Writing last week about Wendell Berry and my father kicked in some good memories growing up. You’ll have to bear with me. I’ll be back to the standard fare next week. Even though my relatives would tell me that my father was proud of me, I knew the
When things play out - sometimes seemingly against all odds - it can give us the feeling that all is right with the world. …and Don’t Forget to Write….. If you’ve written to me the last couple of years and I haven’t written back, it’s because of a
Wendell Berry died yesterday in his home in northern Kentucky. I was originally going to call this piece The Unsettling of America in reference (homage?) to one of Berry’s more incisive collections of essays on place and farming and community, but I settled upon this one. If you’re
In his important* book What It Is Like to Go To War, Vietnam War veteran Karl Marlantes takes a moment to describe an old NCO (non-commissioned officer), ‘Gunny Mike’. The year is 1969. I've either taken directly from, or paraphrased Marlantes below - Gunny Mike was close to
Another essay by my pal Chrissie Oken. She's a climbing ranger in Denali National Park There is nothing quite like the exquisite stupidity that comes with experience. The same ease that allows us to function smoothly after years of repetition can also slip us into surprisingly dangerous situations
Q: When is it wrong to be right? A: When it almost kills you. A few years ago, an avalanche forecaster well north of here issued an Avalanche Warning. When people rolled their eyes at the boy crying wolf, he doubled down and decided to prove himself right. Pretty soon,
I spent many years in this cabin in Lupine Meadows, but in many ways, I was only a guest. ❄️ The bats and the mice wonder When their guest will leave. The pronghorn, too, were seasonal guests.
(previously published last winter in The Avalanche Review) WARNING! Books like these are not for everyone. They’re only for people interested in how to make better decisions, not just in the alpine or the backcountry, but in our day to day lives. There was an era when the conventional
(I’ve adapted Los Dos Reyes y Los Dos Laberintos de Borges). Long ago, in a faraway land, there lived two brothers, kings who ruled his own kingdom and between these kingdoms rested an uneasy detente, for the brothers only pretended to get along. The one-eyed king lived in
Whenever we are confronted with an important decision, *Conventional Wisdom* dictates that we look at and weigh various options, minimize the risks, and set forth upon a course of action. But there are certain situations when, as long time cop and risk consultant Gordon Graham describes, there’s “No time
We were in Alaska last week visiting friends. One of our stops was in Talkeetna to see Tucker and Chrissie. They are climbing rangers for Denali National Park. Chrissie let me publish her essay Ante Ora Parentum here; though she previously published it on the Denali Dispatch page. You'
“After my brother's death, my father never walked very well again. He had to struggle to lift his feet, and, when he did get them up, they came down slightly out of control. From time to time, (my brother) Paul’s right hand had to be reaffirmed; then
Basho traveled north from his home in Edo (Tokyo) in spring 1689; his masterpiece from the 1500 mile walk is called Narrow Road to the Deep North. Another translation is Journey to the Interior. He writes, At Hiraizumi, I remember these lines from the 8th-century Chinese poet Tu Fu:
Mr. Hardesty, Patches of winter snow still linger above 1000m, while the mountains are covered in fresh greenery, with kobushi magnolias and wild cherry blossoms in bloom. Just like the Wasatch Range, it is a beautiful season here. The Niseko Avalanche Information was born out of sheer necessity. Forty years
My journey to find Akitaya has led me to some unexpected delights. One of the people whom I hoped could provide a path was Shinya-san. He turns 80 years old next year and has been - to oversimplify - the avalanche and mountain weather forecaster (link) in Niseko, Hokkaido since the
(originally published in winter 2026 The Avalanche Review) It was towards the end of the 2002/2003 winter when Utah Avalanche Center forecaster Evelyn Lees wrote that the Wasatch range was like “A cake decorated by a child, where they put frosting on top but they forgot the sides.” That
Even though I lived and skied in Japan (northern Honshu and Hokkaido) for a couple years in the early 1990s, I remain an outsider. I've been looking for Akitaya for quite some time. Some history. On April 2, 1961, a number of large ground avalanches broke out almost
I used to believe that we were nothing without God, but I also believed that God was nothing without us. Now I believe the opposite is true.
It was mid-winter 2010/2011 and Wendy had just accepted an offer to forecast for the Chugach Avalanche Information Center. At her going-away party in Salt Lake, long time avalanche hunter Tom Kimbrough and I arrived late, hoods on and carrying a bottle of Woodford Reserve. At the
Whenever people ask me, Are you working right now? (I get asked this a lot), my answer is always the same: To the untrained eye, it may appear as if I’m not working. But at the heart of the matter, I’m getting paid to pay attention. This, of
The writer Brian Doyle writes occasionally about times when he gets down on his knees and prays like hell. He's an unapologetic Catholic and makes no excuses for Catholicism, but when he says Pray Like Hell, I think he means it. And so I will do this, and
Thanks again for subscribing to Meditations. This wraps up the 5th summer of writing. I'm too lazy to count, but perhaps 130? 140 Meditations over that time? None of them are perishable; feel free to look over some of the old ones. To me, it's a
The Ego will protect itself until End of Times, even until the End of our own time. In other words, have we not seen the Ego destroy its physical being to protect itself? And this says nothing of "Other". It's a tall task to live well
A long time ago, a friend of mine in Montana was fired from his job due to a safety violation. It amounted to him totalling a work truck on a state road after he crashed into a retaining wall. The investigation showed that a nail on the road had punctured