen... Read more

  Posted on 08 June 2022 OUTDOORS

• Pioneering Botanist Frank Tweedy, from Boom to Bust

  

  Tweedy's Pussypaws, Lewisiopsis tweedyi, is one of at least 35 species named for topographer and botanist Frank Tweedy. Thayne Tuason photo. Read more

  Posted on 27 May 2022 OUTDOORS

• Return to the Great Paleozoic Sea

  

  Tiktaalik, what were you thinking?! Zina Deretsky, NSF.In the midst of planning a tour of Paleozoic time in the Great Basin—a way to escape from this confusing... Read more

  Posted on 10 May 2022 OUTDOORS

• Spring Has Arrived in the Laramie Mountains :)

  

  I have good news! When I visited the trees I'm following this year—a balsam poplar and a quaking aspen in the Laramie Mountains—I found persistent snow but... Read more

  Posted on 08 May 2022 OUTDOORS