Getting Desert Desperate

Mark Darnell

listen

Western Meadowlark Dawn Chorus

Western Meadowlark Dawn Chorus

listen

Wind and Birds in Quaking Aspen

Wind and Birds in Quaking Aspen

voices

Sarah Graham, Sage Sustainers Member

Sarah Graham, Sage Sustainers Member

“I contribute to ONDA monthly because it adds up to a larger annual gift than what I’d be able to comfortably afford if I were to do a simple one-time donation annually. I’m able to give more to ONDA this way and have greater impact which is important to me, and my dog Polly.”

1) Submit Your Best Desert Photos

ONDA is now accepting photographs for consideration for our Wild Desert Calendar. This member-driven publication gets better each year, and we’re looking forward to seeing what incredible high desert images you have to share with us! Sift through your digital photo albums, relive the joys, and send your ten best images our way by June 10.

Submit Now
Oregon Desert Trail Guidebook cover

2) Read Our Oregon Desert Trail Guidebook

Planning for an extended journey through the high desert takes time and focus. If you’ve got those two things, then you’ll enjoy sinking into ONDA’s 113-page Oregon Desert Trail Guidebook, which has all the maps and public lands management information you need to plan an adventurous route through Oregon's high desert.

Download Now
Next level option:

Plan your own off-trail desert route.

Pro tip: Get a premium subscription to Gaia GPS so you can see private land layers, and plan away!

3) Make Desert-Inspired Arts and Crafts

Perhaps you'd like to paint a landscape based on a Wild Desert Calendar image? Press desert wildflowers to make bookmarks? Use your old calendar to make cool envelopes? Follow the link below to see ONDA’s one, and maybe only, attempt at a DIY upcycling project! We'd love to see your pandemic-induced creativity. Email onda@onda.org or tag us on Instagram at @theoregondesert.

Make Cool Envelopes
hiker walking across the sagebrush steppe in

4) Watch A Desert Adventure Film

Need something a little different than Tiger King? Check out "Sagebrush Sisters" to see if three women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s can hike from the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada to Hart Mountain in Oregon. You can also look for "Sage Steppes" and "The Last Darkness."

Watch Sagebrush Sisters
Next level option:

Binge-watch trail videos, or make a short film from your own desert video footage! For oh-so-many on the trail videos, follow the Oregon Desert Trail Facebook page, where we are posting an ODT video every day until we run out of episodes, or the shelter in place advisories lift, whichever comes first.

5) Become a Better Desert Advocate

ONDA launched a digital High Desert Academy events in April. We've already taken people through some of the desert's most incredible landscapes and given people practical desert recreation advice. Next up: a set of three How-To talks that will help you build your knowledge and skills base to be an even stronger desert advocate.

See All Events
Next level option:

In the How To Protect Desert Rivers webinar, you’ll learn that writing a letter to the editor is a fairly straightforward way to garner attention for the public lands issues that matter most to you. Check out our tips, grab your keyboard, and write away. 

Getting Desert Desperate

Five Ideas Admittedly Not as Good as Being in the Desert  Standing in the middle of a vast sagebrush plain, kicking over lichen-crusted rocks, with nothing more to do than […]

Read More

Signs of Spring

By Scott Bowler and Lace Thornberg After months of rejuvenating itself in subtle ways, Oregon’s high desert begins pulsing with undeniable signs of spring’s arrival in March, April and May. […]

Read More

Ten Superlative Volunteers

Oregon’s high desert is a unique place, full of magic and wonder. The same could be said of those people who give their time and attention so generously to its […]

Read More

Boots, Bikes, Boats
Willamette Valley Tour

Recreation meets conservation along the Oregon Desert Trail! Come to one of these talks in the Willamette Valley to get ideas for hiking, biking or boating your way through Oregon’s high […]

Read More

2019 Conservationist of the Year

“I knew the forests of Central Oregon really well, but the desert was all new to me. The colors of the landscape and the views … just wow.”  –ONDA member […]

Read More

Meet Corie Harlan

An Owyhee Canyonlands Champ If you take solace in knowing that wild places like the Owyhee Canyonlands exist, then you’ve benefitted from Corie Harlan’s work at ONDA. You can get […]

Read More

Five New Year’s Resolutions
that Help Oregon’s Desert and You

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, there’s no denying that New Year’s resolutions are a thing. In “8 Reasons We Really Do Need to Make Resolutions,” Dr. Theo Tsaousides concludes that […]

Read More

How To Upcycle
Last Year’s Wild Desert Calendar

ONDA’s Wild Desert Calendar is chock full of desert beauty, and, each year around this time, we hear from members who simply can’t bear to just throw last year’s calendar […]

Read More

Is the DOI dismantling the BLM?

Having a hard time keeping up with public lands news lately? We can’t blame you. The instability in the White House certainly makes all issues hard to track and follow, […]

Read More

Facing Climate Change Head On

Earlier this summer, we sat down for a conversation with Tia Hatton, just as she was wrapping up her service as a Wildlands Intern for Oregon Natural Desert Association. Tia […]

Read More