Meditations
In the summer of 1995, I nearly drowned without a lifejacket in Desolation Canyon. On a layover, I walked a few miles upstream to retrieve a shirt I had left behind at our previous camp. Looking for the calmest water, I carefully waded out into the brown silty water at
Meditations
Many years ago, I went through a difficult breakup. You may have experienced the same. And I thought, Woe is me. Now I have no one to love…me. It took me a while to realize that I had it backwards. We are all so full of the capacity to
Meditations
When I was first telling Jed Workman about the book Don Sharaf gave me, he laughed and laughed. (Jed has one of the great laughs in this world.) The book was The Captain Class, by Sam Walker. "Of course he loves that book," he laughed; "Don is
Meditations
When I lived in the Middle East, people often told me, After you come to the desert, you'll always have sand in your shoes. But it took me a long time to understand that you can't separate one grain of sand from another. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Flow I'
Meditations
It doesn’t seem that long ago that I used to joke with my good friend Ian Havlick that he was The Future. Since then, Ian has gone on to become an avalanche forecaster and a full IFMGA mountain guide. He has guided and heli-skiied in Europe, Iceland, Norway, Alaska
Meditations
January 5, 2019 is a day I’ll never forget. I issued a Low avalanche danger for the Wasatch backcountry. By late afternoon, I learned that eight people had been caught and carried in shallow wind slabs. In Broads Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon, two people were simultaneously caught. One
Meditations
It was my first winter as a backcountry avalanche forecaster when the venerable Utah Dept of Transportation avalanche master Greg Dollhausen offered the following advice: Don’t ski in the backcountry in the afternoon. This was almost 25 years ago and I am still trying to unravel the mystery. (pc:
Meditations
I’ve been thinking about writing on the concept of Margins lately. Not so much to define and defend them, but to point out how expensive, cumbersome, and inefficient they can be. Tattoo’d on every technical rescue member’s arm is the Commandment “Thou Shalt Adhere to a Static
Meditations
I'll be out of town next week, so I'm sending this out early. We're headed to the Book Cliffs and then down to Ruby Ranch to float Labyrinth Canyon. It's a long way from Denali National Park, where NPS climbing ranger Travis
Avalanche
Have you ever played Three Card Monte? It’s a card game commonly found on some of the more, uh, lively streets of big cities. There’s a dealer with three cards and a very light card table. The three cards are generally a red queen (often the queen of
Meditations
(for ES and LE) He leans back, the anchor settles and then it pulls. The route is 90’ high and it’s just over 2 seconds before he hits the ground. Less time than it takes to read these first two sentences. What do you think about in those 2.
Meditations
War endures because young men love it and old men love it in them.....And so begins Judge Holden’s* discourse on the subject. Let’s continue. Every child knows that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value