Category: Cultural critique
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Mr. Bakwin owes me five dollars
You heard me; Peter Bakwin owes me five dollars. Mr. Bakwin invented, or at the very least introduced into common usage, the term fastest known time many years ago. His website, which began as a list consisting almost entirely of his own running times, languished in relative obscurity until not too many years ago, when…
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Training for fun
Back in late April I sat down with a legal pad and wrote down every weekend from then until the end of August. Then I filled all but one of them with a trip of one kind or another. The year’s goals was to get out as much as possible, in as many local and…
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The Two Essentials
This weekend I’m headed out on the biggest trip of the summer, a seven day traverse through the eastern and southern sections of Yellowstone National Park. Conditions look good; highs in the low 70s, lows in the high 30s, and the one problem ford down to an acceptable level (i.e. my shorter and lighter companions…
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Tolerance
At 0550 this morning I woke up to a squirrel chattering at me. It was light, but the sun wasn’t close to penetrating the old growth larch I was tucked in to, so I threw my quilt over my head and went back to sleep. Next it was 0730, and still seductively cool for what…
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Things I’ve Seen
I can’t tell you about the things I’ve seen. Peaks stretching to all horizons, matching clouds step for step, recollections hidden in each valley. Each memory fits with one next drainage over, be they years apart or decades. Sit on a ridge another minute and more details come out of the shadows. Names match to…
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Hunting with Malice
It is rather common in my part of the world to hear that wolves are ruining the elk hunting. Elk numbers are down due to wolves, is the refrain, which goes along nicely with the “Smoke a Pack a Day” bumper stickers. Table from Ripple and Beschta 2012. Trophic Cascades in Yellowstone: The first 15…
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Absurd consequence revisited
On certain occasions all ruminations cease. No more meditations about last year, no more preoccupation with the route around the ridge after the next pass, not even discussions of diner in town five hours hence. Some times you just know you’re about to be rained on and therefore must keep walking. I learned a few…
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A noble and valid pursuit
I just finished updating the Glacier and Bob Marshall packrafting guidebook with the last few months of explorations. Some of the waters I had hoped would prove worthwhile didn’t pan out, but there have also been some truly outstanding floats done. The possibilities for quality packrafting trips in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem (i.e.…
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Reading Ed in the 21st Century
Desert Solitaire is a book I almost hate to love. It is not a safe subject at parties. Ed Abbey was, in Solitaire, one of those very best writers who so easily hide tangled ideas under the narrative veneer; the result being that depth is easily overlooked. Easy examples would be the categorization of Solitaire…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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