I’m still what people call a newcomer, but it seems to me that most people who live in the mountains fall into one of three categories: Second home owner, transplant from somewhere else — usually a city, like me — or native, though I meet very few natives who are older than 10. I’ve lived […]
Recreation
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Have golf’s glory days gone by?
The game that brought grass to the desert appears to be drying up
Posted inWotr
My Wonderful Heart Attack
My Wonderful Heart Attack happened last March while I was hiking with my wife in the mountains west of Boulder, Colo. The dogs were ranging out ahead as usual and, except for some heartburn, I felt good as we walked through the trees. I said to Pat, “I have some heartburn and I can;t think […]
Posted inWotr
Nature-deficit disorder is ruining our kids
No matter how old I live to be, there will never be a place so full of mystery and adventure as a place of my childhood called The Woods. The stories that grew out of those trees still kindle powerful feelings, even after all these years. My friends and I knew the place was haunted. […]
Posted inWotr
Watch out for hijackers in national parks
Yellowstone National Park, spring last year. Marypat and I have stopped for a picnic break on our annual April ride through the Yellowstone. We prop the bikes against a bridge railing, take our sandwiches and stroll to a grassy patch near a creek. It is quiet and tranquil in a way it never is during […]
Posted inWotr
Camping: We get grimy, look funky and love it
“What a hassle,” my husband complains as he wedges the camping table into the overloaded bed of our pickup truck. “You know, we’re going to spend less time in the mountains than we spent packing all this stuff. Why was it we wanted to go camping?” he asks half-seriously. That started me thinking. Why do […]
Posted inWotr
Waypoints of the heart
As a kid I used to play treasure hunt, all by myself. I’d take a piece of notebook paper and draw an X for my starting point — the front stoop of my house — on a dead-end street. Then I’d make a series of marks, each one representing a step, guided more by a […]
Posted inWotr
Sometimes, it’s possible to be too much in touch
As a general rule, it is not a good idea to smack a fellow river rafter with a paddle or to push him out of the boat in the middle of a rapid. Not only do such actions constitute a breach of wilderness etiquette, they can cause hard feelings that might result in unpleasantness later […]
Posted inWotr
Shooting at hikers is perfectly legal
My family and I almost became collateral damage at the end of a pleasant hike through Colorado’s Roosevelt National Forest. We were walking on a trail north of the small town of Lyons, when bullets suddenly peppered the trees behind our backs. My 8-year-old son, in tears, flattened himself into the dirt, and though my […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Craig’s excellent adaptive adventures
Name Craig Kennedy Age 33 Vocation Adaptive adventure-travel writer and accessibility consultant Home Base Steamboat Springs, Colorado Noted for Writing adventure-travel guides for disabled hikers, bikers, boaters, campers, paragliders … He says “(Accessibility) could always be happening faster. I’m just happy it’s happening at all. There are a lot of places we can go. ” […]
Posted inWotr
Ego climbing at Delicate Arch
In mid-May, the print and electronic media in Salt Lake City, Utah, reported the first ascent of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Delicate Arch is one of the most revered and recognized features in Utah, and if any natural feature deserves to be called an icon, it’s Delicate Arch. But on a recent Sunday […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Ode to a very hot spot
Despite its sensationalistic cover, John Soennichsen’s book, Live! From Death Valley, is a serious look at this unpredictable corner of California’s Mojave Desert. That’s not to say the author doesn’t have fun with his subject: He dives into the area’s bizarre geological history and its eccentric local characters, and tells plenty of self-deprecating stories about […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
A very brief conversation with a Jet Fighter
I used to walk the bombing ranges of southern Arizona. Sometimes I had permission, out doing field research in the deep Sonoran Desert. And sometimes I walked illegally, with no one knowing I was there, avoiding loud booms and bright flashes of light, camping in ragged canyons where nobody ever goes. Drumbeats of bombs sounded […]
Posted inWotr
The bottom-line truth: We are protecting our parks
Open your paper in the next few weeks, and you might see this headline: “Bush budget cuts end 911 coverage for Yosemite.” The story underneath says an official review of the National Park Service by a government agency found that budget cuts and staff vacancies at Yosemite National Park mean that visitors in life-threatening emergencies […]
Posted inWotr
National Parks are truly under the gun
The words “heavy artillery” and “national park” aren’t usually uttered in the same sentence. Get used to it. National parks are under fire — both literally and metaphorically. First, let’s talk about the literal blasting. It’s proposed in one of America’s grand old parks, Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana. The Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
National Parks and the Woman’s Voice
National Parks and the Woman’s Voice Polly Welts Kaufman 344 pages, softcover: $22.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2006. This updated edition of a decade-old book examines the role of women in the National Park Service, from Yellowstone explorers of the late 1800s to present-day park founders and advocates. Women now fill one-quarter of park […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Save Our Snow
Can Aspen and other Western towns put a dent in a global problem?
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Friends in high places
Breaking Through the Clouds is a compilation of essays by Richard Fleck, a scholar, writer and wanderer of the West’s high mountains. Fleck deftly weaves in the history and human background of each peak, quoting John Wesley Powell on the first ascent of Longs Peak in what is now Rocky Mountain National Park. Far from […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Snowy middle ground
Wilderness advocates and snowmobilers come to terms in Montana
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
The unbearable triteness of skiing
Q: Why did Utah choose the slogan “The Greatest Snow on Earth” when it so closely resembled the Ringling Brothers’ slogan “The Greatest Show on Earth?” A: Both enterprises attract a lot of bozos. It’s OK to own an automobile without a ski rack. You don’t need to keep your Web browser bookmarked to all […]