Category: Backpacking
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Why we chose a Double Duck
There are more expensive, more practical, as well as more blingy or more frequently used gifts, but from the day over 5 years ago, when I unwrapped my first, to today I’ve not found a more exciting thing to unbox than a new Alpacka raft. Our newly expanded family got a Double Duck for a…
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Little Bear gets indoctrination
And then we saw the moose. Clouds had rolled in between 2am, when I went out to piss off the porch, and a little after 9am, when we left the cabin. In the middle of the night the milky way had stretched from behind my shoulder out to down near my toes, my urine had…
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Tips for winter
The essential guidelines I put down four years ago are still a good foundation, but with the snow beginning to pile up it’s a good time to mention some specifics which have proven constant from then to now. The most useful tip for being outside in the cold is to HTFU (harden the fuck up). …
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2015 hunting in review
The three does were headed up the slope away from us, in full and easy view amongst the scattering of dead trees. I motioned M and Little Bear to stay put and worked to close the distance, bent double and walking a little farther than perpendicular to the animals. They certainly knew I was there,…
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Grand Canyon backcountry management plan: Comment Now
Last week Grand Canyon National Park released a draft of their next backcountry management plan. These plans are enormously important; they’re detailed and comprehensive, and set in place policies which are not easily changed and for a variety of reasons are generally not altered for decades. Which options the park service decides to adopt will…
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4 months
At the second snack stop Little Bear had a fit; screaming as often as breath would permit. Was he hungry? Cold? Sick of being bounced over potholes and rocks in the bike trailer? Four month olds can’t answer these questions, not because they can’t talk but because they can’t parse concepts from emotions, so I…
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2 hours with elk
The tracks passed through the fence and continued on the other side, a large wad of dark hairs stuck in the top wire the definitive sign that the obvious was real; the elk had jumped on to private land and my time with it was done. The sense of loss was only indirectly related to…
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The 2015 pack fleet
I’ve been doing the pack thing for a while now. After owning and especially building so many none of them can retain nostalgia for long, with any and every little detail subject to scrutiny, revision, and destruction. That said, the novelty of cutting and sewing has also waned significantly in the last year, and it’s…
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Twelve
Twelve years ago that morning we had been in a hotel in Vegas, me flipping through the Yellow Pages and calling wedding chapels at 9 in the morning. Twelve years later we were in a tent under the ponderosas back from the rim near Bryce Canyon, sun coming up slowly on a cold and clear…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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