Articles

For dry-fly creek freaks, it's the best time of the year

Stalking desert rainbows on Idaho's Lost River

by Chris Hunt - Wednesday, Aug 21st, 2019

Photo: Chris Hunt

On a map, it doesn’t look all that far. A quick jaunt up the freeway. A race across a sea of potato fields and a good section of the Idaho National Laboratory, where plans are in place to build a dozen modular nuclear reactors to help power some 36 western communities starting in less than a decade. Finally, there’s the run up the river valley to where the desert meets the Lemhi Range.

Scott intros new Sector fly rods, successor to the wildly popular Meridian series

The heralded Colorado rod maker introduces a new saltwater-targeted flagship series

by Chad Shmukler - Wednesday, Aug 14th, 2019

Photo: Captain Shane Smith.

Scott's Meridian is perhaps the most celebrated saltwater-focused fly rod series produced in the last decade. Or longer. When the Meridian hit the streets in 2015, it won virtually every award it was eligible for, well-respected industry personalities like Kirk Deeter called it "the best saltwater fly rod ever made," and Popular Mechanics even featured the Meridian and its technology in an article that called it the "fly rod that makes you a better fisherman."

Patagonia used 10,000,000 plastic bottles to make its new Black Hole bags

The iconic brand is on a mission to go 100% recycled

by Chad Shmukler - Monday, Aug 12th, 2019

Photo: Patagonia

Did you know that the clothing industry pumps more carbon into the air—roughly 1.2 billion tons—than all international airplane flights combined? The creation of materials used throughout the clothing and apparel industry, whether natural or synthetic, is a carbon-intensive process, and one most often powered by coal-fired power plants. Using recycled materials can prevent an enormous amount of carbon from ending up in the atmosphere. And that's why Patagonia is on a mission to completely eliminate virgin materials from its manufacturing.

Blue sky guilt

Good weather in the age of new normals

by Todd Tanner - Friday, Aug 9th, 2019

On the way to the Missouri (photo: Chad Shmukler).

We’ve all heard stories about people who walked away from a horrific plane crash, or who came down off the mountain when their companions didn’t, or who returned home from Iraq or Afghanistan when so many of their fellow patriots made the ultimate sacrifice. Sadly, some of them end up suffering from “survivor’s guilt,” which the psychologist and writer Diana Rabb once described as “something that people experience when they’ve survived a life-threatening situation and others might not have.” It seems they can’t help but ask “Why me?

On fire

Decades of fire suppression and climate change have turned parts of the West into a tinder box

by Chris Hunt - Thursday, Aug 8th, 2019

Photo: Phil Roeder / cc2.0

We had just topped Tincup Pass headed east toward Star Valley and, eventually, the Wyoming Range to chase cutthroats, when I noticed a thin, wispy line of smoke rising from the crest of the Caribou Range to our north.

As we rounded a bend in Highway 34, full-on flames appeared high atop the mountain. A lodgepole appeared to be fully engulfed in flame—it burned furiously amid the sea of green along the slope. The night before, the wind kicked up and it rained a bit, but lightning lit up the evening sky at a steady clip.