Meditations
It had never been done before and even the Bedouin looked upon Lawrence as if he were mad. It’s July 1919. The northern Arabian desert. Daytime temperatures reach 110°F. The sun is merciless. There is no shade, there is no water. And yet. Midway through his traverse through
Avalanche
This was 10-15 years ago in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada. When your good friend with a diagnosis of prostate cancer calls on a Saturday night and says, "We're going skiing in the Rubies on Monday and you're coming as well", you have no
Meditations
It’s July 1931 on the Grand Teton in northwest Wyoming. A 20 year old Glenn Exum spies an enormous ledge (now known as the Wall Street ledge, photo below) well to the east through a gap in the rocks. He hustles through some easy but consequential terrain to get
Avalanche
In that Empire, Uncertainty was no longer tolerated. And so the Art of Snow Pit digging finally attained such Perfection that the Resolution became the problem. One snow pit per Mountain range proved insufficient, leading to one snow pit per drainage, leading to one per slope, which led to one
Meditations
To borrow from Bashō Even at Alta - hearing the cuckoo's cry - I long for Alta.
Meditations
Does the Condemned man Floss His teeth The night before the gallows? Who Else but a blind man Wins a staring contest with the sun? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bright Constellations Now you see them, now you don't Alpine headlamps. (Evening views of the Middle Teton) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This world of dew is only
Meditations
The young alpinist Michael Gardner died this week in a climbing accident on the north face of Jannu East in Nepal’s Kangchenjunga region. Although I didn't know Michael as well as I knew his father, I do know that his star shined brightly. Searingly bright. He once
Two springs ago, a friend of mine fell through the ice on the Great Salt Lake attempting to save her dog who had also fallen through the ice. After a few minutes in the freezing water, she described experiencing a sensation where she was floating above the frozen lake, looking
For the past 25 years, I've worked as a backcountry avalanche forecaster in the Wasatch Range of northern Utah. Each morning, our office issues an overall danger rating on a five point scale between Low to Extreme (with a bunch of fine print and other details). We think
Meditations
My friend Mark Johnston spends a lot of time in the mountains and a lot of time traversing from Y to Z. Many of these travels are solo. Many are with his sidekick Archie - Man's best friend. Or is he? Mark send this to me a few
Avalanche
In Paul Valery's book, The Yalu, a Western intellectual is questioned by a Chinese scholar who critiques the West's worship of intellect - the West's tendency to equate, in Francis Bacon's formula, knowledge and power. For you, intelligence is not one thing
Meditations
If you’re my age, you might’ve grown up watching a film, The Bridge On the River Kwai. It tells the story of British and American GIs in WW2 who were POWs, forced by the Japanese to build a bridge over a river separating Bangkok and Rangoon. It won