Jennifer Sahn

Dec 31, 2024 | hcn.org | Jennifer Sahn

I was raised to believe that you should leave places better than you found them. Pick up trash, plant flowers, repair something broken, leave a few pieces of firewood at a campsite for the next folks. Practice “leave no trace” in the backcountry, so that others can have the same exhilarating experience you did without having to stumble on a disconcerting wad of toilet paper at the base of an unsuspecting shrub. Some hikers will even turn a Ziploc bag inside out and retrieve those repulsive wads.

Nov 27, 2024 | hcn.org | Jennifer Sahn

I’m looking at a photo of someone’s house going up in flames. It’s one of a number of iconic images taken during the Mountain Fire, which broke out in early November and swept through suburban neighborhoods in Ventura County, California. The image is horrific. And it is also metaphorical: As Greta Thunberg says about planet Earth, “Our house is on fire.” This really should concern more people. Statistically speaking, we are all at risk.

Oct 31, 2024 | hcn.org | Jennifer Sahn

A few weeks ago,I followed a hawk that was following the cliff edge above the beach, flying into the wind. It rarely flapped its wings, except when the wind gusted; then it flapped them slowly, just enough to not lose ground — or air, I should say. It reminded me of taking my chocolate Lab tubing on the rivers of western Massachusetts. She’d float alongside us, dog-paddling only when necessary to sustain her momentum or skirt an obstacle, working with, rather than against, the forces of nature.

Sep 30, 2024 | hcn.org | Jennifer Sahn

I’m in the high country, above treeline, walking through a rock garden. Undulating slabs smoothed by glaciers are dotted with smaller boulders, stones and pebbles that broke off from bigger formations. It is a riot of color: Deep reds fading to red-orange, crystalline white cutting through a light gray substrate, bluish-green facets so polished they resemble jade. I’ve spent the week exploring a “research natural area” where no overnight camping is allowed.

Aug 31, 2024 | hcn.org | Jennifer Sahn

I once worked in a building that was located next to a former fuel storage site — a boarded-up property encircled by a chain-link fence. My office was on the first floor, and there was underground parking, where walls of poured concrete had wide pipes running along them. In time, I learned that those pipes were part of a ventilation system designed to remove pollutants seeping upward from a plume of toxic material that had traveled underground from the neighboring site.