A few years after moving to a remote area of southern New Mexico, I saw a Sierra Club ad in the local paper. I was a longtime member and thought, "That's amazing that a Sierra Club group is forming in this rural area!" I joined it and made new friends, but it wasn't until 2003 that I really became active as a leader. That year, I was hiking on a winter morning on public land near my home with my two dogs. Suddenly, one of the dogs started pulling on his leash. At the spot he wanted to investigate, there was a hidden steel-jaw trap. It leapt out of the sand when I inadvertently triggered it and slammed shut on air. The dogs and I weren't hurt, but that moment cleaved my life in two: before trapping and after trapping.
展开▼
