Here, you’ll find unfortunately true tales of an accidental naturalist’s misadventures in the wild, as well as shorter, inspirational reflections of nature
Lives Up to Its Name
On the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, across gravel roads 39 miles from Jacob Lake, I arrive at Parissawampitts Point, a vista point just west of the National Park. The forecast calls for rain over several days. The rim cools down, devoid of people in its early October mien near […]
Narrow Canyon, looking east
People ask me why I write. Well, I ask myself why I write. People don’t really care. In a way, to write is to travel. I used to live in Chicago, and even after I moved out to the Four Corners and was stuck in some crummy office when I […]
Priest Gulch
Drive north along highway 145 north of the town of Dolores, CO, and you’ll find lazy, lime green meadows backed by forested foothills that slowly turn into peaks lofted skyward where the snow hangs on 10 months out of the year. Trailheads and Forest Service roads turn out from the highway. Quaint […]
Lizard Head, from the east
Strange name for a monolith, to be sure. Not far south of the parking abomination Telluride has become, Lizard Head was at one time a lizard’s head. A cataclysmic rock fall in 1911 left the column of extruded volcanic ash looking more like a two-faced pillar. At over 13,000 […]
“I bet they stashed some,” Jonathan said.
“Explain your reasoning,” I said to my nephew, 17, visiting from Chicago.
As a backup,” he replied.
“A failsafe,” Bradley, his older brother by a couple years, agreed.
“I’m not disagreeing, but you need to back it up. What motive would they have? What real value is there in stashing something up […]
We stepped out of the drift, our eyes squinting in the unfiltered light 11,000 feet above sea level. To the left of the adit as we faced out, built right against the cliffs banded iron and yellow, the remains of an old cabin were strewn on the bench that hemmed in the mountainside.
The unmortared walls, […]
“It’s a gold mine,” he said.
“A gold mine gold mine?”
“Yeah. I got this picture of my great grandparents hikin’ up there. They took it back in the 1920’s, 1930’s.”
My friend, Tern, looked up the name of this gold mine on Encarta online, and sure enough, the coordinates showed up. He patched them into his Garmin, […]
I live in Mancos, Colorado. I got this really big garage, one door big enough for my truck camper to dock through when the lid’s cranked down.
A short distance from the garage, a wraparound porch surrounds my little cabin on a hill. Two hummingbird feeders hang from the porch’s eaves.
Broad-tailed hummingbirds swoop to drink. The […]
It had rained steadily and hard for three, four days. The flood warnings were out when I decided to trek the woods. The mist enticed the scents from their arboreal lairs. The deep gray sky drew out greens from the spring leaves and the new shoots from the cold ground. I knew I’d encounter mud, […]
Hadn’t jogged in . . . years. Horrible foot injury way back when. But my compulsion for the honed, rippling 100-pound male body, coupled with my woods lust, impelled me into the forest. I daringly jogged over the fatal, uneven terrain of the equestrian path. I live on the edge, baby.
Those tony middle-aged suburban women […]