Author: Eric Newell

Eric Newell taught 5th and 6th grade in Logan School District for 17 years and has worked as the Director of Experiential Learning at Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the Utah State University campus since 2015. He facilitates outdoor field programs that give relevance to state curriculum standards for students, kindergarten through sixth grade. He is a river runner, skier, mountain biker, hiker, backpacker, and the author of Idaho’s Salmon River: A River Runner’s Guide to the River of No Return. Eric volunteers for Nordic United, is on the Board of Directors for Stokes Nature Center and is a board member of the Friends of The John Wesley Powell River History Museum. Eric recently contributed to UPR's Access Utah: May 18, 2026, Superimposed Landscapes in Big Bend National Park and March 11, 2025, Opinion: The muddy boots and calloused hands of public servants
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Summer School: How to Make Tent?

Writers at work. Jackson Lake sunset Grand Teton National Park Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Writers at work.
Jackson Lake sunset
Grand Teton National Park
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Years ago, when I taught at Mount Logan Middle School in northern Utah, we ran two-week outdoor-based summer school programs. The model, “Bringing Literature to Life,” was the mastermind of two now-retired teachers, Dave Anderson and Bryce Passey.

Students on the move. High Creek Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Students on the move.
High Creek
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

On the Trail Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer On the Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

High Creek Trail Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer High Creek Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

High Creek Trail Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer High Creek Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

A student reads a book during a trail break Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer A student reads a book during a trail break
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Writing on the trail Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Writing on the trail
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

How to Make Tent Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer How to Make Tent
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

High Creek Lake Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer High Creek Lake
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Crossing the High Creek Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Crossing the High Creek
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Sunset Moonrise Grand Teton National Park Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Sunset Moonrise
Grand Teton National Park
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Wes, the 6th grader who reshaped what I believed was possible Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Wes, the 6th grader who reshaped
what I believed was possible
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Teachers offered a variety of summer courses around this theme—all were funded by grants. Each session was based on a book. The idea was to bring the book to life. For example, a couple of technology teachers read October Sky with students and built and launched rockets on the soccer field. PE teachers offered a course called Extreme Sports. They read Maniac Magee and played all the sports Maniac plays in the book. Other courses, like “Say it with Puppets,” were offered based on teachers’ expertise and interests.

These summer school programs were offered to incoming sixth graders as a way to build their confidence, boost their reading skills, familiarize them with the middle school, foster friendships with peers, and build trust with teachers. Learning was fun and engaging and over the years, thousands of students fears and anxiety of transitioning to the middle school were dissolved.

Dave, Bryce, John Gregory, and I offered a course called “River Rats.” The first week students learned to canoe, hike, and spent two days backpacking up High Creek to Naomi Peak. This is a brutally hard trail for first time eleven and twelve-year-old backpackers, but we had a system. We’d walk until they were tired. Then we’d sit down in the shade, pass out snacks, and read a chapter or two of a book. When kids began to fidget, we’d shoulder our packs and hike again. We repeated the pattern for about eight hours until we arrived at our campsite. By the end of the day, kids didn’t realize how far they had traveled, they just knew they were tired. We also taught writing throughout the session—a favorite aspect of the curriculum for me.

The second week of “River Rats,” we camped in Grand Teton National Park for three days, paddling canoes on String Lake, hiking to Taggart Lake, and rafting mild sections of the Snake River. Weaving in our literacy theme all the while.

We ran two to four sessions of River Rats each summer for thirteen consecutive years. Memories abound of students who had major breakthroughs, of wildlife encounters, of learning moments, of rocks stashed in packs, and connections with people and the land.

A half dozen Cambodian refugees signed up for River Rats one summer. They spoke hardly a word of English and didn’t have any idea what they had actually signed up for. But they showed up every day and smiled and laughed and learned and made friends. I still remember their names and their faces. One, who I encountered years later, was completing her degree to become a teacher.

Another summer, three Chinese boys (whose parents were teaching Engineering courses at USU for a year), stood around a tangled mess of tent poles and tent parts in a high mountain meadow. Perplexed, one of them said to me, “How to…..make tent?” All of us burst out in laughter and I helped them “make” their tent in the yellow-orange alpenglow as a Cache Valley summer sunset lit up the sky.

We have stories of accommodating kids in wheelchairs, of kids building friendships across cultural barriers of all kinds. There were kids in tears who wanted to give up, kids who were terrified of water, kids who had never camped—but each found the strength to rise up and complete the journeys.

One summer a parent reached out to me before a session and said that his son had a prosthetic leg. I explained that his son should be able to do everything except for the overnight backpack.
“Oh, he’ll be fine,” the father said, “Just treat him like any other kid.” And we did. The boy didn’t mutter a single complaint the whole way, over ten miles of trail and 4,500 feet of elevation gain—with a full pack on his back.

I gained a new hero that week.

I became an educator because I hoped to have an impact on future generations—but I did not anticipate the profound impact my students would have on my own life.

I’m Eric Newell and I’m wild about Utah and the power of outdoor programs in public schools to change lives.

Team Work Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Team Work
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin as well as Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell & Lyle Bingham

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell

Spinelli, Jerry, Maniac Magee, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, November 1999, https://www.amazon.com/Maniac-Magee-Jerry-Spinelli/dp/0316809063

Hickham, Homer, October Sky, Dell, February 16, 1999, https://www.amazon.com/October-Sky-Coalwood-Homer-Hickam/dp/0440235502

Mount Logan Discovery Google Site: http://MountLoganDiscovery.org/

Mount Logan Discovery on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mountlogan.discovery/

Mt Naomi Wilderness is part of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/uinta-wasatch-cache

Grand Teton National Park, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/index.htm

How to Set Up a Tent, Expert Advice, REI Co-op, https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/tent-set-up.html

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The Land of 10,000 Lakes

Eric views rapids Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
Nate Newell views rapids
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Nate Newell pulling in front of canoe Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
Nate Newell pulling in front of canoe
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Nate pulls canoe on shore Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Nate pulls canoe on shore
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Nate takes a break Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Nate takes a break
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Nate Newell with Eric Newell providing rudder Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Nate Newell with Eric Newell providing rudder
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Portaging Path Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Portaging Path
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Eric and Nate Newell portage canoe Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Eric and Nate Newell portage canoe
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Portaging the Canoe & Contents Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Portaging the Canoe & Contents
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Eric portaging the Canoe Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Eric portaging the Canoe
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Nate in Front Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Nate in Front
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Minnesota, in the Dakota language (mnisota or mní sóta) translates to “sky-tinted water.”

A year ago, my alarm blared in the pitch-darkness of the bunkhouse at Packsack Canoe Trips on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

5 AM comes fast.

I turned off the alarm, swung my legs out of my sleeping bag, and planted my bare feet on the cold plywood floor. I turned on the light. My adult son, Nate, squinted at me from the adjacent bunk. Flashing a groggy grin, he muttered, “That was a short night.”

The day before we drove from Minneapolis to Ely, Minnesota. After a late start and a dinner stop, we drove the last couple hours in the dark, down State Highway 1—the Voyageur Highway—a narrow two-lane strip of asphalt, with no shoulder, and crowded in on either side by endless forests.

Our forecast was for highs in the 40’s, a stiff wind, and scattered rain showers. If I didn’t live 1400 miles away, I would have been happy to wait to paddle for another day, but this was the window of time we had. And, as the Eagles sang so profoundly, “We may lose and we may win, but we may never be here again.”

Most canoe trips into the Boundary Waters are days to weeks long, but you can get a good sampling in a long day on the water.

By 7 AM we were at the Fall Lake boat ramp where our rented Kevlar canoe was waiting for us, as promised. All our good paddling gear was back in Utah, so we placed our day packs in garbage bags to keep them dry, and pushed off into a headwind, which also meant no mosquitos.

Traditionally the homelands of the Anishinaabe people—also known as the Ojibwe or Chippewa, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness includes more than 1,000 interconnected lakes, extends for 150 miles along the US/Canadian border, and adjoins Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park. Combined with Voyageur National Park, the three areas create nearly 2.5 million acres of internationally protected land, lakes, forests, and waterways that connect to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. In April, a twenty-year mining ban in the vicinity was overturned that poses a risk to the pristine waters.

The Boundary Waters is the most visited Wilderness Area in the United States, but not on a day like this. Nate and I zipped our jackets up, put our heads down, and paddled towards an island ahead that provided some refuge from the wind and a chance to rest. We continued picking our route this way, finding the sheltered coves and shorelines when possible and powering into the wind when we had to.

We portaged Newton Falls in a drizzle, then worked our way across Newton Lake, and portaged Pipestone Falls to Pipestone Bay on Basswood Lake. We paddled to an obscure portage route that led us to Azion Lake—a small lake 150 vertical feet above Basswood Lake. We ate lunch on the shore in light rain. The wind died down and we paddled a lap around this double-lobed lake on glassy water with several loons.

For our return voyage we had a light tailwind or no wind. The portages were long enough that we were grateful we paid extra for the Kevlar canoe rental. All in all, we paddled twelve miles, made six portages (three each way), paddled on four lakes, and I plucked three ticks off my pants. Nate seemed unbothered that they liked me more than him.

Though we were a bit soggy, both of us were smiling as we finished out, just a father and son paddling in sync, moving across the dark glassy water, tinted by a gray sky overhead.

I am Eric Newell and I am wild about wild lands in Utah and beyond.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin and Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman.
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell

Boundary Waters Canoe Trips & Log Cabins In Ely, Minnesota, PackSack Canoe Trips and Log Cabins by Nicholas Ott, https://www.packsackcanoetrips.com/

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, 2026 Explore Minnesota Tourism, MN.gov,
https://www.exploreminnesota.com/destinations/boundary-waters

Explore Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness,
https://www.friends-bwca.org/explore/

Quetico Provincial Park, Camp Quetico, Atikokan, Ontario, https://queticoprovincialpark.com/

Voyageurs National Park-Minnesota, US National Park System, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/voya/index.htm

Save the Boundary Waters , SavetheBoundaryWaters.org, Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness (NMW), https://www.savetheboundarywaters.org/

Lawrence, Beatrice, Why mining in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters matters to Wisconsin, Wisconsin Public Radio, April 30, 2026, https://www.wpr.org/news/why-mining-minnesotas-boundary-waters-matters-wisconsin

Kraker, Dan, Trump ends ban on mining near the Boundary Waters, Minnesota Public Radio News, April 27, 2026, https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/04/27/trump-ends-ban-on-mining-near-the-boundary-waters

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Elusive Wolves

Wolf Footprints in the River of No Return Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Wolf Footprints in the River of No Return Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
“A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow…. Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well) pays heed to that call. To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank…. Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself. Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.”
Aldo Leopold, Thinking Like A Mountain

In January three wolves were killed by the US Department of Agriculture and Food in Cache Valley, near Avon. The wolves wandered into a corner of northern Utah (more or less north of I-80 and east of I-84) where wolves are exempt from protection.

These were not the first wolves in northern Utah in modern times. I came across tracks in the Bear River Range a dozen years ago. There have been at least 21 documented sitings of wolves in Utah since 2004.

Wolf Footprints Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Wolf Footprints
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Wolf Footprints in Snow Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Wolf Footprints in Snow
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

In the winter of 2002, on the last day of a four-day, fifty-five mile ski tour, deep in Idaho’s River of No Return Wilderness, a friend and I were setting a skin-track (a backcountry skiing term for breaking a trail) from the Salmon River up to the canyon rim. We traveled through spaced-out ponderosa pines through light snowflakes until we topped out on flat ground, 5,000 feet above the river. The forest abruptly transitioned to thick lodge pole pines. At our feet, all the snow was packed down with fresh wolf tracks. There was no new snow in the tracks, yet snow continued to fall from above. A pack of wolves had coalesced where we stood moments before our arrival.

Though I had seen wolf tracks before, I was still taken aback by the sheer size.

There are only two known cases of wolves killing people in the last century in North America. Statistically, you are more likely to be killed by a dear, an elk, a moose, a snake, a falling tree, an insect sting, lightening, or just about anything else than you are to be attacked by a wolf. Even with that knowledge, we could not escape a feeling of vulnerability. We looked around cautiously.

Five sets of evenly-spaced wolf tracks, parallel to one another, lead down the trail—the trail we had to follow. After about one hundred meters of skiing, one set of tracks peeled off to the left, disappearing into the lodgepole pine forest. A hundred meters later, a second set of wolf tracks turned off, this time to the right. A hundred meters more, and another set peeled off to the left. Consistent with pattern, a fourth set veered off to the right one hundred meters later, once again.

The wolf pack undoubtably watched us from all points of the compass. On high alert, we scanned the woods constantly for flashes of movement, for golden eyes peering from behind the timber, but saw nothing.

The middle set of tracks—the fifth wolf’s tracks—continued for another mile down the snow-covered trail before they too, turned off into the forest and vanished. We never caught a glimpse of any of them.

I think about those elusive wolves frequently. A wolf encounter is an zenith wilderness experience.

In Thinking Like a Mountain, Aldo Leopold described his younger self shooting a wolf and coming upon it in time to watch it die:
“I was young then,” he wrote, “and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die [in the wolf’s eyes], I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

I’m not suggesting wolves shouldn’t be managed, but I would like to see wildlife biologists making those decisions and that they are applied with consistency.

Leopold concluded,
“…Too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau’s dictum: ‘In wildness is the salvation of the world.’ Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.”

I am Eric Newell and I am wild about Utah.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Hugh Jones (Rubber Rodeo-Before I Go Away) and to J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell

Moilanen, Samantha, State officials killed three wolves in northern Utah. Here’s why., The Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 27, 2026, 4:09 p.m., Updated: Jan. 28, 2026, https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/01/27/utah-officials-kill-three-wolves/

Lofton, Shelby, 3 wolves killed in Cache County; picture prompts concern over ‘lethal removal’, KSL.com, KSL Broadcasting Salt Lake City UT, Deseret Digital Media, Jan. 28, 2026, https://www.ksl.com/article/51439305

Allen, Corbin, USU ecologists weigh in on wolves killed near Avon The Herald Journal a.k.a. HJNews, Jan 30, 2026, https://www.hjnews.com/news/local/usu-ecologists-weigh-in-on-wolves-killed-near-avon/article_8132fca5-2ca1-4d69-9ae7-3107b4008f52.html

Gilbert, Lael, USU Ecologists Offer Expert Perspective About Gray Wolves Found in Cache Valley, Land & Environment, USU Today, Utah State University, January 29, 2026, https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-ecologists-offer-expert-perspective-about-gray-wolves-found-in-cache-valley/

Leopold, Aldo, Thinking Like a Mountain,, Ecotone, Inc, https://www.ecotoneinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/aldo-leopold-tlam.pdf
See also this copy on the Sierra Club website: https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce/rocky-mountain-chapter/Wolves-Resources/Thinking%20Like%20a%20Mountain%20-%20Aldo%20Leopold.pdf

The Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction: A Timeline, The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, https://greateryellowstone.org/yellowstone-wolf-reintroduction

Wolves in Utah, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, Last Updated: Tuesday, September 9, 2025, https://wildlife.utah.gov/wolves.html

History of Wolf Management, Yellowstone National Park, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/historyculture/wolf-management.htm

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Arctic Dreams

My well-worn copy of Artic Dreams by Barry Lopez, Cover Courtesy Alaska Stock Images, © Johnny Johnson, R. E. Johnson Photographers, Maps illustrated by David Lindroth, Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
My well-worn copy of Artic Dreams by Barry Lopez
Cover Courtesy Alaska Stock Images, © Johnny Johnson, R. E. Johnson Photographers
Maps illustrated by David Lindroth
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
“This is an old business, walking slowly over the land with an appreciation of its immediacy to the senses and what lies hidden in it.” -Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

Snowflakes Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
Snowflakes
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Logan Canyon Tree Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Logan Canyon Tree
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Logan Canyon Forest Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Logan Canyon Forest
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Logan Canyon Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Logan Canyon
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

The snow came late this year. If it is a measuring stick, Beaver Mountain ski area, in Logan Canyon, did not open before Christmas for the first time since 1977. The lifts started turning the last day of 2025.

Every tree, every elk and deer, every squirrel, every insect, every living thing in the Bear River Mountains prepared for winter weeks, even months, ago. The whole range seemed to sit in eerie limbo, waiting for the snow to fly.

This past week, I found myself pondering the immense weight of the world in the midst of the first real winter storm of the season—at least for me. I looked up from my feet at millions of snowflakes descending upon me, crisscrossing one another in a flurry. I’m talking about giant conglomerate snowflakes. The kind that transform the sky into a straight-up dreamland. I felt pure delight.

The other day, I pulled Barry Lopez’s 1986 New York Times best seller, Arctic Dreams, from my bookshelf and browsed the passages I had highlighted or underlined 25 years ago. Until his death in 2020, Lopez wrote his books on an IBM Selectric III typewriter.

Lopez asked the questions, “How do people imagine the landscapes they find themselves in?” and “How does the land shape the imaginations of the people who dwell in it?”

I imagined each snowflake as gift from the Pacific. Tiny droplets of frozen water meandering to the ground. Each is part of an endless cycle of water, dating back to the origins of the earth. I wondered how long ago these snowflakes last fell free through the sky. How long did they spend in the depths of the ocean? Where will they go on their journey from here? And how did I happen to be in this place, with these snowflakes, in this moment in time?

Everything is temporary—a snowflake, a lifetime, human history, even geologic time.

In another passage Lopez wrote: “Because [humans] can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon [us], say evolutionary biologists, to develop another law to abide by if [we] wish to survive…. [We] must learn restraint. [We] must derive some other, wiser way of behaving toward the land.”

To that I would add, we must also derive some other, wiser way of behaving towards one another because the greatest threat to humanity is, frankly, humanity. The biggest threat to life on earth isn’t the sun’s eventual demise or a rouge asteroid. It is us. Can we learn to live sustainably, and can we learn to understand and respect those who are different from ourselves?

Later, Lopez continues the thought:

“The cold view to take of our future is that we are therefore headed for extinction in a universe of impersonal chemical, physical, and biological laws. A more productive, certainly more engaging view, is we have the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure not to be intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bare no fruit in our lifetimes.”

That requires collective action.

As Oscar Schindler identified in Schindler’s List, power is when we have every justification to take, or to control, or to act on impulse, and we don’t. We refrain.

Each snowflake individually seems insignificant, but together, relentless by the millions, snow crystals pile up. They cover the ground, flock the trees, and settle into the gaps of my jacket. Their strength is in their numbers and their ability to bond with each other.

I imagine snow accumulating on a steep mountain. As the storm rages, the sheer weight of snow increases, one single snowflake at the time, until finally, one seemingly insignificant snowflake settles on the surface, and it is suddenly too much for buried weak layers to withstand. Then, “Whoomph!” The result is a spontaneous avalanche. Inertia is both a property of matter and a property of culture.

In the big scheme of geologic time and human history, each of us are insignificant. Yet the power of our collective consciousness and action is significant. We have the capacity to lesson our footprint on the earth and deepen our impact on one another through small gestures that accumulate like falling snow: To consume less, to care more, to increase our capacity to love and understand, to be both frugal and generous, to be curious rather than judgmental, to smile or laugh with a stranger or a friend.

I catch several snowflakes on my tongue, as I walk through the blizzard, trying to pick out the biggest ones—the ones that are barely able to cling together. Several snowflakes crash-land on my face. I blink them off my eyelashes. One flake that I miss, spirals as it falls faster than the others. Each snowflake feels like a blessing from above that represents some kind of hope. Hope that the rivers will swell to fill their banks in April and May; hope that high mountain springs will gush throughout summer, hope for renewal that comes with each spring, and yes, hope for humanity.

I am Eric Newell, and I am wild about Utah snow and the power of small gestures.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell

Links:
Caswell, Kurt, His Life Helped: In Memory of Barry Lopez, 1945-2020, Terrain.org, Terrain Publishing, January 11, 2021, https://www.terrain.org/2021/currents/his-life-helped/

Barry Lopez died on December 25th
The proselytiser for a different understanding of landscape and Nature was 75, The Economist Newspaper Limited, https://www.economist.com/obituary/2021/01/02/barry-lopez-died-on-december-25th

O’Connell, Nicholas, At One With The Natural World Barry Lopez’s adventure with the word & the wild, March 24, 2000, Commonweal Magazine, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/one-natural-world-0

Beaver Mountain [Ski Resort], https://www.skithebeav.com/

Logan Avalanche Forecast Page, Utah Avalanche Center, https://utahavalanchecenter.org/forecast/logan