Former Chief Ranger of the National Park Service Walt Dabney spent a long career pulling climbers off of Mount Rainier, counting alligators around the Everglades, keeping the gates open in Southern Utah, and otherwise having great adventures in public service around the national park system. He takes us deep, deep down in the weeds on the different tasks rangers do across the parks, how those need to change, what resources they need, and all the rest. If you don't have an inkling of a craving to get out and join the rangers by the end of this episode, I've failed as an interviewer! Follow Walt's work at https://americaspublicland.com/home.

You're listening to Match My Mountains hosted by Luke Nathan Phillips.

Here is a long and winding and obscure extended metaphor of the American identity as being, more than anything else, the the collaboration and compromise of multiple many things for the common good in the long term-- just like our wonderful National Forests. (And our chili bowls too, while we're at it.) So what are we all doing in this big beautiful American experiment together, and how should we think about the public land system helping us do it? Get out on the lands and find out. Happy 250th Anniversary of America, and Happy Fourth of July!

You're listening to Match My Mountains, with Luke Nathan Phillips.

National Parks and public lands are an issue everybody cares about, after they care about everything else— and most people don’t really understand the dynamics of public land policy. This means it’s quite common for very well-intentioned supporters to completely lose their minds over comparatively unimportant things— most recently, the bad-but-not-existential restructuring of the U.S. Forest Service. But how can your average bear tell the difference between a nothingburger and a giant whirling black hole of doom? Certified veteran take-no-prisoners wilderness warrior Wes Siler joins us to suss out some helpful hints and rules of thumb. And with the big budget bills coming up this summer and all the Wile E. Coyote land grab tricks the rustlers are sure to sneak into them, it’s important the public lands movement direct the massive public freakouts to the things that matter most. We could’ve saved the Boundary Waters…

Take a listen and let us know what you think below— questions, comments, vicious personal attacks, etc. etc. etc— and make sure to follow Wes’s excellent SubStack below.

https://wessiler.substack.com

You're listening to Match My Mountains hosted by Luke Nathan Phillips