California may be famous for its beaches, but what really defines the state's geography are its many mountain ranges (and I'm not just saying that because the Sierra Club took its name from one of them). Last Friday, President Obama permanently protected one of those mountain ranges -- the San Gabriels that bound Los Angeles to the north and east -- by designating almost 350,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest as our newest national monument.

At a time when the U.S. Congress has all but abdicated responsibility for protecting public lands, designations like this one are crucial to protecting treasured landscapes before it's too late. Although it's his thirteenth monument designation, the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is only President Obama's third designation of an extensive natural landscape. The previous two were Rio Grande del Norte and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monuments, both in New Mexico. (At 490,000 square miles, last week's much-needed expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is by far Obama's biggest designation, but you can't really call it a landscape.)

But the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument stands out for another reason: These magnificent mountains rise above one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in the United States (and the second most populous). That means they can provide much-needed natural open space and outdoor recreation opportunities for Angelenos and other Southern Californians. The Sierra Club was founded on the principle that people can benefit from getting closer to nature. Sometimes, that means bringing nature closer to the people -- in this case, at least 15 million people, who live less than 90 minutes away.

Although the Antiquities Act has given presidents the authority to make national monument declarations since 1906, the real power to save landscapes like the San Gabriels comes not from the White House but from locally based grassroots campaigns. In this case, San Gabriel Mountains Forever (a coalition that includes the Sierra Club) devoted years to building community support, including public meetings, thousands of public comments, letters, and postcards. Last week, all that work paid off.

But our work isn't finished yet. We still have important, critically endangered public lands, such as the Grand Canyon Watershed and Greater Canyonlands that deserve permanent protection, and those of us who love wild places won't rest until that happens. Today, though, let's take a moment to congratulate the people of Los Angeles on their brand new national monument and thank President Obama for making it official.

We're right in the middle of Wilderness Week, and this year it's a special one because we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act -- which is still a high-water mark for the protection of our most precious wild places. On Wednesday night, I attended a big gala in Washington, D.C., along with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and plenty of other political, movement, and environmental big shots.

For me, though, the real star of the evening was Vicky Hoover, the humble, unassuming Sierra Club volunteer superhero who received  the "A Wilderness-Forever Future" award. Nobody I know has put our motto "explore, enjoy, and protect" to better use. Vicky has done all of those things, with a zest and ageless energy that radiates from her. When I see her well-used blue commuter bike locked up in front of our headquarters, I know stuff is gonna get done.

Like so many wilderness champions, Vicky started by falling in love with the wilderness experience. She took up backpacking in the mid-sixties, after she already had two young children. She and her husband brought them along, much as my wife and I do with our kids today. Soon their whole family was climbing Sierra peaks and, by 1981, Vicky had summited all 247 peaks on the Sierra Peaks Section list. You can find her own version of that story here.

But one thing anyone learns about Vicky in a hurry is that she's not content to be a follower. As I said, she's a doer. Very quickly, she graduated from outings participant to trip leader -- mostly in the Sierra Nevada, but also in Alaska, Utah, and even New Zealand.  She may have been born in Manhattan, but I'd bet her wilderness skills and Sierra knowledge would match even old John Muir's. And word has it she's a much better cook.

Another thing she shares with the Sierra Club's founder is a deep appreciation of the mountains and meadows she's explored. Eventually, that led her to realize that someone must have worked to make sure those places were protected. Vicky was also quick to figure out that wilderness exploration is a gateway to wilderness protection. "When I started leading trips, I took it for granted that these wild places were just there," she once said. "But all those years of leading outings made me think that I should try to get more places protected.

She did a lot more than try.

Vicky had already volunteered with her local chapter's office, but in 1985 she stepped up her game. She got a part-time job in the national Sierra Club office as an assistant to Dr. Edgar Wayburn, himself one of the greatest wilderness activists of all time. She started working hard for Dr. Wayburn's Alaska Task Force -- and has kept going for almost three decades.

She also began serving on local and then national wilderness committees. One of the great conservation campaigns at that time was to pass the California Desert Protection Act. Right away, Vicky was in the thick of it. She started leading outings to some of the Southwestern lands that would be affected by the act -- so she could be an even more effective advocate. When President Clinton signed the bill in 1996, the American people gained two national parks (Joshua Tree and Death Valley), as well as more than half a million acres of Wilderness Area in the new Mojave National Preserve. I doubt Vicky even paused to catch her breath before plunging into the next campaign. That California and Alaska are the states with the highest percentage of their lands set aside as wilderness is in no small part thanks to Vicky Hoover.

Vicky finally retired as a Sierra Club staffer four years ago, but her idea of "retired" isn't one you'll find in a dictionary. She still chairs the Club's California/Nevada Wilderness Committee (also serving as its newsletter editor). As co-chair of Wilderness50 -- a coalition of federal agencies and nonprofit organizations -- she's also spent the past four years using the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act as a way to publicize and promote wilderness to as broad and diverse an audience as possible. Oh, and she continues to lead outings -- including five service and other outings already this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary.

Over the years, Vicky's received lots of awards for the incredible work she's done, including the Club's highest honor, the John Muir Award, in 2004. But as much as she deserves this latest accolade, I know it's only a small measure of how much all of us who love wilderness owe to this remarkable woman. What's the best way we can really thank her? Get out and experience some wilderness!

And while you're at it, take a moment to ask Congress to continue the 50-year legacy of the Wilderness Act by passing some of the current wilderness bills with bipartisan support that have been stuck in gridlock for years. Hey, not even Vicky can do it all single-handed!

Last year, about 900,000 people marveled at the majestic old-growth redwoods of Muir Woods. But if President Theodore Roosevelt had not saved those trees by declaring a national monument, people would be admiring a municipal reservoir rather than the majestic Cathedral Grove.

The importance of national monuments was on our minds as we headed to the final stop on our family tour of special places that the Sierra Club is working to protect. If it happens, the proposed Boulder-White Clouds National Monument in Idaho will be one of the biggest conservation achievements of the Obama administration. At 572,000 acres, it would be more than 1,000 times larger than Muir Woods. Just east of the Sawtooth Range in the Northern Rockies, the proposed monument's boundaries include the largest still-unprotected roadless wilderness in the U.S. outside of Alaska. This is Idaho at its best: stunning beauty, clear water, and rich wildlife habitat.

With three young kids and a long weekend, we knew that experiencing more than a fraction of this mountainous wilderness -- where Idahoans love to hike, mountain bike, backpack, ski, hunt, and fish -- would be impossible. What we did get to see, though, was spectacular.

We drove from our campground on the Big Wood River (just north of Ketchum) into the southern tip of the proposed monument. The last ten miles along a dusty Forest Service road brought us to the trailhead for our final family hike of the trip.

The road to the mountains. See more pics and updates from our trip here.

Hiking to lakes seems to be a recurring theme on this trip, and the short trek to Fourth of July Lake rewarded us with yet another sparkling alpine gem. Lakes and mountains go together really well, don't they? Retreating glaciers carved hundreds of lakes into these mountains.

Sebastian hangs with Matt Kirby, from the Sierra Club's Our Wild America campaign, at Fourth of July Lake.

This scenic, remote, and rugged landscape is beloved by locals and visitors alike. It's a national treasure, and (not counting the odd mining company) nobody wants to see it despoiled. And yet despite many years of effort by both concerned citizens and enlightened politicians, the U.S. Congress has stubbornly refused to move on legislation that would provide proper wilderness protection for these lands.

That failure by Congress means that it's up to President Obama to ensure long-term protection for these pristine mountain ranges. The Sierra Club's Idaho Chapter is part of a broad coalition of local groups that support a monument proposal that reflects the many ways people love to experience this wilderness. Whether we are hikers, backpackers, or sportsmen -- we all know that protection for these mountains can't wait. A new national monument would ensure wise management of recreational access, while creating a lasting sanctuary for people, fish, and wildlife.

After my first taste of what the proposed Boulder-White Clouds National Monument has to offer, I needed to see more. So, early on Saturday, I headed back up the highway to the Smiley Creek Airport (actually, a well-mowed grass strip) and squeezed myself into the backseat of a small plane for a flyover. From above, the mountains and canyons looked as wild and inviolable as they have for millennia. Yet without long-term protection, they have an uncertain future.

A bird's-eye view of the proposed monument.

President Obama has stepped up the pace of his national monument designations during his second term and, as I heard him say at the signing ceremony last May for the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, he's not finished yet. Here, in the heart of Idaho, is one of the last and greatest unprotected jewels of American wilderness. You can help us convince President Obama to save it.

Let President Obama know that you think Boulder-White Clouds deserves to be our next national monument. You can tell him the Brune family sent you. 

No matter how much I love my job, being away from Mary and the kids while I travel for work is always tough. Even on a fantastic trip like the one I took to the Arctic last month, I constantly catch myself wishing they could be there to see it with me.

That's why these two weeks of summer are the best of both worlds. I get to meet fantastic Sierra Club volunteers from all over the Northwest, learn about the work they're doing, and see the beautiful places that inspire them. Plus, I get to do it with the whole family. Believe me, that makes up for a lot of budget and policy meetings.

After a brief layover in Seattle with relatives, we and our three junior explorers set off for the Cascades again, this time to the little town of Index, Washington -- on the North Fork Skykomish River. Index was once a mining and lumber town, but today outdoor recreation drives the local economy. In fact, every year, direct consumer spending on outdoor recreation adds $22.5 billion to Washington State's economy and supports more than 226,600 jobs.

We reached Index by lunchtime and hung out with locals and some great folks from the Sierra Club's Washington State Chapter at a riverside BBQ hosted by the Outdoor Adventure Center. Rafting and kayaking are a major attraction here. Thousands of people come here for some of the best whitewater in Washington. Although we didn't have time to do any rafting ourselves, the kids got in some practice on dry land.

Future rafters Genevieve and Olivia. See more pics and updates from our trip here.

Although only an hour's drive from Seattle, Index is a gateway to the Wild Sky Wilderness, which was created by Congress in 2008, after a long, hard-fought campaign that had strong local support but kept getting derailed by anti-environmental legislators from other states. Wild Sky is Washington State's newest wilderness, and it's already extremely popular.

One thing we couldn't help but notice was the railroad trestle that crosses the Skykomish here, which led to the subject of oil trains. People here and throughout the Northwest are understandably worried that, sooner or later, a big increase in oil shipments by rail will lead to disaster. It doesn't inspire confidence that this same trestle bridge across the Skykomish was the site of a seven-car derailment in 1981.

After lunch, we headed for our first family hike in Washington, which started at a trailhead only about a dozen miles from Index. Together with some of our new Sierra Club friends, we hiked about two miles to Barclay Lake, which is nestled right on the edge of the Wild Sky Wilderness but still in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. The gently rolling trail was perfect for a family with kids, and the lake itself was gorgeous -- clear and cold (as my kids and I can personally attest), with steep, rocky Mt. Baring looming over us like a fortress.

The dozens of vehicles parked at the trailhead testified to the popularity of both the trail and the lake -- and we saw lots of other families as we hiked. Like the Wild Sky Wilderness itself, Barclay Lake is a great example of what the Sierra Club calls "Nearby Nature." Although it's great that we can protect remote wilderness areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it's also important that we have more accessible wild places where a young family from, say, Seattle, can enjoy hiking, camping, and all kinds of outdoor recreation. Our family had a great time.

We also had a fantastic time camping and hiking in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, which was created by Congress in 1976 and includes more than 700 lakes and mountain ponds scattered across more than 300,000 acres of the Cascade Range. We enjoyed another family-friendly but longish hike to one of those lakes (Talapus) through Douglas fir, cedar, and western hemlock. However, we may have overtaxed the endurance of our youngest explorer. 

Getting carried up and down hills can be exhausting!

Like the smaller Wild Sky Wilderness, parts of the Alpine Lakes area were logged and mined before finally being protected. Interestingly, the bills that protected each of these wilderness areas were both signed by Republican presidents: Gerald Ford and George W. Bush. President Ford actually acted against the advice of the Forest Service. He supposedly made up his mind after spending an hour with Washington State's governor (a fellow Eagle Scout) admiring the photos in a book called The Alpine Lakes. "Anywhere so beautiful should be preserved," Ford said. What a great example of the personal prevailing over the political.

By the way, that coffee-table book, which saved hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness, was coauthored by my friend (and former Sierra Club Northwest representative) Brock Evans, who's still out there fighting the good fight to this day.

And there's still plenty to fight for. The west side of the North Cascades has more than 250 miles of eligible wild and scenic rivers, along with over 350,000 acres of federally owned, unprotected wildlands. Unfortunately, politicians who share President Ford's opinion are in short supply these days -- especially in Congress. But though political tides may shift, you can be sure that Sierra Club folk will not only be exploring and enjoying these wild lands but also working hard to protect them.

Our next stop: Idaho and the Boulder-White Cloud mountains.

Does doing something two years in a row qualify as a "family tradition"? If so, this is shaping up to be a great one. Once again, my wife Mary and I have packed the tent, the camping gear, the bug spray, and, oh yeah, our ever-intrepid kids into the minivan for a two-week road trip to explore some of the wild and beautiful places that the Sierra Club is working to protect. Last year, we visited the Southwest, so this time around we're taking a northern route through Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

In Oregon, our first big stop was at a place that I'm happy to say has already been protected for more than a century: Crater Lake National Park. The blue water looked as amazing as when gold prospectors stumbled upon it in 1853. It's the deepest lake in the U.S., with incredibly clear water.

But our first major destination for this part of our trip was actually a little further north in the Cascades, where there's a cluster of lakes that includes the Oregon's second-largest and second-deepest natural lake. Waldo Lake isn't as famous as its bigger cousin. In fact, until 1969, the only way to reach it was on foot or horseback. That's part of what makes it special, though. Apart from three Forest Service campgrounds, it's completely undeveloped, and its water is incredibly clean -- among the purest lake water in the world.  

At Waldo Lake with Olivia and Genevieve. See more pics and updates from our trip here.

Waldo Lake and much of the surrounding area are managed as roadless wilderness by the U.S. Forest Service. To ensure that this part of the Cascades remains wild and beautiful, though, permanent protection is needed. When we arrived at Waldo Lake, we got to meet a few of the people who are working together to make that happen.

The Oregon Chapter's Juniper Group, which encompasses most of central and eastern Oregon, is running a first-class "Keep Waldo Wild" campaign. It's been led since 2010 by David Stowe, who has written a beautiful account of what inspired him to start the campaign. David, as well as Juniper Group chair Gretchen Valido and Oregon Chapter chair Larry Pennington, were among the local folks who came out to show us "their" lake.

My favorite thing about this campaign is how the local Sierra Club has reached out to other wilderness users. The unspoiled, old-growth forests around Waldo Lake are also popular with mountain bikers and trail runners, who don't want to see it logged or overrun by motor vehicles any more than we do. So the Keep Waldo Wild campaign is based on an innovative National Conservation Area model that's previously been used on BLM lands. It will establish new wilderness as well as multiuser conservation areas that still provide strong environmental protections.

That's how we were also able to meet Woody Starr, the chair of the Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA), which is one of the mountain biking organizations that have endorsed the Club's plan for protecting Waldo Lake. Life isn't always fair, however. Although five-year-old Sebastian showed off his newly acquired bike skills on a forest trail, I'm the one who scored the cool COTA bike jersey.

From Waldo Lake it was on to the Eugene area, where we hiked Mt. June with inspiring Sierra Club volunteers Cathy Corlett, Gordon Levitt, Bill Sullivan and Mike Brinkley. They were showing us the Hardesty Wildlands, which the Oregon Chapter's Many Rivers Group is working to protect. Like the area around Lake Waldo, these are Forest Service-managed lands, which means that more than 6,000 wilderness-quality acres are still at risk of being logged.

When we reached the summit of Mt. June and looked across the forested ridge to Mt. Hardesty, I gave silent thanks for the volunteers who work nights and weekends, for months and years at a time, to secure permanent protection for places like this. Oregonians, and all of us, are fortunate to have these beautiful wild places to visit and enjoy. May we never forget that keeping them safe doesn't happen by accident.

Our next stop: the Evergreen State and the Wild Sky Wilderness!

Note: My coauthor for today's post is Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association.

For the 10th consecutive year, the president signed a proclamation declaring that June is Great Outdoors Month. This is to encourage us to get outdoors and enjoy our natural heritage. While the president certainly wants Americans to enjoy themselves, there's an even more compelling reason to take that advice -- it could save your life.

We’ve all heard the statistics about how much exercise we need and how little of it the majority of Americans get. This trend is especially worrisome among children, who routinely while away their summers indoors playing with electronics.

That’s where the Outdoors Alliance for Kids comes in.

OAK is a national coalition of more than 70 organizations working together to connect children, youth, and families to the outdoors. The Sierra Club and the American Heart Association proudly serve on the steering committee.

We believe the health of current and future generations, as well as the health of our planet, depends on fostering personal, direct, and lifelong relationships between humans and nature. To do that, we'll need not just the health and environmental sectors but also the recreation, transportation, education, built-environment, urban planning, and business communities to pitch in.

Currently, only 1 in 5 Americans lives within half a mile of a park. This problem is especially severe for low-income communities and communities of color, which are far more likely to be "recreational deserts." In some urban areas, it's not safe to be outdoors, whether because of deteriorating infrastructure, crime, or poor air quality. People in these communities have higher rates of obesity and associated chronic diseases, including heart disease.

One of the easiest ways to bring kids -- and everyone else -- nearer to nature is to bring nature nearer to them. Vacant lots can be converted into pocket parks and gardens, particularly in park-poor communities. We can invest in trails and greenways to increase connectivity between natural areas. Studies have shown that communities with safe sidewalks, green spaces, parks, and public transportation are at a lower risk from cardiovascular disease than those that do not have those resources.

We can also prioritize protecting natural areas that are accessible to urban areas -- what the Sierra Club calls "nearby nature." These are places that a family might reach on foot or by public transit for a picnic or an hour-long stroll -- rather than after an hours-long car drive. Such nearby nature spaces might also have more amenities, such as toilets; trash and recycling barrels; picnic tables; accommodations for the disabled; and interpretive multilingual signs, guides, and programs.

The president may be able to issue a proclamation, but the responsibility for getting outdoors and staying active rests with all of us. We can advocate in our own communities for access to natural spaces. And we can make sure that we and our families are getting active outdoors wherever possible. Not sure how to get started? Find a Sierra Club outings group in your neighborhood and visit the American Heart Association's website for tips on staying physically active.

Enjoying all that the great outdoors has to offer is every American's birthright -- no one should be denied the opportunity to exercise it.

For more than a century, presidents have been using the Antiquities Act to save our national treasures, and President Obama's just-announced designation of the Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks National Monument in southern New Mexico shows exactly why this law is so indispensable.

At nearly 500,000 acres (making it by far the largest monument that President Obama has designated), Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks is packed with history, from archaeological sites to Billy the Kid's Outlaw Rock, to training areas for the Apollo space missions. The canyons and jagged peaks of the region's mountain ranges are both beautiful and unique.

My family and I experienced that beauty firsthand last November when we hiked the Dripping Springs Trail together with many of the folks who've been working for years to gain this protection.

It's estimated that the new monument will attract enough new outdoor recreation and tourism to give a $7.4 million boost to the local economy. No wonder the designation received strong local support across the board -- from business owners to elected officials to residents.

As Howard Dash, a member of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Action Team of the Rio Grande Chapter's Southern Group, told me: "In Las Cruces, our team has worked hard for the designation of the national monument. It was through the Sierra Club's support that we were able to focus that effort to make it a reality. Las Cruces will be a better place for it."

Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks is the eleventh national monument designated by President Obama under the Antiquities Act and, in every instance, his administration has bent over backward to get input from nearby communities and to select places that are rich in both cultural and natural heritage. In other words, the Antiquities Act is being used exactly as intended.

That fact, however, didn't keep the current U.S. House of Representatives (already notorious for being the most anti-conservation in decades) from attempting to snatch failure from the jaws of success. Earlier this year, in a close vote, the House passed a bill that would gut the Antiquities Act.

Obviously, anyone who loves wild places and wants to see them protected, knows that's a terrible idea. Many excellent candidates for national monument protection, such as Idaho's Boulder-White Clouds, Arizona's Grand Canyon Watershed, and Utah's Greater Canyonlands, are still waiting. But the repercussions of losing the Antiquities Act would reverberate beyond the loss of new monuments. Remember when our national parks were closed because of the federal government shutdown? Fourteen of those national parks were reopened with funding from state governments because the states couldn't afford to lose the substantial revenue the parks generated for nearby communities. Of those 14 parks, nine were first protected as national monuments -- thanks to the Antiquities Act.

Without the Antiquities Act, it's impossible to say exactly how much poorer our national heritage would be, but there's no question it would be poorer, not just for us, but for every generation that follows. President Obama deserves a lot of credit for using the authority granted to him by the Antiquities Act to protect special places like Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks, and for using it exactly the way it is supposed to be used.

Of course, anytime that Congress decides to use its own considerable authority to protect public lands, I'll be the first to stand and applaud. In the past five years, though, that's happened exactly once, which puts the tally at Obama 11, Congress 1. During this 50th anniversary year of the Wilderness Act, wouldn't it be nice to see a closer score?

Someone once said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Blogging about getting outdoors feels a bit like that. Part of me thinks that rather than writing 850 words about getting outdoors, I'd much rather be outdoors. And then part of me thinks that, rather than reading those 850 words, you might feel the same way!

But since we're here, together, united by this glowing screen, let me share a few thoughts about Sierra Club Outdoors -- which, every year, helps more than 250,000 people get their nature fix.

Getting outside has always been a big part of the Sierra Club, of course. The Club was started, after all, by a group of mostly city dwellers who wanted to explore and enjoy the great outdoors. Back in the 1890s, mind you, this was still a somewhat novel idea. Not so long before, most people still saw the great outdoors as something to escape from or stoically endure.

What those first Sierra Club members instinctively realized (with a little help from nature's greatest evangelist, John Muir) was that in "escaping" the outdoors, people were also cutting themselves off from a key nutrient -- like being deprived of an essential vitamin.

Today, of course, "nature deficit syndrome" is widely recognized for how it affects kids who grow up without access to outdoor experiences. We know that direct nature experiences shape the lives of young people, improve their self-esteem, raise their test scores, and help them lead healthier lives. That's why one volunteer-run SC Outdoors program is specifically aimed at helping thousands of urban youth -- kids who may have grown up 10 miles from the ocean without ever walking on a beach, for instance -- experience the outdoors.

The lack of nature doesn't affect only kids, though, and its benefits can help others, too.

Our Military Outdoors program, for instance, ensures that those who served our country, as well as their families, can enjoy the splendor of the land for which they've sacrificed. What Thoreau once called "the tonic of wildness" can do powerful things. At a minimum, outdoor experiences can provide military service members and their families with adventure, camaraderie, as sense of mission, or just a chance to relax and reconnect with one another.

Although we're proud of our programs that serve some of the people who stand to benefit the most from getting outdoors, the Sierra Club was founded on the premise that everyone deserves the opportunity to experience wildness, regardless of where they live or what their economic circumstances might be. We make that happen in two ways. One is by working to ensure that we don't focus only on iconic national parks or remote wilderness areas. Wonderful as those are, there's also a need for local places that individuals or families can easily visit for a picnic or an hour-long stroll. We call such places "nearby nature," and they are where many of our local outings happen.

The other way we make that happen is by having lots of outings in lots of places. Our volunteers lead more than 13,000 outings a year -- and they happen in every state and U.S. territory. Every one of these events -- whether it's a short day hike or a backpacking trip through the High Sierra -- happens because of a volunteer leader who loves the outdoors and wants to share that with other people.

As a result, no matter where you live, there's probably a Sierra Club outing happening near you soon. Find out right now by visiting the SC Outdoors page on our website.

OK, now that you've found your next outing, I want to leave you with just a couple of more thoughts before you lace up your boots and hit the trail: I'm convinced that the programs that make up SC Outdoors are more than just an important part of the Sierra Club's work -- they are an essential part. How many great conservation victories have been achieved without the hard work of ordinary folks who didn't want to see a place they loved destroyed? I can't think of a single one. The strongest passion for protection springs from love. No wonder throughout our history so many of our greatest leaders, from John Muir onward, have found their way to the Club through their love of the natural world.

It goes even deeper than that, though. Spending time outdoors can be personally healing, but it's also something that can bring people together, regardless of differing backgrounds, political beliefs, or experience. In nature, we have an opportunity to connect with people on a different level -- and to find common ground at a time when so many other forces are working to push us apart. Nature helps us restore our funds of hope, cooperation, and optimism -- and we can't have too much of any of those, whether we're fighting to save an Arctic wilderness or working to replace a dirty power plant with clean, renewable energy.

So come outdoors with us. You won't be sorry you did.