Meditations
Some studies have revealed that our current drought is more severe than the one that turned the Plateau into a ghost town almost a thousand years ago. So we headed to Ridgeway and Crested Butte as climate refugees. For my friend Jerry Roberts Here for Cold Mountain. Instead - old trees,
Meditations
The monsoons missed us last night. One could see gunmetal grey all around us and pretty colors on the radar in a circle but we saw not a drop of rain. (I had to go back into the archives Jan 5, 2010 for the piece below). There is a beautiful
Meditations
I didnt mean I'd seen everything, John Grady said. I know you didnt. I just meant I'd seen things I'd as soon not of. I know it. There's hard lessons in this world. What's the hardest? I don't
Meditations
I worked for many years as a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park. The old joke was that superintendents come and go, but the rangers stay forever. One of the more memorable superintendents was David Vela. Vela was a large man with an even larger personality. He had a
Meditations
Last week, two backcountry snowboarders in Colorado agreed to probation and community service. The year before, they had triggered an avalanche and submitted the GoPro footage and the relevant data to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. But it wasn't just any avalanche. The slide destroyed an O'
Meditations
A few years ago, a shirtless man walked up to a Chevron gas pump with an empty gas can, paid for five gallons of gasoline and promptly dumped all of the contents over his head. Then he walked into the store. Within minutes, the cops arrived, cleared the building and
Meditations
I've had some conversations with some good friends lately who are eager to cut their teeth and head out on some adventures. They're young and - in a nod to Joseph Campbell - keen to look not for the meaning of life so much as the experience of
Meditations
My friend Carol rides the bus to work. One morning, an elderly man got on the bus who soon began to clutch his chest. Eyes wide. Sweat on the brow. Cardiac arrest. Carol checks for breathing, finds no pulse, points and shouts "You! Call 911!" and commences CPR.
Avalanche
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
Avalanche
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
Meditations
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
Avalanche
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