In June, my wife and I went to the upper valley of Eagle Creek together, from the place called Boulder Park. There is no longer the resort that is shown on old USGS topographic maps. That improvement (its removal) must have happened shortly before we settled in Oregon and set up camp for the long term, about 26 miles downstream, about 26 years ago, for the map says "field checked 1987."

In early March of 2019, six eastern Oregon counties submitted a petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture asking that the Maheur and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests be exempted from the 2005 Travel Planning Rule. In the meantime, every other National Forest in the country has completed the process.

During the first few weeks of summer, we're giving attention to pollinators, especially bumblebees, as part of the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas.

Camp out to connect with each other in a rare ecosystem, to celebrate solstice, and to help our partner Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation gather data about bumblebee populations in remote parts of our mission area.