Welcome to our Camp: Ceres, CA

November 20th - November 22nd, 2025

Situated neatly between the Central Valley’s two most populous cities, Christine Gemperle’s thirty-two acres of almond orchard in Ceres, CA provided dappled shade upon our last field camp of the semester. Fog blanketed the property in the morning, yielding to a welcome afternoon sun. Christine’s vibrant commitment to regenerative agricultural practices brought an abundance of biodiverse cover crop and hedge row, replete with primrose, mustard, sage, poppies, birds, amphibians, and pollinators.

Welcome to our Camp: Nipton Hills

November 15th - November 20th, 2025

As a truck and three Jeep Wagoners drive up a bumpy mining road, a rainbow with two pots of gold greets us. We drive towards the gold, past “artisanal” mines to our camp in the Nipton Hills. A research site for Professor Persico, the Nipton Hills hold a rich ecological and geological history. Surrounded by the elusive Joshua Tree, our last long field camp welcomed us with rare desert rain.

by Claire Warncke

Welcome to our Camp: Loading the Trailer

8 minutes 17 seconds: Semester in the West’s fastest trailer loading time on record. It all went down like a well-rehearsed ballet. “I felt like I’ve been training for the Olympics and this was the gold medal moment,” says Co-Trailer Loader Boss, Liza Lebo. Go team!

Welcome to our Camp: Salton Sea

November 10th - November 15th, 2025

The Salton Sea is anomalously odd. Initial wellings of apocalyptic wonder recede rapidly into bold confrontation with wicked problems of scale. Anarchic communities of free-living free-spirits are short removed from beachfront communities adorned with waterless Yacht Clubs, where Hollywood’s hotshots once indulged in the quaint beauty of California’s largest lake. A brief drive in any landward direction will unfold a greening desert, where 977,700,000,000 gallons of Colorado River Water (give or take) are used to irrigate the fields that produce vast quantities of alfalfa and the majority of the nations winter produce. 

A closed and constantly evaporating basin, the Salton Sea continues to concentrate heavy metals, fertilizer runoff, toxic bacteria, and salt. Increased efficiency in farming practices decreases Salton Sea inflows, unveiling more exposed lakebed. Child asthma rates south of the Salton Sea hover around 35%, 25% above the national average. Competing and incompatible interests seem to plague the sea with stagnancy.  

Welcome to our Camp: Patagonia, AZ

November 4th - November 10th, 2025

Stacking rocks on the stalks

Keep the hills for the thrills

Juniper in the North, Mesquite in the South

Islands in the sky, in grass I lie

Spiky plants in my pants, supermoon rising over the hill

Cover my eyes every night, she’s so bright

Paco pads on the rocks, were getting so many talks

From our speakers they’re the best

Having fun in the sun, going to Nogales gave us a stun

Like the ocotillo and yucca, like the groover in the shed

I’m dead

Birthday celebrations, they’re the best occasions

Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff

Semester in the west is up to snuff!

by Rio Burk, Allee Garver, and Jeremiah Harder

Welcome to our Camp: Las Cruces, NM

November 1st - November 4th, 2025

Grasshoppers hop and horned cows moo

Warm days and warm nights

Moonlight shadows, city light sparkles  

Grass, mountains, and friends,

I hope to see you again soon!

by Rio Burk

Welcome to our Camp: Peralta, NM

October 25th - November 1st, 2025

SITW takes on the neighborhood! Just 20 minutes from downtown Albuquerque, Linda and Kara welcomed westies on their property in the town of Peralta, New Mexico. Red hued adobe , yellowing cottonwoods, and our very first neighbors hemmed in our city of tents. 

Welcome to our Camp: Off Ranch

October 22nd - October 25th, 2025

A set of guttural bugles from a chevron of Sand Hill cranes acts as welcome at the Off Ranch in Del Norte, CO. Settled in 1872 by the Off family, the ranch has produced calf-cow pairs for four generations and counting. Bordered by a dirt-silken Rio Grande, rapidly defoliating Cottonwoods, and a herd returning home for fall forage, the Off Ranch was an idyllic site for considering the challenges of agriculture in the arid west. 

Welcome to our Camp: James Ranch

October 14th - October 22nd, 2025

More than human news from Durango, Colorado: Unguarded coffee is thieved by hyper-caffeinated chipmunk, Deciduous trees collectively demarcate changing of seasons, Animas river greets its floodplain, Elk jostle antlers in close proximity to student on groover. 

Welcome to our Camp: Comb Ridge

October 9th - October 14th, 2025

Delusions of human grandeur have no coherence when perched upon the overhung sandstone teeth atop Comb Ridge. Track the dizzying escarpment some 600 feet to the valley floor. The flood swollen river bumbles along a shifting path, serpentine and muddy . Though rusty in appearance, the ancient marine stone scape extending westward gives semblance of its oceanic origin— in extent rather than structure and color. Both arrogant in its form and humbling of its purveyor, Comb Ridge demands reverence rivaled by curiosity. 

Welcome to our Camp: Alabama Hills

October 6th - October 8th, 2025

Nestled in the Tuttle Creek Canyon with towering granite peaks of the Sierra Crest to the west of us. To the East, the Inyo Mountains and the Alabama Hills–curious stacks of granitoids and boulders, possibly a remnant of a long-gone mountain front. To the South, Owens Lake is one of the greatest ecological disasters in the history of the West. And to the north, the rest of the Owens Valley and the Basin and Range live a lonely existence in one of the most underrated regions in the US.

Welcome to our Camp: Mono Lake

October 2nd - October 6th, 2025

A Jeffrey Pine stand of grand proportions provides gentle comfort from the youthful volcanic rock of Mono Craters, encircling our camp in a natural amphitheater of obsidian, pumice, rhyolite and tuff. To the north lies the prehistoric shorefront of Mono Lake, receding with grace to the  present lake elevation of 6383 feet above sea level. 

Welcome to our Camp: Topsy Campground

September 25th - September 27th, 2025

From a well placed picnic table in Topsy Campground one can crane the neck to gaze upon the former JC Boyle Dam Site. One hundred feet of sparsely vegetated sediments lead to the free flowing section of the Klamath River. The JC Boyle dam was removed in a broad and tenacious effort to un-dam large swaths of the Klamath River— the biggest dam removal project in US history. The first Salmon of the season swam past the fish ladder on Keno Dam above our campsite, marking a historic event for the rehabilitated river system.