 Welcome to our new team for 2026! Photo provided by Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, 2025. |
| Here, at the end of the year, I’ll take a few minutes of your time to introduce our new staff and some practices that I’m trying out to recognize cycles in life and our work. One cycle that we witnessed this year was the emergence of long-dormant native plants in response to wildfire. In 2024, the Deer Springs Fire rapidly burned through over 11,000 acres of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Many people thought that these 11,000+ acres would be ruined by an invasive species, cheatgrass, because of its relationship with fire. However, the seeds of at least two plant species were waiting in the soil for such an event: white phacelia (Phacelia alba) and coyote tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata). The native plants sprung from the burnt soil with an incredible vigor, and may have promise for restoring land after future wildfires. These species appear to be fire-adapted, which means that they need heat or smoke for their seeds to germinate. You can see photos and read more about the white phacelia and its pollinators in the Sego Lily article written by our 2025 Seed Technicians, Heather Vielstich and Tucker Hastings. In the continuing vein of cycles, three new staff have joined us for 2026: Katie, Mackenzie, and Mary. We are a small nonprofit that often serves as an incubator for young staff as they move through their careers in land stewardship. Learn more about Katie, Mackenzie, and Morgan below and on our website’s team page. We will be advertising for seasonal staff for positions in stewardship, restoration, and native plants soon. To recognize the cycles of the year, my family and some friends are bucking our normal, pragmatic and science-based approach to life by performing a winter solstice “burning ritual” that takes us from December 21, 2025 to January 1, 2026. It’s been a nice way to bring the family together and think about the year that is ending and our intentions for 2026. Speaking of the winter solstice, my husband also gifted me a circular, cyclical calendar, the CYCAL, that begins on the winter solstice and not January 1. Instead of writing down all of my meetings, tasks, and appointments, I’ll be using this calendar to make note of daily nature observations, and perhaps adding a little art here and there. The link to CYCAL is provided, not as an endorsement, but in case you are interested in such a hyper-specific thing as a lunar-based circular calendar for nature observations. Thank you for sticking with us through the cycles of public lands protection in Utah and beyond. You all have been amazingly generous this year, and your support helps us document and protect the special places on the Monument while keeping our staff happy and productive. Keep reading to learn about my last trip of the year to the Circle Cliffs, meet our new staff and a new PAWtner, and find out the answer to last month’s quiz! -Jackie |
