What Wild & Scenic Looks Like
Did you know that, in addition to rivers, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act can also protect creeks, streams and lakes? Wild and Scenic desert waters take many forms and every drop of desert water plays an important role in the desert ecosystem. From mighty salmon-bearing rivers, like the North Fork John Day, to...
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Sutton Mountain Dazzles, Inspires in Equal Measure
By Matt Wastradowski The Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument sees roughly 200,000 visitors per year, almost all of them dazzled by the brightly colored hillsides, arid landscapes, and explosive ecological history of the John Day River Basin. But just east of the Painted Hills sits Sutton Mountain, rising...
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Meet Six Steady ONDA Members
ONDA turned 33 this year, and more than a few of our members have been with us ever since our founding in the mid-eighties. We love the perspective that those long-time desert advocates bring! We also appreciate all the fresh ideas and excited questions that folks who are new to the desert and new...
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Inspired by the Desert
Even if you are not an artist, you’ve probably wished you could somehow capture the way that sunlight paints the desert in subtle hues. For the six artists profiled below, Oregon’s high desert has proved to hold endless inspiration. Read on to get to know more about their lives, their work and how they...
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Summertime Strategies
Wow, it’s hot out there in the high desert! At least much of the time … not so much at night … and not every day either. (I can clearly recall July 4, 2010, when, camped out on the West Little Owyhee River, we got 4” of snow overnight and all our water was...
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Signs of Summer
Across Oregon’s high desert, plants and animals spend the summer months “searching” — for shade, for water, for food, for safety from predators. Below, you’ll find a snapshot of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena you might see taking place across Oregon’s high desert in June, July and August. We invite you to share your...
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Steppe It Up for the Greater Hart-Sheldon Region
How would you manage few million acres of public lands in Oregon’s desert? You will have a critical opportunity to answer that question when the Bureau of Land Management seeks input from the public on the Lakeview Resource Management Plan Amendment. This process will lay the foundation for how more than 3 million acres...
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Meet a Few of ONDA’s Far-Flung Members
“ONDA helps me stay tethered to a part of the world that means a great deal to me personally and is critically important to Oregon’s biodiversity and history.” – ONDA member Molly Holt While most ONDA members live in Oregon, we also have a strong base of support in Seattle, a growing contingent in...
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A New Chapter for the Desert Trail in Oregon
By Renee Patrick, Program Coordinator for the Oregon Desert Trail When ONDA looked east in 2011 with the thought of establishing a desert hiking route that would connect into the important sagebrush steppe ecosystems they had been working to protect, defend, and restore since 1987, they looked to the Desert Trail. The Oregon Desert...
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Conservation Update: Halfway Through 2020
Taking stock of these unprecedented times and all that our communities and the country have experienced in recent months, it is difficult to believe the year 2020 is only half over. For ONDA, these events have highlighted the need for further reflection and evolution as individuals and as an organization. And it has required...
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