The surprising find shows just how much there is to learn about the biodiversity of southern Oregon's mountainous region.

Every June, the Elkmont Ghost Town in Great Smoky Mountains National Park lights up with the world's largest gathering of synchronous fireflies.

Africa's mountain bikers seeking a slot at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games will have to win the ride on Rwanda's steep mountains during this year's championships.

Changes in forest management have detrimentally affected the economic health of small communities in the Blue Mountain region of Oregon over the past few decades. A build-up of small trees threatens the ecological health of these forests and increases wildland fire hazard. Hoping to boost their economies and also restore these forests, local leaders are interested in the economic value of timber that might be available from thinning treatments on these lands.

In the mid-1990s, forest managers on the Malheur National Forest were concerned about their prescribed fire program. Although they have only a few weeks of acceptable conditions available in the spring and fall, they were worried that spring-season prescribed burning might be exacerbating black stain root disease and having negative effects on understory plants.

The work described in this report was initiated during the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP). The ICBEMP produced a broad-scale scientific assessment of ecological, biophysical, social, and economic conditions for the interior Columbia River basin and portions of the Klamath and Great Basins. The broad-scale assessment made extensive use of potential vegetation (PV) information. This report (1) discusses certain concepts and terms as related to PV, (2) describes how a PV framework developed for the broad-scale ICBEMP assessment area was stepped down to the level of a single section in the national hierarchy of terrestrial ecological units, (3) describes how fine-scale potential vegetation types (PVTs) identified for the Blue Mountains section were aggregated into the midscale portion of the PV hierarchy, and (4) describes the PVT composition for each of the midscale hierarchical units (physiognomic class, potential vegetation group, plant association group).

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) is a valuable species that is declining in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon. This publication is a compilation of over 20 years of aspen management experience by USDA Forest Service workers in the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains Adaptation Partnership was developed to identify climate change issues relevant to resource management in the Blue Mountains region, to find solutions that can minimize negative effects of climate change, and to facilitate transition of diverse ecosystems to a warmer climate.

In frequent-fire forests of the interior Western United States, historical (prefire suppression) conditions are often used as a reference to set management objectives, guide prescriptions, and monitor treatment effectiveness. We quantified the historical size, density, composition, and spatial patterns of dry mixed-conifer forests in the Blue Mountains of Oregon to establish reference conditions that could be used for ongoing forest-restoration efforts.

If you've ever been compelled to visit Chewelah, it has likely been related to a trip to 49 Degrees North.…

Frances Figart, Director of Creative Services for the Great Smoky Mountains Association (GSMA), appeared on WNCW's Friday Feature to talk about her organization. Frances discussed the groups history, the beauty of the Smoky Mountains and her writing and editing of the biannual journal, "Smokies Life." The program first aired on Nov. 22, 2019. Posted by Host and Producer of More to the Story- WNCW's Paul Foster, Senior Producer, News Director, and

Washington citizens give a damn about public records — as proven by the stunning response to legislative efforts to shield their records from public view.

A charity in the Blue Mountains is feeding 18,000 people a week during the COVID 19 crisis.

A cold front moving across NSW dumps snow around Goulburn and the Blue Mountains, while erratic winds and lightning may hamper firefighting efforts in the north of the state.

What drives people to spend their weekends suffering as they attempt to run 50, 100, or even 200 kilometres through the bush and over mountains?

A Snowy Mountains RSL wants charges laid against the local council, which it has accused of desecrating part of a war memorial that a historian says has "state significance".

Dan Dubuque is back again.

The post Dude Plays QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE On Slide Guitar In The Mountains appeared first on Metal Injection.

The stay-at-home order prevents Denver residents from driving to other communities to recreate.

Coloradans should only recreate within 10 miles of their homes, governor says.

DENVER (April 17, 2020) - Today, the U.S.

Here is a short video taken by my Canadian good friend Mark Takefman. We were on our month long trip from Delhi to Leh back through Spiti Valley. This was just one of a number of challenges we faced on the socalled roads. Mind you there were wonderful

The game is a beautiful marriage of aesthetics and gameplay. It has the makings of a minor classic.

The Amateur Traveler talks to Doug McConnell of OpenRoad.tv about his love for the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. Doug has been going to this rugged, stark and beautiful area of California and Nevada since he was a kid. He tells us about Hollywood's love of this area, the oldest trees on the planet, the water wars of California, the tufa fields of Mono Lake, the ghost town of Bodie and more. He also tells of his friends Galen and Barbara Rowell who called this area their home until their deaths in 2002. Galen was a renowned nature photographer and Barbara was his partner and pilot.

The Amateur Traveler talks to Nathan from Wand’rly Magazine about Great Smoky Mountains National Park and about his current home of Western North Carolina. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited U.S. National Park.

[1990-1999?]

In some countries, mountains are considered deities. In others, mountains are peaks to climb. In others still, mountains, like volcanoes, are spirits that can be angered. In countries around the world though, mountains provide life-sustaining water, energy and food for over half the world’s population.

A firefly mating ritual turns into a synchronized light show

A large destination resort in Minnesota, just a few hours south of Thunder Bay, Ont., has some big expansion plans.

After years of living among a remote unreached people group, OMers see God draw the first local believers to Himself.

The Delaware Forest Service is sending a 20-person team of wildland firefighters to the Rocky Mountain region for a scheduled two-week assignment to battle wildfires for the National Interagency Fire Center. The crew departed Blackbird State Forest this morning and is headed to Denver, Colorado to be “pre-positioned” for a specific assignment.

Fossilised tree roots found in a New York quarry are 386 million years old, making them the remains of the oldest known forest yet

Nadia Vicenzi, Alejandro Laspiur, Paola L. Sassi, Ruben Massarelli, John Krenz, and Nora R. Ibargüengoytia

In ectotherms, temperature exerts a strong influence on the performance of physiological and ecological traits. One approach to understand the impact of rising temperatures on animals and their ability to cope with climate change is to quantify variation in thermal-sensitive traits. Here, we examined the thermal biology, the temperature dependence and the thermal plasticity of bite force (endurance and magnitude) in Diplolaemus leopardinus, an aggressive and territorial lizard, endemic to Mendoza province, Argentina. Our results indicated that this lizard behaves like a moderate thermoregulator which uses the rocks of its environment as the main heat source. Bite endurance was not influenced by head morphometry and body temperature, whereas bite force was influenced by head length and jaw length, and exhibited thermal dependence. Before thermal acclimation treatments, the maximum bite force for D. leopardinus occured at the lowest body temperature and fell sharply with increasing body temperature. After acclimation treatments, lizards acclimated at higher temperatures exhibited greater bite force. Bite force showed phenotypic plasticity, which reveals that leopard iguanas are able to maintain (and even improve) their bite force under a rising-temperature scenario.

This organic farming program is turning residential backyards into market gardens to tackle food security, food mileage and social isolation.

This season's bushfires have "rewritten the rule book" as ecologists fear more than 80 per cent of the world heritage-listed Blue Mountains have been lost.

This stunning mountain range is located on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula.

In photographer Yao Lu's "View of Waterfall with Rocks and Pines," two men stand underneath the spreading branches of a gnarled pine tree, aiming their cameras off in the distance, where

Nidhi Tiwari (in orange) with her crew

I have always felt that mobility is key to empowerment — especially where women are concerned," says Nidhi Tiwari, an extreme terrain driver. Let us explain her job profile by outlining a few of her achievements — she is the first Indian woman to drive from Delhi to London in 2015, and became the first Indian to drive to the Pole of Cold in North Eastern Siberia in 2016. She also founded Women Beyond Boundaries (WBB) in 2015, which focuses on undertaking extreme overland journeys. Recently, Tiwari led a crew of five female drivers to Upper Mustang in Northern Nepal, and they became the first crew of women drivers to reach Lo Manthang (the erstwhile capital of the Kingdom of Mustang).

With an average height of around 13,000 feet, the area hosts two of the higher peaks in the Greater Himalayas that stand above 8,000 metres — the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. "No women drivers from anywhere in the world had ever driven up the treacherous road to Lo Manthang. But then, every journey is about pushing boundaries," says the 37-year-old, who has been now driving for 13 years. The women drove from Delhi and entered Nepal via Gorakhpur to reach Pokhara in two days, from where started the off-road section into the Mustang Valley. Mustang is infamous for its non-existent and challenging roads punctuated by numerous streams and nallah crossings. A particular section between Muktinath and Tsarang, though only 36 km, took them eight hours. And then they headed to Lo Manthang, which is located just 50 km short of the Chinese border.

Five women drove the cars to Mustang

Delhi-based Tiwari may have been be well equipped with what such a journey entails but as they drove, major challenges cropped up. Most of the crew were city drivers and they were all learning on the go. "It was a very steep terrain, with plenty of blind corners," she describes. For example, one had to be very careful where they placed the wheel — there were instances where the road had a gorge on one side, and a river bed on the other. "But the way they adapted to the terrain — that transformation was a very big high for me," says Tiwari of her team. This could do with the kind of training Tiwari is known to provide. Her WBB workshops aim to make women self-sufficient as far as driving goes. "It's all about self-maintenance. A woman has to be ready to fix tyres."

Tiwari also chose her crew with care, making sure she had a varied bunch on the trip. There was an academician, a physiotherapist, an IT professional, and an e-commerce expert. "Extreme terrain is seen as a man's forte. We have broken that misconception. It threw the spotlight on some critical gender questions that have hovered around driving, expeditioning and the extreme terrain overlanding space. Along with being the first women to get there, we are also the second set of Indian vehicles to get there. Isn't that something?"

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

Lydia O'Sullivan, from Whitehaven, Cumbria, has been travelling for the past two years and had not been seen or heard from for eight days, even though she ordinarily contacted her family daily.

The Gospers Mountain mega blaze is continuing to tear through Bilpin, northwest of Sydney, with firefighters expected to work tirelessly through the night as conditions are not forecast to ease.