Chad
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pnwenjoyer.bsky.social
Chad
@pnwenjoyer.bsky.social
180 followers 190 following 49 posts
Photographer, videographer, nature enthusiast, and creator of @ridgelinemag.bsky.social, an outdoor recreation magazine for the Southern Willamette Valley of Oregon.
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Today I opened “A Sand County Almanac,” the quintessential #ecology book by Aldo Leopold, for the first time. The foreword from 1948 felt eerily relevant, and I wanted to share.

Like they say, history doesn’t repeat but it sometimes rhymes. Stay safe out there folks, keep moving forward.
The cover of “A sand county almanac.” Text on a page from the foreword of the book “A sand county almanac.” Foreword THERE are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot. Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech. These wild things, I admit, had little human value until mechanization assured us of a good breakfast, and until science disclosed the drama of where they come from and how they live. The whole conflict thus boils down to a question of degree. We of the minority see a law of diminishing returns in progress; our opponents do not. • One must make shift with things as they are. These essays are my shifts. They are grouped in three parts. Part i tells what my family sees and does at its weekend Text on a page from the foreword of the book “A sand county almanac.” FOREWORD refuge from too much modernity: the shack? On this sand farm in Wisconsin, first worn out and then abandoned by our bigger-and-better society, we try to rebuild, with shovel and axe, what we are losing elsewhere. It is here that we seek-and still find-our meat from God. These shack sketches are arranged seasonally as a "Sand. County Almanac.' Part I, 'Sketches Here and There, recounts some of the episodes in my life that taught me, gradually and sometimes painfully, that the company is out of step. These episodes, scattered over the continent and through forty years of time, present a fair sample of the issues that bear the collective label: conservation. Part In, 'The Upshot,' sets forth, in more logical terms, some of the ideas whereby we dissenters rationalize our dissent. Only the very sympathetic reader will wish to wrestle with the philosophical questions of Part m. I suppose it may be said that these essays tell the company how it may get back in step. Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the esthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture. That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension [ viii ] of ethics. That land yields a cultural harvest is a fact long known, but latterly often forgotten. These essays attempt to weld these three concepts. Such a view of land and people is, of course, subject to the blurs and distortions of personal experience and personal bias. But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypo-chondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them, or even to turn off the tap. Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings. Perhaps such a shift of values can be achieved by reappraising things unnatural, tame, and confined in terms of things natural, wild, and free. ALDO LEOPOLD Madison, Wisconsin 4 March 1948
January 21, 2025 at 7:21 AM
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Winter waterfalls in the Umpqua National Forest 🌲

#oregon #pnw #PacificNorthwest #nature #getoutside
A waterfall framed between two trees.
January 13, 2025 at 3:14 AM
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Deep down I’ll always be a ski bum looking through photos from my last ski trip while I wait on the next one to begin ⛷️

#winter #skiing #oregon #nature #PNW #pacificnorthwest
Snowy trees at Willamette Pass Ski Area.
January 12, 2025 at 12:35 AM
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Waiting for dry rock 🧗 happy #friday, folks

#climbing #rockclimbing #getoutside
A climbing wall at a climbing gym
January 11, 2025 at 2:07 AM
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Folks seemed to like the last #wildlife photo I posted so here’s another! Taken during a mountain goat population survey in the Bridger Range, #Montana.
A male mountain goat grazes in a subalpine meadow in Montana.
January 9, 2025 at 8:36 PM
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Thinking about all the bison I left in #Montana on this winter day. I don’t miss living in the cold, but I really miss the wildlife in Yellowstone National Park.

#wildlife #bison #YellowstoneNationalPark #wildlifephotography
Three bison run across a bridge towards the photographer during winter inside Yellowstone National Park.
January 7, 2025 at 12:20 AM
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A fashionably late 2024 photo recap, part two

#hiking #mountaineering #oregon #california #pacificnorthwest #PNW
A person looks up at the light inside a burned out redwood tree Hikers make their way towards the summit block of Mt. Washington in Oregon A photo of Mt. Thielsen in Oregon. The road is seen in the bottom of the photo. A rock climber looks out at the view. Photo Credit: Jeremy Parker
January 3, 2025 at 2:48 AM
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A fashionably late 2024 photo recap, part one

#skiing #oregon #PNW #pacificocean #california
A skier posing for a photo with their skis Two men look at a solar eclipse A man standing on the stump of a coastal redwood A hill extends out into the Pacific Ocean
January 3, 2025 at 2:27 AM
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Soggy trails and sunshine ☀️

#oregon #pnw #hiking #winter #pacificnorthwest #nature #getoutside
Sun shines through trees on a wet hiking trail
December 23, 2024 at 12:41 AM
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Another season begins with a hike up Mt. Pisgah. Happy solstice, everyone 🌞🌝❄️

#hiking #winter #solstice #nature #oregon #PNW #pacificnorthwest
A bench on top of Mount Pisgah. In the distance, mountains and fog.
December 21, 2024 at 10:50 PM
pnwenjoyer.bsky.social
Over a year in the making, we printed 1500 copies of our first issue of Ridgeline last month. Free for readers online and off! See where you can pick up a copy in #Oregon, or flip through the digital version: ridgelinemagazine.com

#winter #nature #skiing #PNW #outdoorrecreation #magazine
The cover of the winter issue of Ridgeline Magazine, featuring a skier.
December 21, 2024 at 5:42 AM
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Coming back after a 9 month hiatus and millions of new users… is this thing on? 🎙️
A guy giving a thumbs up
December 21, 2024 at 5:33 AM
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What. A. Day. Our local ski area received over 3 feet of snow this week and 7” fell in the morning before we arrived. Stoke was high and the snow was DEEP. These are some of the images I managed to catch between powder day laps (plus a nice iPhone photo of me ⛷️).
March 3, 2024 at 4:15 AM
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You don’t stop skiing knee-deep powder to set up photos, at least not when your camera dies in your backpack 🥲 Here are few we took while we caught our breath between untracked runs through the trees 🌲Absolutely the best storm day I’ve had in years!
A man skiing. A mountain and trees covered in snow. A woman poses for a photo on the ski hill. A ski lift going up a mountain.
February 20, 2024 at 5:16 PM
pnwenjoyer.bsky.social
Views 🌲🌊🦀
A man standing in front of the roots of a fallen tree. A sign for the Cummins Wilderness. A woman’s hand holding a small crab. A tree with an exposed piece of its inner layer.
February 14, 2024 at 3:31 PM
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Winter Waves 🌊
February 10, 2024 at 6:18 AM
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February 2, 2024 at 3:29 AM
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During the blizzard in January rain fell and froze on top of several feet of snow overnight, giving it the texture of a crumpled piece of paper. Nice to look at, impossible to ski in 🙃
Looking down on snow that has been frozen in place by a sheet of ice.
February 1, 2024 at 8:20 PM
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The rock hunter 🌊
The silhouette of a person holding rock to investigate it for agate formation.
January 30, 2024 at 8:41 PM
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The great PNW Blizzard of 2024 ✌️

Two days of amazing skiing followed by four days of freezing rain and ice buildup in the Willamette Valley. Absolutely wild!
A skier posing for a photo holding up a peace sign while holding a pair of skis.
January 18, 2024 at 5:00 AM
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It’s almost time! 80” of snow forecast for the West Cascades over the next two weeks ❄️ Can’t wait to get on my skis again ⛷️
A photo of the back of a Subaru Forester. On the window is a sticker of a yeti in ski boots.
January 7, 2024 at 7:39 PM
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Enjoy some moss this morning!
Moss on trees. Moss on trees. Moss on trees.
January 5, 2024 at 5:47 PM
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Greeted 2024 with no alcohol and a visit to the coast 🌊

Happy New Year, everyone.
Looking down towards the Pacific Ocean from a walkway along a cliff.
January 1, 2024 at 6:19 PM
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One of my favorite hobbies is finding existential, spiritual photo slideshows on TikTok and collecting the pictures
December 21, 2023 at 5:20 PM
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The lighthouse keepers home on Heceta Head, Oregon. A great place to go mad by the sea 🌊
The lighthouse keeper’s home on Heceta Head, Oregon.
December 21, 2023 at 5:14 PM