Ryan Johnson

The 10 best books I read in 2025

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As with last year, this list isn’t composed only of books released in 2025. It’s a list of my favorite books I read this year, regardless of when the book was published. Also, this list doesn’t include books I reread this year, only those books I read for the first time.

Honorable mentions this year include Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Heartwood, Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away, A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific, and The Children of Men (the adaptation of which is among my all-time favorite films).

I read 55 books in 2025. Here are my 10 favorite books I read (or listened to) this year.

10: The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self

9: A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park

8: Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service

7: Is a River Alive?

6: A Different Kind of Power

5: Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine

4: The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy

3: Train Dreams

2: Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds

1: A Place of Greater Safety

The Falling of Small Stones

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As I walked to a small “No Kings” rally at my local country church this morning with a hastily written homemade sign that read CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM IS UNBIBLICAL AND UNAMERICAN, I considered my recently established goal—crucial to my precarious mental health—to be more content with small contributions in our collective fight against authoritarianism at home and abroad.

In nerdier contemplation, I recalled Gandalf’s speech regarding the hobbits Merry and Pippin, and their (somewhat accidental) role in inspiring and catalyzing the Ents to resist the destruction of Fangorn Forest, and the associated, subjugating authoritarianism of Saruman and Sauron.

“Their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains.”

While I was at the church, I learned that some church members were hauling wood from a nearby downed tree, cutting it into sections to provide firewood for needy neighbors this winter (the church also has a well-stocked food pantry). Putting my signs aside after the first hour of the rally, I spent the remaining time moving and splitting firewood, knowing that it would keep a neighbor’s family warm over the next several months.

Earlier in the week, I saw evidence of another small stone I cast into the world, this time in Ukraine. In a weekly video from Car for Ukraine, I saw my name on the side of a truck I helped fund via the 50 States for Ukraine campaign. The refurbished and armored truck will be sent to the front line to support troops fighting against the devastating, criminal Russian invasion.

I continue to feel that my meager contributions are catastrophically insufficient. But all I have are small stones, and can only hope there are enough of them from enough of us to cause an avalanche in the mountains.

Photos: “Bachelor” elk and trailkeeping

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

An usual sighting of "bachelor" elk less than a mile from my house

I've been hiking this trail for over a decade, and it's always had exposed portions. But it's definitely sketchier following the 2020 Riverside Fire.

I scratched a trail across the washout to get the trail crew to the other side.

How to be alone in the woods: a walk to Plaza Lake

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I returned today to a trail I hiked a portion of with my dog Teddy back in June. I hadn’t spent much time in this area until recently. It lies between two more highly trafficked areas, including the bustling Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness at the foot of Mt. Hood to the north, and the Roaring River Wilderness and Clackamas River to the south.

This is the Tumala Mountain region, the history and significance of which is wonderfully described by Tom Kloster in his exceptional Wy’East Blog.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the Clackamas River watershed, having served many years ago as the president of the Friends of the Clackamas River, a feisty (and now defunct) nonprofit that advocated for the protection of the river and its tributaries.

But for whatever reason, these trails between the designated wilderness areas always escaped me.

Actually, I do know why I haven’t spent much time here.

An adjacent area is designated as an OHV (Off-highway Vehicle) park, attracting a cacophony of engine noise, aggression, and firearms. It is unpleasant to say the least, and would be more reasonable if the OHVs and shooting were confined to this area, but in the Clackamas Basin, they certainly are not.

All that said, for most of my hike today, I neither heard nor thought about OHVs. I encountered some – along with a few pickup trucks – on a short section of the walk along Forest Road 4610 (AKA Abbot Road).

Those were the only people I saw on the entire walk.

Occasionally it comes up, as often happened during my time on the search and rescue team, that I have not hiked many of the most popular trails on Mt. Hood. It’s true, largely because I prefer to hike in solitude. I rarely find the views worth negotiating crowded trails.

Which is why areas like this are so precious. I didn’t see another person the entire hike on this trail – on a weekend, no less – excepting the brief diversion on the road.

And that’s just how I like it.

Distance: 10.0 miles
Ascent: 3,486 ft
Max Elevation: 4,551 ft

Nasty Rock...but not Not Nasty Rock

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve continued to volunteer with Trailkeepers of Oregon just about every weekend for a couple months. This weekend was no different, as I joined a trail party in the Table Rock Wilderness on Saturday. But with the long holiday weekend, I decided to hike an obscure trail at the headwaters of the Molalla River south of Table Rock, bordering the Opal Creek Wilderness.

It’s the unmarked and unmaintained trail to Nasty Rock (and Not Nasty Rock…more on that in a minute).

I actually visited the “trailhead” for this hike back in June but encountered deep snow and otherwise deemed the hike too exposed to attempt while tethered to my dog Teddy. This time, Teddy stayed home and I decided to scout this little-used trail.

To call this is a “trail” is generous, however. It is overgrown, exposed, difficult to identify at times, and littered with downed trees.

Despite the obstacles and poor footing, it is a scenic, short hike along a ridge that forms both the headwaters of the Molalla River and the northern border of the Opal Creek Wilderness, the latter a magnificently beautiful area that’s unfortunately seen more than its fair share of wildfire in the last several years.

After scrambling to the top of the whimsically named Nasty Rock, I decided to try to push on toward the indifferently, hilariously labeled Not Nasty Rock.

It turns out the trail effectively vanishes between the two rocks, with the intervening ridge heavily impacted by the 2020 Beachie Creek Fire.

Much of this stretch is a continuous scramble, and I slid out at least three times, even while armed with trekking poles. A close inspection of the map displaying the ridge between the two rocks replaces the trail with a line that, when sufficiently zoomed, simply reads (difficult).

True! Given I was alone, I decided to turn back and save Not Nasty for another day.

I took it slow on the way back, pausing often to eat wild blueberries and admire some well-earned views on this short, “nasty” hike.

Trailkeepers event: Hidden Lake

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was back on the trail over the weekend for my third event with Trailkeepers of Oregon. Our small crew cleared 18 logs from the trail, along with a few miles of overgrown brush.

Back to volunteering

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After leaving the search and rescue team a few months ago and recently landing a new job after being forced out of federal service, I decided to get back into volunteer work.

In part because of the reductions in federal staff and funding for our public lands (not to mention the proposed sale of millions of acres of public land), I decided to focus my volunteer efforts on trail maintenance and public land support.

So today I joined a trail maintenance event with Trailkeepers of Oregon.

The event was at little-known Shellburg Falls, which, despite being just south of my favorite place in Oregon, I had never visited.

The Shellburg Falls area was heavily impacted by the massive Beachie Creek fire in 2020, and only reopened in 2024.

The area required significant work to make it safe again for visitation, and now demands consistent trail maintenance to manage the eager new vegetation reasserting itself, along with structures to manage runoff and bridges to span multiple creeks and wetlands in the area.

It’s a great spot to spend the day, and after all of the trails I’ve hiked, it’s nice to give back.

I’ll be back out on the trails soon.

June snow and other adventures

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Teddy and I continue to take advantage of unplanned unemployment. Here are some photos from our adventures the past few weeks.

Top Spur (Mount Hood)

We saw this bear on the way up the mountain. We'd seen a bobcat cross the road about 5 minutes before.

Joyce Lake

Molalla River Corridor

Silver Falls Backcountry

Tumala Mountain

Table Rock Wilderness

Locations

Looking out (cherish what survives: part 2)

Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Starting today, I have a little more time on my hands, at least for a few weeks. So Teddy and I decided to take a drive and hike up to Pechuck Lookout, a rare stone fire lookout near the Table Rock Wilderness south of where I live.

We arrived to an empty parking area, and we didn’t see another person during the hike or at the lookout.

I last visited the lookout in 2019, prior to the massive Labor Day wildfires of 2020. I was relieved to learn in 2022 that the lookout had survived the fires, albeit barely.

Evidence of the 2020 Beachie Creek fire was pervasive, with remnants of the burn leading nearly to the front door of the lookout.

I used the new Goat Maps app to track my hike, and it has a useful layer indicating and labeling the boundaries of historic wildfires.

My last hike here was also in May, earlier in the month, and I ended up negotiating a fair amount of snow in a few areas. This time, there was no sign of remaining snow, and the sides of the trail were laden with a variety of wildflowers.

Pacific bleeding heart

Oregon anemone

White fawn lily

Field of White fawn lily

It’s not a long hike to the lookout from the Rooster Rock trailhead, but you feel the climb at the beginning.

You can take a short spur to visit said Rooster Rock, and a longer effort to Table Rock to the north. Near the lookout, the view opens up to reveal Table Rock in the distance, as well as Mount Hood between some of the burned trees.

I’ve lost a lot that I care about recently; it’s good to be reminded of what survives—and to cherish it.

Track

Distance: 5.82 miles
Ascent: 2,372 ft
Max elevation: 4,960 ft

Big changes have come for me

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Put them in trauma”

Back in October—just a month after I moved my federal employment from the General Services Administration to the Department of Homeland Security—ProPublica reported that one of the architects of Project 2025 had this to say of federal workers:

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.

“We want to put them in trauma.”

Six months later, Project 2025 is in full swing, Elon Musk and other “officials” have reduced the federal workforce by at least tens of thousands, and the man (Russell Vought) who expressed his desire to traumatize federal workers is now the head of the federal government’s Office of Management and Budget. And I, like many of my fellow civil servants, am both traumatized and on my way out of federal service.

Worse still, much of my work during my time with the federal government was removed, along with entire teams I’ve worked on.

But hey…someone did write a song about me. :)

Leaving SAR

Both related and unrelated to my employment situation, I’ve also left the search and rescue team. My last mission was a body recovery from the Sandy River.

I’m proud of my work on the search and rescue team, and I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to train new recruits in land navigation during my tenure. But given everything else going on right now, volunteering with SAR became untenable.

So what now?

I’m not sure. I’ll likely take a short break from employment and try to settle my life into some new rhythms.

It feels like starting over.