Willamette Falls, the West’s biggest waterfall, is surpassed in the U.S. only by Niagara. It would astound anyone who saw it — if they could see it. But for a century now, industrial structures have blocked access to this natural wonder.
From a river-access standpoint, Colorado is among the West’s oddest states. Federal law dictates that the beds of “navigable” rivers — waterways once used as highways for commerce — belong to the states.
The Bureau of Land Management has opened the South Side Trail, a winding route that parallels the Elk River in the Headwaters Forest Reserve, located near Arcata, California.
Glen Canyon Dam was built primarily to store excess Colorado River water during wet years, so it could be released during dry spells and used to generate power. Now, with aridification depriving the river of those excess flows, both functions are imperiled.
“The American West is primed for a summer of fire,” warns Popular Science. The magazine reported in May that more than 1.2 million acres of the U.S. burned from wildfires so far this year.
The famous Havasu Falls near Grand Canyon National Park will remain closed to tourists for at least the rest of 2022.
All entrances to Yellowstone National Park are closed temporarily due to heavy flooding, rockslides and extremely hazardous conditions, the National Park Service reports.
Despite year-over-year decreases, recent population estimates of wild horses and burros roaming BLM-managed public lands are still too high, the bureau says.
