This Beautiful Land, Vulnerable

Plus a cautionary tale about tapering mishaps

A trail above Telluride that I ran last week, in an area marked eligible for future sell-off.

June is my favorite time of year here, when the thick grass and aspen leaves appear their most vivid green and thistles haven’t yet shot up to disrupt the meadows. Elk with young calves in tow wander by our house, bluebirds and swallows dart around the nests they made in our eaves, purple lupin and wild blue iris sprout in bunches, and rivers roar from runoff. In the past two weeks, we observed the added gift of three adorable baby marmots, the size of guinea pigs, in the woodpile near our home.

For the past week, however, I couldn’t relax and appreciate the surroundings. I am not in a good headspace. I’m moving through each day with a mix of anger, dread, and stress. I can’t write and have lost momentum on reorganizing my too-big memoir project, which needs significant cutting and revision. I’m borderline overwhelmed by administrative busywork, which must get done and no one else can do it, related to the monthlong community fundraiser I organized and the service organization I volunteer to lead. Email, spreadsheets, invoicing, trips to the bank and post office—normal stuff that I typically handle with no problem feels overly burdensome.

Meanwhile, I’m on the trails for a big portion of every day trying to peak in training for Hardrock, which is four weeks away, but those outings feel rushed without enough time to get the distance or vertical gain I had hoped for my training.

So I apologize for being a downer this week, but I need to share the main thing that is causing the anger, dread, and stress. It affects all of us, and I need to join those sounding the alarm about it.

It’s the pending plan, tied up in the Republican mega-bill, to sell off millions of acres of public land—including land right next to my home, and land throughout the San Juan Mountains and other parts of the West.

If this proposal to privatize and develop swaths of US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land passes out of the Senate—to sell open space that is essential for wildlife corridors and biodiversity; land we enjoy and value for trails and nature—then places and trail routes we love would be fenced off and possibly developed. Wilderness landscapes would be irreparably harmed and reduced. The Hardrock Hundred, for example, might cease to exist if parts of its route are privatized, and currently, land all around Hardrock would be considered eligible for future sale under this bill.

This map, prepared by the Wilderness Society, shows the San Juan Mountains near where I live, with spots in red circled as landmarks of the Hardrock Hundred course (the unlabeled circle is the town of Telluride). The Hardrock route makes a 102-mile loop connecting those points. The land in green is USFS land; in tan, BLM land, all of which would be eligible to be nominated for sale under the Senate amendment explained below. You can view the map here.

The background: About six days ago, news broke that Republicans in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, led by chair Sen. Mike Lee of Utah*, included an amendment in the budget blueprint to sell off “for disposal” 2 million - 3.3 million acres of public land managed by the BLM and USFS. The land supposedly would be used to develop housing, even though much of the land marked as eligible is impractical for housing given its terrain, distance from water, etc. And the newer version of the amendment does not specify it must be for affordable housing. It could be that these parcels would be sold for ranchettes with luxury homes. Keep in mind, this sell-off is intended to help balance the budget by generating income that offsets Trump’s tax cuts for the highest income earners.

(*Sen. Mike Lee is the MAGA torchbearer who last Saturday issued a disgusting tweet in response to the assassination of the Democratic lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota, stoking more political violence by saying, “this is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”)

That bad news seemed exponentially worse when The Wilderness Society issued a press release and map showing all land eligible for future sale—an unthinkable 250+ million acres of public land. Journalist Wes Siler interviewed former BLM director and current Wilderness Society president Tracy Stone-Manning and wrote: “While Senate Republicans are mandating the sale of somewhere between 2.02 and 3.3 million acres of Forest Service and BLM land as part of their budget reconciliation package for FY2026, Stone-Manning explains that the bill’s text actually creates the potential for ongoing sales like that every year, until it’s all gone. … Stone-Manning cautions the Senate reconciliation package language creates both precedent and permission for selling the acreage identified here. All future budget bills would have to do is keep the sell-off rolling, something it will be much easier for lawmakers to vote to approve, especially if revenue from those sales is already figured into future tabulations around the federal deficit.”

You can view the Wilderness Society map of land eligible for sale here, and this is another map produced by the Western Watersheds Project that shows land eligible for sale under the bill.

I spent much of yesterday trying to understand the levels of threat and studying that map. Thankfully, as usual, the excellent environmental reporting of

Jonathan P. Thompson

at

The Land Desk

put it in perspective in this post:

“Yes, MAGA Sens. Mike Lee and Steve Daines did amend their budget reconciliation provision in a way that appears to expand the land that is eligible for “disposal” from 120 million acres to about 258 million acres. This was done by removing specific language about excluding land with existing rights … But while that expands the pool of land from which nominations can be made, it does not increase the amount of land that would actually be sold. The amendment as currently written would cap total sales at .75% of Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land, or about 3.2 million acres. … That said, if Congress passes this 3.2 million acre sell-off and its Republican pushers escape political consequences, then you can count on the GOP proposing bigger sell-offs in the future. And after this one gets through, then it will be much easier to just continue reauthorizing the 3 million acres-per-year sales until it’s all gone.”

I feel queasy with dread and sadness reading all this. As I type, an elk outside my window actually is bugling its high-pitched morning cry, communicating to the herd. I hear it as a call to action.

So, what to do? We collectively need to make this bill as unpopular as possible and show that conservation is a bipartisan issue. This amendment to sell off the ~3 million acres of public land is just one aspect of a terrible bill with devastating environmental consequences. It’s gutting the staffing and resources for National Parks, USFS, and BLM management while proposing funding increases to oil, gas, and mining management.

Contact your senators plus all Republican senators on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as well as your Congressional rep, so that when the bill makes its way back to the House, it could be killed there. Also communicate to your state reps and county commissioners. Hats off to my husband, for example, who contacted our county commissioners two days ago to make sure this issue is on their radar; they are discussing it today to strategize how to resist any federal sell-off of land in the county.

This Instagram slide has a good suggested script (a joint post by @hello_mallory and @westernwatergirl, two accounts I recommend following):

Support conservation groups working to fight this Senate amendment. I’m particularly impressed by and grateful for hunting and fishing groups, like Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, who are speaking out to preserve public land, as they may have more political influence on conservative lawmakers. This Instagram account @americanhuntersanglers also produces powerful messages:

americanhuntersanglers

A post shared by @americanhuntersanglers

Trump wants to sign his “big beautiful bill” on July 4, so the time to act is NOW (although, it’s good to read that his timeline is facing hurdles).

A cautionary tale of tapering

And now, for some nonpolitical lighter content.

I’m sharing a story I wrote six years ago after a bad accident that sabotaged my plan to run the Bighorn 100—back when we boarded the neighbor’s horse for companionship with our horse, before we got our second horse Maverick. I was thinking about it yesterday and reminding myself to be careful and not do anything to hurt myself or get sick in the next four weeks. You can’t run a race if you can’t show up to the start line healthy and uninjured.

I wrote this for a Trail Runner column. It’s for all you horse people as well as runners out there.

Back in my road-racing prime, I once walked the Las Vegas strip during a business trip with my feet jammed in tight pumps. Days later, after months of training, I started the California International Marathon with blisters on my heels the size of silver dollars.

Another time, after I transitioned to ultras on trails, I sabotaged hopes to PR at a 50K near Oakland by maniacally cleaning out a closet to cope with taper-week restlessness. I lifted a box, felt something strain, and couldn’t stand up. Nor could I start that race.

The week before my first self-supported stage race, 170 miles in southern Utah, I volunteered to help in my son’s classroom, where I must’ve sat too close to a crusty-eyed child. I started that ultra with a wicked case of pink eye, blinking through a film of antibiotic ointment.

As runners, we’re advised to manage the “taper crazies,” the period of anxiousness and self-doubt prior to a goal race when we’re supposed to rest more. I’ve learned to handle the crazies by letting myself enjoy the gift of more free time, but I can’t seem to avoid taper-time mishaps.

Last June, I vowed to do everything right and exercise extra care in advance of the Bighorn 100-mile race in Wyoming. I pushed my training volume to the limits, acclimated to high altitude, practiced mountainous terrain with trekking poles, and assembled five drop bags of gear. I purchased non-refundable airline tickets, made lodging plans for myself and crew, and temporarily gave up alcohol and coffee. I washed my hands as if obsessive-compulsive to avoid catching a virus.

In every way, I felt good to go tackle this ultra, until my date with sweet roly-poly Freckles.

Freckles meeting our cat.

Freckles is a stout brown-and-white horse with a spray of brown spots on his white blaze. He belongs to the neighbors, but we board him to provide companionship for our horse, the tall and imperious Cobalt, who chases Freckles away at feeding time. Freckles submits to Cobalt’s bullying, and the two seem agreeably accustomed to an equine dominant-submissive relationship.

Eleven days before the Bighorn 100, I exercised Cobalt methodically while Freckles watched longingly. Thinking to train Freckles so that he, too, could go on trail rides, I decided to saddle him up.

I overlooked the fact that Freckles had not been under saddle since the start of winter, and the way he mouthed the bit distastefully. I mounted him, calmly walked him in circles, and squeezed my legs to ask for a trot.

Who knows what goes through a horse’s small brain, what stimuli trigger its flight response? Perhaps Freckles felt frightened by my command to head away from his only friend, or perhaps he harbored pent-up aggression from being bullied. Maybe the heel of my boot tickled, or he simply wanted that dang bit out of his mouth.

Whatever the case, Freckles plunged his head down and reared his back up. I sat deeply and pulled the reins with all my might, but he bucked and crow-hopped as wildly as a rodeo bronc. Doomed, I got my boots out of the stirrups to avoid getting dragged and let physics propel me into the air.

Since age 4, I have fallen off horses often enough to know the drill: Land on butt, dust off, get back on. But this time, pain shot down my backside when I rolled over, and I couldn’t stand unassisted.

The landing fractured the side of a lumbar vertebra and traumatized the attaching muscles.

No 100-miler. I could barely bend to tie my shoes.

That moment of ejecting and hitting the ground did more than hurt my back; it shattered any illusion of being in control. I tell the runners I coach to “expect the unexpected” during ultras, but I tend to forget that advice in everyday life.

Of course, I’m grateful not to have wound up in a wheelchair but exasperated that one casual impulse torpedoed months of effort. The next time I line up for an ultra, I’ll celebrate just making it to the start.

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Epilogue: Freckles had a rebellious streak. After my accident, he bucked off my husband. He bucked off our neighbor. Then, when the neighbor used him as a pack horse on an elk hunting trip, he bucked off the dead elk tied to his back and pulverized it with his hooves.

The neighbor sold Freckles to a wrangler at a ranch in nearby Ridgway. The wrangler must’ve been a sensitive horse-whisperer type, because he took one look at Freckles and said, “That horse needs some work on his back.” An equine chiropractor was summoned to work her magic, and presto, Freckles resolved whatever kink was causing pain and became a good horse to ride. As far as I know, he is living happily ever after on that ranch.

Me on Cobalt bringing Freckles to our house early one summer.