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.

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.

Fish and Game Commission approvesproposals for nonresident fees

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.

Fish and Game biologists expected few sockeye to return to Idaho this year, and midway through the run, the number of fish crossing the dams is lower than expected, but the exact number of Idaho fish returning is difficult to determine because few of the fish have electronic PIT tags that he…

Montana’s Smith River can be a fickle float trip.

As the boat rounded a bend in Redfish Lake, an alpine paradise appeared before my eyes, and all the weariness of a 9-hour drive from Spokane evaporated in the excitement of discovery.

A multiyear research project aiming to measure the quality of elk habitat across the vast Clearwater region in Idaho is in its final stages.

Last week I attended a short presentation at the Nature Conservancy’s Flat Ranch in Island Park. The presenter, University of Wyoming PhD candidate, Anna Ortega, talked about the differing patterns of mule deer migration of the Sublette herd that winters in south-central Wyoming’s Red Desert.

Yellowstone to conduct traffic safety checkpoints

Even after 30 years in east Idaho, it is great to realize just how much I have left to explore relatively close to home. Last spring, we enjoyed our first visit to Little City of Rocks near Gooding. The year before that, we went to the real City of Rocks south of Burley. Last week I made it …

Every spring, tens of thousands of elk follow a wave of green growth up onto the high plateaus in and around Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, where they spend the summer calving and fattening on fresh grass. And every fall, the massive herds migrate back down into the surrounding …

Since 2014, Brett Surplus has known he wanted to start a hunting television show. But the Rathdrum resident also knew he didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of the standard hunting television format.

Steelhead anglers are asked to watch for tagged steelhead they might catch during the 2019-20 steelhead fishing seasons, and report tagged fish if they catch one.

Commercial mushroom gathering extended in burn area

My son sent me a photo of a baby robin, difficult to recognize because it was still about half-naked, with feathers just beginning to grow. It had fallen from a nest and was, to my granddaughter’s dismay, quite dead. This baby was completely helpless, dependent on its parents for growth and …

Bright orange signs with the words “DANGER” and “DO NOT ENTER” are appearing in the Island Park backcountry this month.

It is hard to imagine that a plant could start a war. In 1878 though, that is what happened. The Bannock War, which lasted all summer, began because hungry Native Americans were dismayed to see their “grocery store,” the Camas Prairie, near Fairfield, Idaho, turned into grazing pasture, to t…

On Saturday I went for a 60-mile bike ride with friends in the morning, then took a nap and went rock climbing with pals in the late afternoon. (That’s what happens when your wife is out of town visiting grandkids.)

BOISE (AP) — Work can go forward on a trail crossing private land that connects the popular tourist destinations of Redfish Lake and Stanley, a judge has ruled.

LEWISTON — Everybody seems to love bumblebees.

Idaho Power, along with officials from both Idaho and Oregon, are urging boaters to clean, drain and dry their craft before moving from one water body to the next. According to a news release, this is the best way to prevent the spread of invasive mussels, which can damage the region’s econo…

I am torn between donning my warrior’s armor or slipping on the robes of peace. We could become friends or foes, allowing give and take, although my fear is that I would do all the giving and they all the taking.

Park announces new interim chief ranger

The weather on Saturday was changing about every 5 minutes. We were pulling on our puffy coats or taking them off, depending on clouds passing by blocking the sun.

Harley-Davidson motorcycles were still in their infancy in 1929 when 18-year-old Don DeVore took an interest in the machines and landed a job at Montana Cycle and Supply, an early Billings motorcycle and bicycle shop.

Peak baggers learn that with most mountains it’s often not a mountain’s height that makes a difference but its overall elevation gain.

YNP to close Mount Washburn Trail

A grizzly bear that liked to hang around the Garwood area last summer before being relocated to Boundary County near the Montana state line was euthanized last weekend after killing livestock north of Bonners Ferry.

Nasty weather often makes Memorial Day weekend an iffy time to go camping in eastern Idaho. This year though, the storms have been widely spread throughout much of the West and Midwest. If someone were to ask for a weather report in much of the western half of the nation, a single word, rain…