Welcome. Tell us a little about yourself

My name is John Romo.  I’ve lived here in Houston, on and off, over a span of time approaching twenty years. I’ve dedicated whatever free time I’ve had here, to finding the nearby wild places, although for me, it was a learning process.  In the West, where I was born and raised, you headed for the mountains, plainly visible from the city, and there you found wilderness.  In New England, where I started my professional life, it was much the same, but in Houston, I had to work for it.  There was not a mountain to be found anywhere on the horizon.  Slowly I began to range farther afield, discovering the jewels of Texas; it’s state parks.  I also discovered the Sam Houston National Forest, no more than an hour north of Houston- and running through it, the 100 mile long Lone Star Hiking Trail!  What feels like a quarter of the continent away, but still in Texas, I discovered TWO national parks: Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and Big Bend National Park.  i visit all of these wilderness treasures as often as I can, and I want to share the gifts that they offer, with others.


Describe the first time you felt a strong affinity for nature?

I feel most at home in the great outdoors, where the sights, sounds, and smells are a soothing balm to my psyche, pounded and grated daily by the demands of “civilized” living.  I think that I first felt this ‘great outdoors feeling’ when, at the age of 8, I first visited Yosemite National Park.  Simply put, I was awestruck.  As I grew into my exploratory teen years, I wandered the mountains that encircle the Los Angeles basin, following clear, fast running streams up canyons, green with fragrant pine trees, and climbing steep rocky, vertigo inducing trails, to look down at the sprawled mega-city of Los Angeles, from some of the many high peaks of  the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains.

During this time, I discovered Thoreau and Muir, both of whom capture that great outdoors feeling in their writings.  There is, however, a notable quote from John Muir, in which he hints at a more thoughtful approach to the appreciation of natural things: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”. 

I was fortunate enough to be accepted into a special summer program for inner-city high school kids, in which grad students, from some of the many local universities, gave talks on interesting and unusual subjects.  Here, during some talks on ecology, I was introduced to the writings of Racheal Carson and Thomas Malthus.  This is when I realized that, to fully appreciate NATURE, feeling about nature also required thinking about nature.  Walking through the great outdoors was not enough.  It needed to be protected.

Spurred by my new found interest in protecting nature, I joined groups like the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, and, when I entered university, several other ecology oriented student protest groups (it was the early 70’s).   Ironically, protest activities and studies left little time to enjoy the very nature for which I was advocating.  Still however, sitting in lecture halls, grinding through new concepts and revelational equations, my heart remained in the mountains, wandering the now, less accessible, great outdoors.


Describe a time  you participated at a Sierra Club event?  What did you do and what motivated you to participate?

In Houston, still searching for more outdoorsy things to do, I discovered and joined, a few years back, several outdoor oriented Meetup Groups, among them, the Houston Sierra Club Meetup Group.  I was lucky enough to snag a slot on a camping trip, led by Frank Blake, to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area.  On that trip I camped and hiked, on a perfect weekend,  with people who have the same love for the outdoors that I have.  It is always cool to find your tribe.


What kind of activity or activities would you like to see the Houston Sierra Club to do more of and why?

In my ‘outdoorsy things to do’ search, I noticed that my favorite outdoor activity was under represented.  Backpacking is the synergistic thing that happens when you drop camping directly onto the back of hiking.  It is two great outdoor activities, rolled up into a single activity that opens up possibilities to new places and new vistas, and I found very few groups doing it.  I’d like to see a backpacking community grow in Houston.  I hope that, through the Sierra Club Meetup Group, we start to foster interest and enthusiasm by providing opportunities for backpackers to get off the couch, and on the trail.


What environmental message do you have for young people?

Here in the United States, we are very fortunate to have a land of remarkable beauty and diversity.  This land, going forward, is the legacy we leave to our children and to future generations.  My generation was part of the century long ignorant decimation of our natural environment.  Science, also in my generation, began to measure and understand how our activities have convolved to denature the complex eco-systems that support our natural environment.  Now we know how, and to what extent, we will damage the planet if we continue to do destructive things to our natural environment.  Ignorance is no longer an excuse.

We are leaving, to young people, a world with daunting problems, but great possibilities.  For these possibilities to be realized, our political inertia must be deflected onto a more rational and sustainable path.  The people who will inherit this country must see reality for what it is.  Our country is being pillaged and taken out from under us, while we are distracted by divisive battles over bathrooms, guns, and walls.  Young people must be less gullible than we were.  Young people must be more rational than we were.   Understanding how nature works, by application of critical thinking informed by data, not opinion, will arm future generations with the tools needed to correct the damage already inflicted. 

Go out and see the natural world.  Learn about it. Enjoy it.  Fight for it.