Here, you’ll find unfortunately true tales of an accidental naturalist’s misadventures in the wild, as well as shorter, inspirational reflections of nature
San Juan River Canyon, Black Mesa &Monument Valley in background
You step to the rim up here, and you begin to see what all the fuss is about. In the remote distance is Black Mesa, which some regarded in the old days as a bad medicine mesa. It’s why I chose to place part […]
The Inner Gorge, from Dutton Point
I’m not a very peaceful man, from the inside-out. Most of us aren’t. Peace shouldn’t depend on a place, and yet, one of the only places I experience peace is at Grand Canyon. To me, the Canyon remains a place of mystery, suspense and solitude. Much of my […]
I’d been to Powell Plateau before. A couple years back in July. This time I went at the end of September, before they closed out the North Rim for the tourists. As a backpacker, I was a step above the tourists. So I thought.
There’s no source of water so you have to haul in your […]
Six Shooter Peaks, with Bridger Jack Mesa
Some landscapes bring me to tears. When I drive up highway 211 toward the Needles District of Canyonlands, I begin to understand the meaning of the old truism that it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters. I have this 6-cylinder Silverado I bought from a State trooper. I […]
Hoodoos near Chesler Park, Canyonlands
If you take anything and apply enough pressure, it changes into something else. Plants become peat or coal or oil. Mud, silt and sand becomes rock. The earth applies heat and the composition changes. Two components are poured into the subterranean kiln, melt in the crucible and become one. […]
At rim of White Canyon, with Henry Mountains
People often ask me what I was doing before I started writing. Well, no they really don’t, but I’m supposed to blog about stuff like that to sell my books. But, if you were to ask me what I was doing before I started writing, I’d tell […]
San Juan River Canyon,Monument Valley in background
Don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.
The words something like from an old 60’s song by Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi. In the photo at top, you’re looking at Muley Point. The place I’m standing on, from which I took this photo, was declared a National […]
Some trails are meant to be trekked alone. If you drive north of the town of Dolores for about 20 miles, you’ll find Hillside Drive, which lives up to its name. Forested mountainsides, the foothills of the southern San Juans, burgeon with oak and aspen. You can pull off to the side (where the narrow […]
They call it flyover land. I define it roughly as the region west of Kansas City and east of Limon, in Colorado. The actual physiographic boundaries used by most geographers are somewhat different: from the Front Range in the west to the tallgrass prairies in the east, from Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the north all […]
North Rim Vista
I hesitate to write about this. Because it’s a place I don’t want you to go to, because it’s my own private plateau. Many times, I write of places and then don’t want to share them. Because I’m selfish. Because I don’t like people, or at least too many of them […]