About Mountain Journal

It starts with a relentless focus on reporting facts that can be verified. We believe that better-informed citizens and decision makers are the foundation of our democracy and leads to better protection of the natural environment we share in common.

Someone asked us recently: "What makes the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem the wildest landscape in the Lower 48?" This is how we replied and it helps to answer the question of why Mountain Journal exists.

"Our answer is an easy one," we said. "Greater Yellowstone still has all of its original megafauna and other species that were here before Europeans arrived on the continent." 

Why? Because the landscape is, large, still intact and unfragmented by human development that has led to species loss elsewhere. Greater Yellowstone has a stable and fairly large grizzly bear population, something that doesn't exist in other landscapes because it's extraordinary difficult to sustain; certainly not in landscapes that also have wolves and most importantly, three of the longest-known, still-functioning wildlife migrations (elk, mule deer and pronghorn) left on the planet. Greater Yellowstone has imperiled wolverines, Canada lynx, and black-footed ferrets. It has wild genetically pure bison, descended from a mere handful that survived the purge of 35 million. It has trumpeter swans that, like bison, escaped a close brush with extinction. It has undammed rivers, the last major wild reservoir for Yellowstone cutthroat trout and healthy cold-water fish populations, it has a roadless area considered the most remote in the Lower 48, it has geysers (the largest concentration globally) while elsewhere in the world most such geothermal phenomena have been destroyed.

We also pointed out that Greater Yellowstone is a homeland for indigenous communities; it has people who make their living working the land; it has old timers and newcomers; it has people of diverse affinities and identities who share a sense of place in common. And they are dealing with change.

At present, Greater Yellowstone has around 440,000 permanent residents set within 22.5 million acres, equal to about the size of South Carolina. Millions of people come here because it has wildness as no other—in fact, the wildest single mosaic of interconnected public and private lands in the Lower 48 with aspects that make it one of the wildest in the world, still capable of supporting all of the wonders above. The question is: for how long?

Besides providing compelling stories, Mountain Journal is dedicated to public-interest journalism, advancing the principles of civility, promoting honest discussions informed by facts, demanding accountability from those in positions of power and influence, and delivering a thoughtful, truthful analysis to our readers. 

We believe storytelling is vital to enlightenment; it can make visible the invisible and bring illumination to aspects of human culture and landscape that have otherwise remained in the shadows. We believe in confronting serious issues and, at the same time, the need for bringing levity as necessary relief, art for inspiration, and listening as a way of reminding us why we live here or choose to make this unparalleled corner of the West our destination.

Think of Mountain Journal as the celebration of a region to which all Americans belong, a broad sweep of public and private land with many parts that transcend artificial boundaries. How we think about and engage in issues here has implications for the future.

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