Outside contributing editor Mark Sundeen is the author of The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today’s America, and The Man Who Quit Money.
What I learned about love, loss, and landscape over two decades of living in a 1961 Artcraft mobile home in the Utah desert
In the spell of a week, a mysterious monolith appeared in the Utah desert and was subsequently removed by some slackline bros. The saga has raised more questions than answers.
As red-rock meccas like Moab, Zion, and Arches become overrun with visitors, our writer wonders if Utah's celebrated Mighty Five ad campaign worked too well—and who gets to decide when a destination is "at capacity."
On a plane ride over the Mountain West, a grieving father retraces his adventurous youth and searches for solace in the rugged landscapes that molded him
Golf courses! Water parks! Man-made lakes! If Utah has its way, the retiree oasis of St. George will explode with growth, turning red rock to bluegrass and slaking its thirst with a new billion-dollar pipeline from the Colorado River.
A swanky night out with the mutts saving our veterans' lives
Nowhere is the quest for simplicity and freedom more pronounced than in the tiny-house movement, which has grown from hipster alternative to mainstream phenomenon faster than an Amish barn raising. Mark Sundeen joins the believers to ask: Has the dream gotten too big?
The decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to block the Dakota Access Pipeline arrived just as internal tensions threatened to fracture Standing Rock's Oceti Sakowin camp
Two impassioned mass protests: one led by white people with guns, the other by nonviolent Native Americans. Taken together, they shed light on the centuries-old myth of the valiant cowboy and savage Indian—and on white privilege and institutional racism in America.
Two of our country's biggest issues, racism and climate change, have collided on a North Dakota reservation. This week, I loaded up my station wagon with water and supplies and drove down for a look at a historic demonstration that could shape the national dialogue going forward.
He was a proud Marine who survived three brutal tours in Iraq and had plans to redeploy with the national guard. But when 30-year-old Noah Pippin vanished inside Montana’s remote Bob Marshall Wilderness, he left behind a trail of haunting secrets—and a mystery that may never be solved.
With "the death of environmentalism" being debated across the land—and with the mainstream movement under siege from without and within—it's time to meet the winning side in America's new green wars. Here they come, ready or not: the 20 most powerful voices leading the environmental counterrevolution.