I sat by my blazing campfire today staring contemplatively into the flames. It had taken a bit of work to get the fire to this stage as the wood was wet from all the moisture of the past week. Temperatures in the low 20s this morning had frozen the wet wood into chunks of ice. That resulted …

She was just a tiny slip of a person who stepped forward and handed me her scorecard. A smallish middle school girl. Her head came up to my shoulder — and I’m not that tall.

Every hunting season, hunters get lost in the woods, and while most escape no worse than tired, chilled and hungry, the hazards of being lost in Idaho’s woods shouldn’t be underestimated.

Evelyn Kaide doesn’t know what to tell people, or even what to think, about the unprecedented state of B-run steelhead that return to the Clearwater River.

This may be a tale that only dentists can appreciate, but the teeth of dead Yellowstone wolves are helping scientists understand the life of predators more than 11,000 years ago.

Teton Valley, Idaho, resident and archery hunter Mark Eagan put in nearly 60 miles traipsing through the Tetons this summer scouting for a quarry he would have the opportunity to hunt come August.

My brother and I had just set up our tent, gathered water from the nearby Kootenay River and were heating up dinner with my tiny alcohol stove when this friendly guy walked over from his camper trailer about 50 yards away. We were all camping in free “sites” along the river like hobos trying…

When filmmaker and professional paraglider Benjamin Jordan broke his satellite text messenger in the middle of a 750-mile paragliding expedition in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, he lost contact with the only other person who knew he was out there.

The autumn-colored aspen leaves outside my window peek out beneath a thick layer of snow. Tonight temperatures are expected to drop to the low 20s, and more snow is expected tomorrow. By the end of the week, though, sunny and highly fishable afternoons will prevail.

As we returned home around noon on Sunday, an enormous bird landed in a tree in front of our house. As we watched in amazement, another huge bird, this time easily recognizable as a great gray owl, landed next to the first bird and gave it a small rodent. It was clear that this was a female …

I can still picture in my mind’s eye the image of my youngest son, about age 8, rushing down the trail on a backpacking trip in the Snake River mountains with colorful fall leaves littering the ground. The sun was shining through the multi-colored leaves overhead and the air was a crispy, co…

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — Peter Idema has been running the trails and logging roads of Oregon State University’s Dunn Research Forest near his Soap Creek Valley home for more than 30 years.

Over the weekend, a 2014 video of a salmon being shot through a thin, flexible tube went viral.

When I started making annual September pilgrimages to Yellowstone over 35 years ago, it was a very different world. I had no problem getting a campsite at Madison or Mammoth, even coming in late in the evening. Traffic throughout the park was light, and if you saw wildlife, you stopped and e…

Hunting will be mixed across the state, but Idaho offers a variety of upland game bird hunting opportunities

In a classic bison jam, a herd of several hundred 1,200-pound beasts crossed Highway 26/89 near Moran, Wyoming and the traffic slammed to a stop while they passed. When all were safely across, they spread out in the pasture on the east side of the road and the traffic resumed business.

Last week when we arrived at the Middle Teton Glacier in Grand Teton National Park, glaciologist Reba McCracken said she was out of drinking water and needed a refill.

When Janahlee Jonas stepped off the helicopter in Canada’s northern backcountry, she didn’t know what to expect.

Terri Rowe can’t quite remember what was written on the Wolf Fang Peak register that first sparked her interest in highpointing, but nine years and more than 140 summits later, she still can’t get enough of the pursuit.

From a ridge above Gunsight Pass in the upper Gros Ventre River of Wyoming, the skeletons of whitebark pine trees dominated the landscape. The view in front of me stretched miles to Togwotee Pass between Dubois and Moran, Wyoming, and across the vast scene, I could see entire mountainsides, …

It’s interesting how things in the backcountry change over time.

Elk are crafty creatures. Just ask any elk hunter.

My brother Tim and I had ridden our tour bikes from Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia over a long, steep mountain pass to a campground in Kootenay National Park when we realized our big mistake.

There’s no extra charge for the smiles plastered on customers’ faces as electronic bike sales boom at shops around Montana.

After hearing about the wolf that attacked a family in their tent in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada on Aug. 8, I checked the internet for an article on the attack. I was a bit surprised to find not just that attack but several more from wolves, bears and mountain lions. Given the numbe…

One of the fun aspects of tour biking through an unfamiliar region is meeting new people. I especially like to meet other tour bikers.

There’s a washing machine in the lead and a salad chopper as caboose.

I recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration test that qualifies me as a licensed aerial drone pilot, allowing me to fly commercial ventures. This test is not easy, requiring much of the knowledge a prospective pilot learns in ground school. Some of it was pretty boring, but the wea…

Clark Johnson inched into a knee-deep pool on Fish Creek to see if his trap, baited with dog food, had done the trick.

Fish and Game Commission approvesproposals for nonresident fees

Challis and Salmon anglers can try to catch large trout in Blue Mountain Pond in Challis or Hayden or Kids Creek ponds in Salmon, Idaho Department of Fish and Game Biologist Mike Demick said.

Last week I saw something we seldom see in eastern Idaho. I was in Caldwell visiting grandkids and saw a California quail. These game birds are fairly common across much of southern Idaho and north clear to the Panhandle, but eastern Idaho has an unsuitable climate for this native bird.

After nearly 80 miles of bicycling on Saturday, we came to a sign that announced 5 miles of rough gravel road ahead. The three of us were on skinny-tired road bikes and a gravel road looked like as much fun as getting a deep cavity filled in a molar.

For the Arizona hunter whose ticket was pulled for the 28th Annual Bighorn Sheep Tag Lottery, it represents the hunt of a lifetime. For the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, it means more than $109,000 in funding will benefit wild sheep conservation in Idaho.

An expansive study of elk mortality in Idaho’s wolf country did what most good science does: challenged ideas held as gospel by wolf partisans and wolf antagonists.

Some winds were so strong that Craig Schwyn wanted to curl up on the ground and cry.

Three major hiking trails run the width of the United States. The oldest and most famous is the Appalachian Trail that runs from Georgia to Maine. The Pacific Crest Trail leads hikers from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington. The acknowledged toughest and newest challe…

Starting today, people can enter a lottery for permits to snowmobile in Yellowstone National Park this coming winter season without a commercial guide.

Recently, our family gathered from as far away as Virginia to spend a week together enjoying each other’s company. It had been nearly two years since we were all together at once and it was a great event. We had three generations present. My father, the fourth (or first) generation, 92 and r…

On Tuesday, Linzy French, a Grand Teton National Park communication specialist, gave me a private tour of the recently fancied up Jenny Lake.

The Clearwater River could see a fall Chinook fishery in the coming months, and Idaho Fish and Game officials want public input to help shape its structure.

How many wolves are on the landscape in Idaho? That’s an often-asked question that Idaho Fish and Game is aiming to answer using game cameras during a new statewide population monitoring program.

Gaunt and heavily tattooed with smoke (from the cigarette dangling between his lips) nuzzling the bill of a filthy Portland Trail Blazers hat, Greg Pruett is about the last person you’d imagine cleaning up the Spokane River.

Last summer in Alaska, we spent a day panning for gold. It was recreation, not an attempt to get rich, and it was a lot of fun. This activity did awake a lusty desire to find “the strike” and get rich quick despite knowing full-well that it was a ridiculous idea. Gold can do that to you.

The temporary festival tattoo is fading off my arm, but I’m still processing some of the memories and events of the International Climbing Festival held last week in Lander, Wyo.