Last weekend I climbed Treasury Mountain, a massif of marine shales rising more than thirteen thousand feet above sea level. The endless slopes of loose scree are nearly bare – but not completely. Can you find the white-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura) in this photograph? The species lives on alpine tundra throughout the year, and is…

This summer I’ve been living in the Rogers Boggs cabin at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. There are four bedrooms, but I haven’t had any cabinmates for the past few days. That doesn’t mean the place is empty. I’ve been sharing it with a few wild visitors. A family of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) has…

Every day of the last week I have climbed the same mountain, bringing up cargoes of steel nails, aluminum tags, meter tapes, string, sandwiches, water, and everything else needed to install a long-term plant census site. The hike in is three miles and climbs from 9000′ to 11700′, rising from subalpine meadows through spruce forest…

I’ve been trying to choose a research site in the Rockies for several months. It’s not easy. I want to study how alpine plant communities respond to disturbance, and I want to study it in the long term. This means I need to choose a research site that I won’t regret a decade from now.…