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HORSE RACE BY MAT CLOUSER

To even compete in the Mongol Derby, a 1,000km (621.37 miles) grueling trek through northern Mongolia designed to mimic the horse messenger system established by Genghis Khan, you have to submit a resume. Thousands do each year from around globe, striving for a chance to compete on a route established 800 years ago in 1224. Riders pick their horses at each leg from herds of semi-wild horses Mongol tribes care for.

In August, Kayleigh Davenport of Sudbury, Vt., not only completed the Mongol Derby, she finished 14th overall. Davenport, who grew up riding at Pond Hill in Castleton, first heard about the race via her job working for SmartPak, an online retailer for equestrian apparel. Davenport didn’t think she had a chance to get accepted. Still, after submitting numerous videos and pictures of her riding and going through a lengthy interview process, she was finally approved.

The race, whose course changes every year and is kept secret until the last minute, can take riders through mountain passes, open valleys, river

Kayleigh Davenport (right) rode across the finish line in 14th with another U.S. rider, Lena Haug.

crossings, wetlands, floodplains, arid dunes, rolling hills, and of course, the famed Mongolian steppe.

All across roughly 10 days of riding 13 hours a day and dealing with all manner of difficulties along the way— including weather, wolves, and the alltoo-common giant marmot hole.

“If you’re on a horse and you don’t really have a say in how fast you’re going to be going, you can’t be barreling through a field and fall in a marmot hole, which happened a lot,” she said.

Riders must carry all their materials and supplies (although meals are provided at checkpoints) and may not weigh more than 187 lbs., including their backpack (with camping supplies), in addition to a maximum of 11 lb. saddle bag. “When you’re out in the field, it’s just kind of you and your horse,” said Davenport.

Some restrictions are made to keep the race close to what the initial Mongolian riders had to contend with, but much of it is done with horse safety in mind.

No horse may be ridden for more than one leg (about 40 km), and a team of vets checks each horse after each leg to ensure they have not been overridden. “At each horse station, there are the herders who own the horses and help you get on and get saddled,” she said. “There’s a whole team of medics that work for the race, a whole team of vets that work for the race, and some crew that are there to help support you.”

It’s grueling for the rider too. Of the 47 who started only 33 finished. Davenport worked with a fitness coach to prepare. While she is not sure she’d do the race again, the experience was life changing for her. “I loved it. It was amazing,” she continued. “I keep hearing people say ‘oh, you made it back in one piece,’ and I’m like—’I am wholer than I have ever been.’”

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In fall 2020, I lived in wildfireriddled central Washington. It was one of the state’s worst fire seasons on record. By September 1, more than 700,000 acres had burned, approximately 10% of the area of the state of Vermont. It didn’t stop there. High winds combined with downed power lines sparked more wildfires on Labor Day weekend, leading to near total destruction of Malden and Pine City in eastern Washington and creating hazardous air quality across the state.

The Cold Springs Canyon fire started less than 100 miles north of us in Wenatchee. Overnight the air around us transformed into an opaque, smoky darkness. A film of ash blanketed the Columbia River and my housemates and I soon found ourselves coughing up soot. By contrast, my hometown – Waitsfield, VT – tends to have Air Quality Index (AQI) readings in the 20’s and 30’s: fresh and clear. In Washington that fall, my phone was registering AQI numbers in the 400’s.

While wildfires can start for a number of reasons and are a natural phenomenon in certain places, climate change is exacerbating their frequency and intensity. Experts connect the severity of Washington’s 2020 wildfire season to anthropogenic climate change.

This wasn’t the only time I’ve experienced the impacts of events precipitated by climate change.

In September 2011, Tropical Storm Irene decimated Vermont. I remember gathering the day after on the main street of Waitsfield near our covered bridge. Neighbors and friends set up tables in the middle of the street to wash dishes from the riverside restaurants and cafes that had flooded. The community response was heartening, but we all found ourselves reeling in the wake of such a devastating natural disaster.

In July 2019 ,I was working in Alaska during a record-breaking heat wave attributed to amplified climate warming in northern latitudes and a prolonged wildfire season in Alaska. It was hot and the air was often hazy with smoke. The last thing I expected from a summer on the northern tundra is that I would be vexed by heat on a regular basis. But that’s just a new reality.

WHAT'S TO COME?

I still feel nervous about what is to come, given that climate change is expected to increase both the frequency and severity of flood events in Vermont. In the next 50 years – well within my expected lifetime – more than one third of the global population is expected to face climate conditions outside those optimal for humans to thrive.

But we are also seeing steps in the right direction. With the new 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s investments, the U.S. is on track to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 2005 levels by 2030, with the goal of reaching net zero by 2050.

I am currently earning a Master’s in Climate Change Science and working remotely on climate policy for the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Woods Hole, Ma. I’ve studied climate change across the world. My work has me doing everything from assessing biodiversity loss in the Bhutanese Himalaya to researching how warming temperatures affect carbon cycling in Alaska’s boreal forests; from quantifying how wildfires impact methane emissions in the Arctic tundra to analyzing climate risk and mitigation strategies.

But I still think about climate change in the context of my home – Vermont.

The University of Vermont released the 2021 Climate Assessment last fall. Climate change will impact Vermont across all seasons, activities, and ecosystems. The projections are sobering. Skiing will remain largely viable in Vermont until 2050, but by 2080 it’s expected that the ski season will be shortened by anywhere from two to four weeks. Warming temperatures are making harmful algal blooms more common. In 2015 there were 9 days of beach closures on Lake Champlain due to cyanobacteria blooms. In 2020 there were 44.

And we are losing biodiversity across the state. Experts predict that 92 bird species will disappear in the next 25 years, including our State Bird, the hermit thrush, as well as the beloved common loon. I can’t quite fathom a summer in Vermont without the flutelike songs of hermit thrushes in the woods or the long mournful call of loons.

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE HAS ALREADY CHANGED ONE YOUNG

VERMONTER’S LIFE. BY ANNEKA WILLIAMS

Author Anneka Williams, pictured here on Mount Adams in Washington, is studying global climate

change. Courtesy photo/

SAFE PLACES?

I’ve always felt pulled in two directions: West and East. I was born in New Mexico but grew up in the Green Mountains. After high school, I spent concentrated stints living in Wyoming, New Mexico, Washington, Montana, and Alaska: I’ve relished crushing sage brush between my fingers to inhale the spicy scent, glissading down snowy peaks, and climbing the Rio Grande Gorge’s rocky walls.

Growing up my calculus was simple: East vs. West. But I’m old enough now to stay up at night fretting about the livability of different places in the face of climate change. I’ve always wanted to move to Taos, New Mexico to enjoy both skiing and a desert climate. But I worry about the feasibility of this as the Environmental Protection Agency predicts a diminishing snowpack and shortened ski season in Taos as the climate warms, not to mention increasing risk of drought, extreme heat, and wildfires.

One of my best friends recently moved to Salt Lake City, Utah – another place I’ve always been curious about. But the city’s climate prospects are concerning. The air around Salt Lake City may become toxic as climate change dries up the eponymous lake and average July high temperatures may rise 10 degrees by 2050. The prospect of hotter and drier summers and poor air quality make me question how livable Salt Lake City really is or will be.

No place on Earth will be able to outrun climate change. But we will all be navigating its impacts and making life choices accordingly - whether that choice is to stay on our homelands and do everything possible to take care of them, or to relocate, if able, to a place that feels healthier and safer. With a suite of impacts facing every region, there are no easy choices. The specific consequences and speed of onset in different areas are simply a matter of latitude and longitude, atmospheric composition, geology, and a confluence of other natural factors converging with the human impacts on the carbon cycle.

Being able to move – to choose where you live in the first place – is an enormous privilege. While the idea of settling down longer term feels elusive to me as I navigate the uncertainty of adulthood, the choice of where I do live is a choice that is gaining gravity in a world that is slowly becoming unlivable.

I don’t know where I’ll live with any degree of certainty. But I keep returning to Vermont, my home, and I try to appreciate all that we still have here right now: hiking the understated but relentless trails of the Green Mountains, carving fresh tracks on a powder day at Mad River Glen, hearing the croak of frogs in a pond on a humid summer night, swimming in cool rivers, and smelling a new snap in the air as I wake up to the first frost.