Days 88 & 89 – 9/30-10/1 – Ontario to Baker City, OR – 85 miles

I have a vivid memory from the first time I left North America. No, it doesn’t involve some UNESCO World Heritage site. I was watching television in England. Some BBC channel. The idea behind the show was that people who found potentially interesting, historical objects buried in their yard could bring in experts to conduct a formal dig and offer insights into the extricated items. In that particular episode, a man had discovered something genuinely old–pots or vases or some such that were more than a millennium old. (By contrast, I remember finding an “old” beer bottle tossed in the bushes in my yard when I was a kid.) The archaeological team confirmed the item’s general age and then did something that outraged me. They re-buried it. They explained to the homeowner that the dirt was doing a good job of preserving it, and that the cost of taking care of the object–along with the accompanying risk of it being damaged in the removal process–outweighed the value of pulling it from the earth.

I was astonished. How could we condemn this historical artifact to its grave? How could we be so shortsighted in our willingness to invest in our shared past? Preservation feels like an inherently noble act, something we should all view as part of our shared obligation as humans.

As the years have passed, though, I have started to wonder about the limits of preservation. History is only growing. That’s particularly true for physical history. Even if we don’t build like the Romans did, we have more and more stuff, and most of it has value to someone. Let a few decades pass and some will see it as holding broader social value, a testimony to some part of our larger story. And all of that comes with a cost. Take Rome–the city has 574 archaeological areas to maintain. In 2016, the city estimated that “€178 million alone is required just to keep Rome’s monuments in tolerable condition.” Some of those sites, of course, generate revenue for the city. Substantial revenue. But it’s a bit like college sports–only a small number of those sites are likely to be revenue-generating, while the rest are certain to be drags on the budget.

Inevitably, some people in the present are going to suffer from a lack of resources. Social services will never be sufficiently funded to meet every need. Historic preservation has innate value, but is there a point at which we should prioritize serving the more immediate needs of the present over the past?

The walk from Ontario began with very particular needs of the present, leading me past the Snake River Correctional Institution and a shooting range. After that, though, I was out in the country, far removed from pavement, people, and vehicles. The route led westward, following Alkali Gulch, before turning north onto the historic Oregon Trail. This is ranch country today, with small flocks of cattle periodically lining the road. One small cluster bolted in fear of this humble vegetarian, and as is too often the case, they ran directly away from me, continuing parallel to the road, resulting in more exercise than they’ve probably had in months. Some markers stood to indicate that this was the Oregon Trail, but oddly enough, the majority of them were smashed–the concrete pillars left in small mounds of rubble. Was this the work of a disaffected rancher, hoping to chase off the occasional looky-loo, or the consequence of cattle looking for a scratching post? In the midst of all of this, there was one small triangle of land preserving original ruts, accessible to walkers but cut off from all other vehicles. The smallest of nods to preservation within a large context of documentation and acknowledgement.

Eventually, the route looped back eastward, with views of I84 and the Snake River breaking through the gentle hills. After more than 30 miles of solitude, this made for an odd oasis, with the truck stop serving as a glowing beacon in its midst, summoning me forth for a burrito and a cold drink. The mini-mart offered a full spread of Trump merchandise, including the “Fight” t-shirts featuring his raised fist following the first assassination attempt, and a mix of “Women for Trump” hats. I opted for a soda. My final destination for the day was just around the corner–the Farewell Bend State Recreation Area. For Oregon Trail pioneers, this was a significant site. After following the Snake River for hundreds of miles–from just after Pocatello in my case–this was the fond farewell, the last look at the lovely waterway. The campground sits at the top of the bend, with a perfect view of its westward turn through the valley, and a glimpse of its northward arc through the hills. What hit me the most as I walked through camp, though, was the constant crunching of the “grass” underfoot. Despite the river’s proximity, this was thoroughly desiccated land, desperate for rainfall. It was easy to imagine the kind of damage a single spark might do.

I departed early the following morning, a move made easier by me getting to enjoy my own personal daylight savings, after crossing into the Pacific Time Zone at the truck stop. I was rewarded with the finest astronomical display of the trip, which was facilitated in turn by otherwise pitch black conditions.

Darkness can be a luxury in its own way. Had I been here months earlier, the night’s peace would have been disrupted by the eerie glow of the Durkee Fire. The town of Huntington sat five miles north, and the country store there offered my lone shot at coffee for the day. On July 20, though, the store was closed. The whole town had been evacuated.

When you walk across a country the size of the USA, you have to be ready for a wide variety of environmental hazards. Mundane stuff like cold, heat, and wet. More extreme events like tornadoes. Wildlife concerns, like bears. For me, though, the biggest concern was always fire. Maybe it’s because it’s the threat I’ve experienced most closely, living in the Pacific Northwest as fires have raged more viciously in recent years, and thus understand most vividly. More likely it’s because of the larger ripple effect. I was less concerned with getting caught directly in the line of fire, and more troubled by the possibility of day-after-day of smoky, treacherous air. It seemed like an inevitability. Ultimately, though, I’ve been remarkably lucky, never having to deal with foul air.

It could have been far worse. The Durkee Fire ripped through this area for three weeks this summer. By recent accounts, it’s the fifth largest wildfire in Oregon history, consuming 294,265 acres. One lightning strike was enough to ignite this tinderbox. It’s an odd thing. Based on what I’ve read, I expected to be walking through mile-upon-mile of charred earth. Instead, there were small, singed patches, but the quintessential golden-yellow color of recent days continued to prevail here, despite the dire blaze’s proximity. That’s not to diminish the damage or the threat; it’s simple to recognize the capricious nature of fire, and how a small shift in wind patterns can make all the difference between devastation and inconvenience.

Had I been here on July 24, I84 would have been closed between Ontario and Pendleton. Instead, I was walking the freeway. This is, in its way, original Oregon Trail, and for some 13 miles between Lime and Durkee there’s no good way to make it through the narrow gorge sliced through the hills by the Burnt River except for the freeway. Fortunately, it’s legal to walk on I84 through most of Oregon, so I found the shoulder’s edge, turned up the volume on my audiobook, and marched ahead. It wasn’t so bad. As I’ve noted before, large highways often have an advantage over rural roads, benefiting from ample shoulders that offer far more separation for a walker from rolling death.

The added bonus of the interstate system is getting to take advantage of the occasional rest stop, as I did at Weatherby, which offers an easy water resupply. Weatherby also offered something better–a couple of travelers taking breaks who were immediately curious about the walk. One gave me a couple of homemade cookies, which certainly elevated my mood. There’s a line in the first Jack Reacher novel that stuck with me: “a wanderer depends on the kindness of strangers. Not for anything specific or material. For morale.” That’s exactly right. While I’ve appreciated the material benefits offered at times by kind strangers–free drinks or the occasional meal–there’s something deeper from those exchanges that has stuck with me. Call it validation, maybe–an external acknowledgement of the value of what I’m doing. Whatever it is, it came at the right time. I’m definitely pushing through greater levels of fatigue. Physically, I’m fine. Mentally, it’s getting harder to keep dragging myself every morning, knowing what’s ahead. The long distances between spaces, the lack of mid-walk towns, the dwindling daylight, the many months on the road… it wears on you. The push that I gained from Weatherby, though, was enough to shift my plans for the day. If I swung another 50-miler, I could reach Baker City tonight, and earn an extra day off tomorrow. It would be worth it.

One probably shouldn’t read a book about plane crashes when flying, but that didn’t stop me from listening to Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America as I moved through this stage. From a narrative perspective, it’s awkwardly constructed. Egan tries to weave together the story of Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot’s efforts to protect America’s natural wonders with the tragic account of America’s largest forest fire, all in service to his larger thesis that the catastrophic conflagration ultimately saved the conservation movement. I’m not sold that Egan proves his case, but I appreciated following each of those tracks through the book.

I emerged from the text with two salient takeaways. First, Egan certainly accomplished his goal of establishing the self-sacrifice and heroism of these early rangers. Despite operating beneath the complete disdain of congress, and within the accompanying budgetary constraints, the early forest service employees carried out their work with missionary-like zeal. The organizing principle in those early days, driven by Pinchot, was that fire could be controlled and even eliminated. Instead, these ill-equipped, under-prepared, shoestring crews were caught in the maws of the country’s most unforgiving wildfire, and died in large numbers. That so many survived is a testament to the remarkable efforts of a small number of rangers. It’s hard to overstate the inherent drama in a scene in which a lone ranger holds his men at gunpoint in a mineshaft, forcing them to remain in the dubious shelter as flames lapped the surrounding terrain.

Second, and more relevant to the larger discussion, is that the tension between conservation and preservation was present from the earliest days of the forestry movement. You could see it in the personal fallout between John Muir and Pinchot, the latter demanding a more preservationist approach, leaving wilderness as an untouched state of nature, while Pinchot was more pragmatic, arguing for the idea of a “working forest”–that a balance could be struck between protecting the land and accommodating business interests. As Pinchot’s star dimmed during the Taft administration, though, he was eventually removed as chief of the forest service. One of his apostles, William Greenley, was elevated to the role in 1920, and he swung the pendulum even further, essentially turning the forest service into a caretaker service in support of the lumber industry. (Greenley gave up the game in 1928, taking on a leadership role with the West Coast Lumberman’s Association.) Pinchot was horrified by that he saw on a west coast trip, with clear-cutting of old-growth forests taking place all across the region. This is, I’d offer, the primary argument against Egan’s thesis. It’s hard to argue that the Big Burn saved America’s forests when conditions worsened for decades afterward.

I’m far more interested, though, in how we should reevaluate the preservation vs. conservation debate in 2024, as climate change unfolds, with record high temperatures being set as the calendar flips from month to month to month.

Is preservation possible in a changing world? Can we afford to remain committed to untouched wilderness areas as water becomes more precious, land dries out, forest fires become more widespread and destructive, and wildlife shifts into new geographic spaces? Is preservation in the best interest of those very wilderness areas as traditional climatic patterns shift?

And on the flipside, how much do we want to invest in and prioritize the preservation of traditional ways of life? John Branch’s The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West, which focuses on a Utah family that has been ranching a patch of land near Zion National Park for generations, made a powerful impression upon me. Cattle ranching has the tightest of margins, and the challenges are only compounding. Many ranchers don’t own much of the land they use; instead, they’re reliant on obtaining grazing rights from the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM sets prices according to the Animal Unit Month (AUM), which reflects the “amount of feed needed to sustain a 1,000-pound cow and calf for one month” and an area’s Stocking Density, which reflects the amount of livestock that can survive on that particular parcel. Ranchers complain that the AUM has been increasing in recent years and that the stocking density has thus been decreasing. More land is required to feed an equivalent amount of stock–just to tread water. And yet, more competing demands are emerging for those same lands, as recreationalists seek more access, and environmentalists call for greater restrictions to protect increasingly vulnerable ecosystems.

While you might think that ranchers could just break away from their dependence on BLM lands and buy their own, it’s not that simple. 60% of Oregon–the whole state–is public land. 56% of Wyoming, 70% of Idaho, a whopping 88% of Nevada. Never mind Alaska. All told, the BLM controls 155 million acres of grazing lands, and a whole lot of ranchers’ livelihoods are singularly dependent on their access to those.

All of this is further complicated, of course, by the fact that, as climate change poses challenges to ranching, ranching is making its own impact on climate change. By one estimate, livestock–and primarily cows–is responsible for producing 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Grazing also is the primary contributor to failing land health in states like Oregon.

How do we respond to that? Will there be a point at which we begin to view beef as a luxury we can no longer afford? Or, does everything bound up in that–the long-standing ranching lifestyle, the culinary traditions, the many different economic threads bound up within it–make it something worth preserving, regardless of the cost, like those historical artifacts? What do we preserve in its pure and pristine form, what do we manage pragmatically, and what do we clear cut?

In the late afternoon, the old Highway 30 led me on a looping arc through Pleasant Valley. The tiny village is more like a junkyard today, with a handful of ramshackle, dilapidated houses, with old trailers and rusty automobiles filling the spaces in between. One front door has “Enter the house through the back” hand-painted, despite the fact that the yard is filled with so much detritus that egress is a borderline impossibility. One house has a ratty Confederate flag waving lethargically out front. It was a bleak scene, one that smacked of holding on to the bitter end.

Hours later, as the sun set over the western hills, a different sight greeted me. A lone ranch house sat to my left, and in the adjacent corral a family rode around on horses, the kids practicing their lassoing skills on calves under oversight of the father. A new generation rising to carry the past forward, happy and content.

And with that, darkness returned, obscuring all around me, as I pushed on for one last hour into Baker City.