Five hundred years ago, the condor was not alone.  Jaguars, the same noble cats we associates with the Amazon, prowled along the southern rim of the Grand Canyon.  Bears were common.  Smaller cats ranged through the Southwest, like the ocelot and jaguarundi.  Wolves roamed the plains. The cougar's range extended well to the east of here. Smaller predators, like the Marten and Fisher and the wolverine ranged into the Glen Canyon area. River otters swam Utah's rivers. And perhaps most importantly, American bison crowded the mesas in migration.

The Southwest, although arid, was alive with large animals.  But, as with all such stories, habitat encroachment squeezed the big animals out.  Condors were shot out of the sky, jaguars were poached, bears couldn’t compete with man.  The story is familiar, but here is the question:

Should we bring them back?

The question is gaining traction, not just here, but everywhere.  When I began writing Notes from the Road in 1999, we were living in a world that was decidedly impoverished of good information about mainstream environmental issues.  We were ignorant, unimpressed, skeptical.  Nine years later, we are witnessing a complete turnaround – everybody is doing green.

The green we run into in cities is still unpolished.  It’s still about reducing our personal carbon usage, and screwing in snaky-looking lightbulbs.  While we still see environmental issues as a question of values, the folks who have understood what is really happening in our brave new world, are imagining ideas and envisioning plans that seem at once amazing, absurd, fantastical.

As more of us open ourselves to the evidence of climate change, we will begin to view it as the only issue.  But that too, will be a mistake.

Several conservationists believe the issues we talk about most, need to be seen as a part of, not all-consuming of, the big changes we will begin to make in this century.  They are starting to talk about habitat restoration as the issue of the twenty-first century.  At first, I found this hard to believe.

But habitat restoration – restoring habitats to some original previous state – is being discussed as an inevitability, and for reasons covering nearly every concern of the conservation movements – from extinctions to invasive species concerns to reversing climate change and pollution.

This is how I entertain myself on this long road, by imagining condors soaring above, and Jaguars on the mesa.

In the afternoon, I arrive at Natural Bridges National Monument, and take lunch out to a cliff overhang near an intact Puebloan home, built crudely of stones seven hundred years ago. 

Great Basin Escalante Desert Going solo in the lonely canyons of Escalante The Loneliest Road A journey across the Nevada's Great Basin and the Loneliest Road in America. We follow the struggle between off-roaders, Great Basin Indians and conservationists over the fate of a blue butterfly. Summer Lake Part II of a conversation about travel writing, this episode continues into the southern Oregon Desert. Rachel, Nevada and Area 51 Area 51 is a dusty set of hangars at the bottom of a dry lake bed. The Owyhee River Part I of the Oregon Testament.Follow us to Leslie Gulch, where we stumble upon a yet undiscovered Native American site. The Alvord Desert Part II of the Oregon Testament. Fishing under the Steens Mountains, and wandering the alkali flats of Alvord Lake. Mono Lake They are twisted, trollish, ungodly, like a woman turned to stone East Oregon High Desert Wandering the High Desert of Eastern Oregon The White Mountains By the accidents of geologic history, this land has remained relatively unchanged. Zion Canyon Zion Canyon as a launching point for discussion on the politics of sin. Glen Canyon What Creatures will Roam Glen Canyon? It's the question I had to ask, even as I rolled into America's most lurid town.