What is it like to spend childhood nestled in a landscape filled with sagebrush? Today, I’m sharing stories of two women who put pen-to-paper to say how growing up in Wenatchee’s shrub-steppe made a lasting impression as they were coming-of-age. Each woman wrote her essay as a college student living far from home. I thank Grace Peven and Kristen Ballinger for allowing me to share their eloquent reflections with you.
Kristen Ballinger in 2020 
Grace Peven in 2020
Personal Essay by Kristen Ballinger
I wrote this essay in 2008 after I left Wenatchee and was a freshman at Amherst College in Massachusetts. I later returned to sagebrush country to finish college in Walla Walla and then traveled throughout the west during my training at UW Medical School (including clinical rotations in Spokane & Othello, Washington, Bozeman and Kalispell Montana). I am now in residency training to be a child psychiatrist. Very grateful to my mother Susan, for teaching me to pay close attention and love the place we lived.
I grew up fifty yards away from a steep, dry, sagebrush and bitterbrush-covered mountain, home to rattlesnakes, coyotes, deer ticks and even a rusting 1950s washing machine. And I loved it. Scrambling or jogging up “the hill” was an adventure into the wild, beautiful, adult-free world.
Last year, I was pretty far away at college, and when cabin fever kicked in I told stories about my sagebrush-covered back yard. Most of my friends liked nature. But just why this nearly-desert ecosystem captured my heart was hard to explain to them. Their close encounters with the outdoors were in wetter parts of the world – waterfalls, lush green parks, or National Park scenery so astounding that advertising agencies use it to sell SUVs. What was so special about a relatively barren hill?
It’s hard to imagine how tree-less, brown hills can be beautiful until you have watched the grass bend and rise in a strong wind like waves in a muted inland sea. Or slept in the back yard on an August night, and woken to hear the haunting yelps of coyotes drifting down over a deceptively suburban scene. Even the smell of sagebrush stings the nose a bit at first – only after years of bringing it home on my fingers and jeans did I start to enjoy the sharp tang.
The harshness –really, the wildness – of the Jacobson property makes its beauty elusive. You have to search for the tiny, exquisite blue-eyed Mary flowers, hidden among the bunch grass.
Only after an afternoon of sweating through scratchy, dry grass can you appreciate the luxury of shade and moss at a tiny snowmelt-fed ravine.
The crucial element in the sagebrush’s beauty, which I just couldn’t express to my far-away friends, was that I had experienced it. How lucky we are to live in a place where nature can still be loved and lived in as wilderness.
They will probably never film a car commercial on our hill. Still, as long as people can climb up it, play around and get to know it personally, I’m sure it will be well loved, and well protected.
Sagebrush of the Foothills by Grace Peven
Originally published on Wenatchee Outdoors
I wrote this article in 2012, when I was 18 years old, the summer after I graduated from Wenatchee High School. I was fortunate enough to be spending the summer writing part time for Wenatchee Outdoors and guiding river trips on the Wenatchee River, before I left home to attend school at Western Washington University. Transitioning from the dry heat of Wenatchee to the dense wet forests of western Washington was an adjustment. Although I learned to love the bright green forests on the other side of the mountains, the connection to the dry sunny shrub-steppe was in my blood. I’ll always favor the vast openness of the arid lands I grew up in and the smell of sagebrush following a storm. I return home often to raft the Wenatchee River and run through the Sage Hills trails and it fills me with an ingrained sense of belonging and comfort that I haven’t found elsewhere. Without thinking, my feet and legs instinctively know how to navigate the dry cracked dirt paths that meander through the sagebrush and up to the ponderosa and firs like I have an internal map of each step programmed into me. Intimately knowing a landscape with your heart and your body is empowering and each time I launch on the river or begin a trail run, I’m reminded of the power this place has given me.
I used to believe only the brave and foolish ventured into the Foothills after a thick rain. I fear the erosion, the muddy shoes, the specks of dirt that always seem to scatter all over my legs, and most of all, the pungent and potent perfume of the sagebrush. So strong is the smell of the plant after a dowsing of water, that it seeks me out, invades my nostrils and overpowers my senses to near defeat.
Frankly, I haven’t been on particularly friendly terms with sagebrush. My sensitive nose can’t bear it. But alas, Mother Nature’s children deserve attention, or at least some respect (from a distance for me).
Artemesia tridentata (big sagebrush) has some redeeming qualities. Why else would our ancestors name it after Artemis, the Greek Goddess of hunting, childbirth, the moon, and the wilderness? When Artemis wasn’t chastising Agamemnon for killing a stag in her sacred garden, she frolicked in the woods, caring to nature’s flora and fauna. Because of the fruitfulness and prestige of sagebrush (it’s been used for everything from arrow cases to tea), Artemis appeared to be a fitting namesake for the plant. Tridentata, meaning three-toothed, refers to the three “teeth” extending from the leaves of the plant.
Artemesia tridentata is only one giant among a network of sagebrush in the local area. Artemesia tripartita (three-tip sagebrush) and Artemesia tridentata can be found side by side on the Jacobson Preserve trail. Where the soil becomes thinner and rockier on Saddle Rock, the two plants, along with Artemisia rigida (stiff sagebrush) can be found living harmoniously as a trio.
Big sagebrush not only dominates the other shrub steppe plants in size and quantity, but also in age. The average life span of big sagebrush is 40-50 years, but some reach up to 100 years. Their finely tuned adaptions to the environment allow them to survive bi-polar moods of the weather.
In the face of a drought, the sagebrush guffaws. Dehydration is an unimaginable thought for this creature. To quench its thirst in this arid environment, its course deep roots sink deep underground into water reservoirs. In the dryness of Wenatchee’s desert ecosystem, the sagebrush maximizes the rainfall by quickly absorbing the water through surfaced roots before it can evaporate.
Not only is sagebrush an efficient water collector, it’s also a stingy water hoarder. To defend against the penetrating heat of a Wenatchee summer day, their hairy leaves have adapted to reflect sunlight and protect against drying out in harsh winds and jarring sunrays.
While its adaptability is reason enough to admire this plant, it’s also proven to be quite useful. The next time you have a runny nose consider stuffing a bundle of sagebrush leaves up your nostrils. The pungent fumes will spike your senses and divert your sniffles or so local Native American tribes thought.
The Columbia and Wenatchi Native American tribes took advantage of the medicinal benefits of sagebrush. To cure respiratory ailments, sweat lodges were filled with smoky sagebrush leaves that emitted a strong, medicinal aroma. The scent, they said, had a calming, even sedative effect.
The leaves and twigs of the plant were also pulverized and then boiled to make a medicinal tea for colds, sore throats, indigestion, grippe (influenza), and general illnesses. Sagebrush takes the cake in all around medicinal uses among the shrub-steppe plants.
But it wasn’t just the stuff of medicines–sagebrush was also used as fiber to create clothes, saddle blankets, arrow cases, sandals, and rope. And it was placed around the deceased during burial rituals to deodorize the stench.
So the next time you’re hiking, trail running, or biking around the foothills, take a whiff of this powerfully pungent plant. For some like me, it might overpower your senses; for others, it might cure your sniffles.
Biography: Grace graduated from Western Washington University in 2016 with a degree in Geography and GIS. Grace currently works remotely for an environmental consulting company that maps and manages environmental data but has dabbled in a lot of fields since graduating like water and forestry conservation, writing, and whitewater rafting. Drawn to the landscapes of the Western US, she has rambled around Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana since graduating and leaving home. She plans on attending graduate school in 2021 to study water resource conservation,climate change adaptation, and natural resource conflict resolution.
Grace has continued to write in between work and adventures. Last year, she bike-packed around the country of Georgia by herself and wrote a blog describing her experience. More recently, Grace wrote an article about the ethics of mining the seafloor in international waters.