What did you take away from it?

Yeah, the Lost Coast of California is a really special area.

It's very remote, but it's where, you know, the famous Highway 1 that goes, you know, you can drive all along the coast.

Essentially, when the road builders in the 40s and 50s were building Highway 1, they got to the Lost Coast, which is the King Range Mountains, and they rise really precipitously.

Like, it's a 4,000-foot rise within three miles from the ocean.

And so road builders essentially were like...

This is going to be crazy.

So how do you think about holding this complicated past and present all in one as you visit these public lands, you know, the theft from Native Americans, acknowledging the dark history of colonialism and genocide, as well as enjoying these lands for what they are now?

Oh, man.

Because if you thought of BLM land, even if you, if you knew about it or you saw where it was, lot of grazing and a lot of mining.

And then in 1976, the Federal Land Policy Management Act, or what's known as FLPMA, it was the first time when the BLM was mandated with this multiple-use mission.

So it was the first time that recreation and conservation sort of were supposed to be on equal footing with grazing and mining.

And so that was really this new mandate where...

And it's one of the most special things to me about BLM land, is that, you know, the national parks are, like, this place that almost feels like nature's behind a velvet rope.

Mm.

They're walking.

But I think the thing that you learn and, you know, like I've experienced this and you obviously have to like a larger extent is that like when you just go and visit these places, even without that extra level of protection, there's just amazing, beautiful spots like all over the place.

Like places that you would think would be national parks because of how diverse they are and how beautiful they are were just regular BLM lands, maybe even BLM lands that didn't have a designation.

Like you were saying, there's 245 million acres across the West and Alaska that are managed by the BLM, but only 38 million of those acres kind of have a higher level of protection.

Whether it's like you said, it gets confusing.

I wish it wasn't because there's wild and scenic rivers, wilderness areas, wilderness study areas, national monuments.

Like it just kind of goes on and on.

ACECs, you know? And so it's like there's so many designations.

Um, like did you see any sort of like, like things that were common problems across those different areas?