It was just before midnight, 1974, when the devil - Scratch - appeared to Charlie McCarthy. McCarthy had just written Child of God (a book on loneliness, madness, depravity and other acts unfit for this polite audience) and Scratch saw some potential. He offered McCarthy the opportunity to be the
Dusk in the mountains. Boy sleeps on his mother’s arm. I‘ll live forever. Had a few 'technical difficulties' this morning, but I hope they are ironed out. Thanks again to Laurel Hunter for coming to the rescue. Thanks for subscribing to the Meditations. You'll
When I heard the collapse, I thought, No problem. But this was before I understood avalanches as well as I do now. The slope fractured like a pane of glass and even though I was on a 22° degree pitch at the top of the slope, it was as if
What is it about these two profound words that you hear with any decision of consequence? You’re looking over the tips of your skis down onto the Bobsled, a perfect white canvas on the north side of Gobblers Knob*. Shadows of blue pierce the canvas, but that's
I always considered my father to be a master gardener. In the last quarter of his life, he would enter his strange and inspired flowers into the county fair and talk shit to his competitors, often well-heeled ladies that had, as he wryly described it, “the help.” My wife’s
Who was it that said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other ones." Mark Twain? Rather, Winston Churchill, just after the war, and it's likely he borrowed it from someone else. (Perhaps Twain, again.) I think it's the same
by Laura Maguire How we perceive risk and make decisions can be subject to flawed thinking and dangerous biases, but this is only one small dimension of a much broader understanding of what constitutes expert performance in uncertain, changing environments. This article will describe the conditions that makes snow safety
by Russ Costa This is a continuation from the Blue Ice avalanche from January 2019. You can find the accident report and my introduction “Low Danger – Chapter 1” in the essays. Having spent the morning of Saturday, January 5th sitting in a classroom, I was excited to get up in
Years ago, I worked for a rancher in northeast Utah named James Gunn. Wranglers, boots, cowboy hat, the full deal. Hard saying if he was a philosopher on horseback or a cowboy who just contemplated life as is. One thing's for sure. James never missed an opportunity to
This is a continuation from the Blue Ice avalanche from January 2019. You can find the accident report and my introduction “Low Danger – Chapter 1” in the essays. Thanks so much to Jackie for sharing her story. These stories need to be told - As told by Jackie - On
This is a continuation from the Blue Ice avalanche from January 2019. You can find the accident report and my introduction "Low Danger - Chapter 1" in the essays. Thanks so much to Vlad for sharing his story. These stories need to be told - As told by
by Derek DeBruin We’d been home just long enough to say hello to my wife and son and then unload the car from a few days of winter mixed climbing in Utah’s west desert. With both work and personal outings coming up in the next week, I was