The winter of 1908-09 began early with heavy winter snows forcing an unusual number of elk into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Then rain, followed by bitter cold, turned the snowpack as hard as stone. Elk could not get to what feed was available,and they began raiding haystacks and wandering down th…

Late in life, Brian Meyer found his people. They are hunters.

When I was hired by The Spokesman-Review in 1977, fishing and hunting dominated newspaper outdoor writers’ coverage nationwide. But the Pacific Northwest summoned the outdoors beat to an even higher level.

Last week was our annual winter pilgrimage to West Yellowstone, Mont., to relax, eat too much and cross-country ski.

When famous Grizzly Bear 399 and her four cubs finally heading to her den in mid-January, all of them were fat and shiny, looking like hairy beach balls. It was exciting to think that this venerable mother was in top condition as she entered the den and that the likelihood of seeing her agai…

To capture unique footage of a grizzly bear romping in the snow or a bald eagle swooping in to claim a morsel in Yellowstone National Park, Gardiner-based filmmaker Bob Landis has always been required to purchase a permit from the National Park Service.

A long winter’s project has been to reorganize my digital image files on the computer, adding descriptions and keywords, and finally consolidating files that have been heretofore stored by year then subject into massive subject only files. As I have sat at my desk night after night sorting i…

Although it was cold — single-digit, nose-dripping, finger-numbing cold — at Harriman State Park last week, we were having a good time.

After 25 years of inbreeding, Yellowstone National Park’s wolves are becoming more genetically similar, researchers have found.

Open water fishing opportunities abound in the Upper Snake Region, even in the winter months. Local rivers like the Henry’s Fork, South Fork, and even the main-stem of the Snake River offer year-round fishing opportunities for those willing to brave the elements.

Almost 50 years ago, my friends and I donned our wood and rawhide snowshoes and headed up Millcreek Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City. Our destination was Alexander Basin beneath Gobbler’s Knob where an avalanche, reported to be the biggest in Utah’s recorded history, ha…

Last week while I skied up the road at Kelly Canyon I counted two snowshoers to every cross-country skier.

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A 34-year-old grizzly bear captured in southwestern Wyoming has been confirmed as the oldest on record in the Yellowstone region, Wyoming wildlife officials said.

It was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow when the road entering my favorite elk hunting canyon in Island Park was closed in the name of grizzly bear habitat over 20 years ago. I still occasionally hunt the area, but an extra mile uphill is a lot these days, and my visits have become far fewer.

Wow! Some people have been busy playing outside this past year.

If you are younger than 35 years old, you may wonder why gasoline pumps used to state that the fuel was “unleaded.” It wasn’t always that way. A formulation of lead known as tetra-ethyl lead or TEL was discovered in the 1920s by a General Motors engineer to boost octane levels and reduce eng…

Julie got her wish.

A Washington bill aimed at regulating human-powered watercraft in the same way as motorboats is being criticized by some local paddlers.

With a tiny whoosh of wings, a mountain chickadee, coming in from behind me, landed on my head. I could feel its tiny feet as it pranced around on my beanie in typical hyper chickadee style. I was photographing birds at my feeder, and, apparently, I was a convenient stop just before this chi…

Overheated grizzly bears, particularly pregnant ones, love a cold bath.

While many people found themselves wandering in circles to get their bearings during the 2020 year of COVID-19, a Spokane retiree with a plastic kayak gave the pandemic a purpose.

Watching a mallard duck waddle across a frozen pond completely unfazed by the cold march, I wondered at how I would feel doing the same thing in bare feet. I suspect that pain and misery aside, it wouldn’t take long before my feet began to freeze into blocks of ice. Why then don’t duck feet freeze?

“Free Ski Day” was a beaut.

The largest geyser in Yellowstone National Park has been more active in the past two years than ever before.

As I look around my bedroom/office, I see a king-size bed frame made of pine logs. In true eclectic fashion, my desk is of red oak, my wife’s of mahogany. There is a nightstand I made from walnut eons ago in high school woodshop and a work table of maple. Our walls and ceiling are trimmed in…

Most of Idaho’s big game animals have moved out of the high country and onto lower-elevation winter range as part of their semi-annual migration. Deer, elk and other big game animals descend by the dozens, hundreds or even thousands, and while this migration has been repeated for eons, it’s …

The large Douglas fir, 30 inches in diameter at chest height, was leaning over the road on the corner of our lot. It was hard to maneuver around and the fire department complained that they couldn’t get their truck past it. It had to go. It was interesting but sad to watch the giant crash to…

BOISE (AP) — A federal judge for the second time has rejected a Trump administration request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by environmental groups seeking to ban using bait to hunt black bears in national forests in Idaho and Wyoming.

One of the earliest stories about trout fishing in Yellowstone National Park was written by an adventurous East Coast woman.

Starting off the new year you’ll get lots of advice on goals to set and new or old things to try, perhaps exercise routines, etc.

Chukar, gray partridge and quail hunting can be great in the early winter, and here are some things to consider for winter hunts

Of course that bit of wildlife magic happened after I tucked away my camera deep inside a coat pocket to warm up its batteries.

For the first time in more than a generation, chinook salmon have spawned in the upper Columbia River system.

Without a doubt, 2020 has been a difficult year. And it doesn’t look like it is over yet. The vaccine for COVID-19, while in the initial distribution phase, is still going to take months to get to everyone in the country, and its long-term efficacy is still unknown. Some experts are predicti…

Many anglers will look back on 2020 as a good year. Maybe it was the nice weather, mild runoff season, or all the COVID-19 restrictions that drove more anglers outside this year. Whatever the reason, it is obvious that 2020 had a lot of big fish stories.

For three evenings last week, you could glimpse the northern lights, a rare phenomenon for eastern Idaho. Not being plugged in very solidly to social media and news channels, we did not hear about this until about 8 p.m. on the second night when a friend posted a photo of the northern lights…

I call it the “snow effect.”

When he went to work early the morning of Nov. 11, little did KC Crump realize that in a matter of hours he would be working up a sweat chasing a wild, potentially injured tundra swan through the sagebrush.

The 23-year community tradition of gathering to watch the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour in Idaho Falls and worldwide has been derailed this winter because of the pandemic.

Outdoor Idaho, the Idaho Public Television program, just released a new show titled “Idaho 12ers” about the popularity of scrambling to the top of our state’s nine highest peaks.

Last week in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, we watched a male red fox hunt for prey in a snow-covered field near Pebble Creek. He would trot along as if on a casual errand, then stop like he had run into a wall. His head would swivel slightly, and his gaze would become fixed on a particular spo…