Category: Cultural critique
-
Loving winter
There have been a few occasions in the past three months when I’ve been nostalgic for last winter in the desert; when snow lasting more than a day was extraordinary and aside for six weeks of wet north facing slickrock we could do wherever, whenever. Since right after Thanksgiving there hasn’t been a day when…
-
…most of the the ingredients seem to be there
Montana history is an easy thing to get stuck into, largely because it is easy to digest in scope. Only a state since 1889, only subject to written history since the early 19th century, and to this day not the subject of extensive research, save perhaps with respect to wildlife. Our local library provides a…
-
Being lost
The farther down the road we went, the more isolated we became and the whiter everything became. I wondered aloud if we were making a foolish mistake; we weren’t even experienced enough with snow to make a guess. Florangela said, “It’s an adventure.” But I kept thinking how all the roads in Yellowstone followed rivers…
-
The water treatment industrial complex
Recently bio-nerd, fast guy, and friend of B&P Ethan Linck published an essay in Slate calling into question the empirical reasons behind blanket water filtration in the backcountry, writing: “The idea that most wilderness water sources are inherently unsafe is baseless dogma, unsupported by any epidemiological evidence.” Slightly more recently, clickbaiting mugwump hack Wes Siler…
-
New old places
On the face it seemed like we struck out coming and going. When we flew out of Helena it was clear as only a bitterly cold night can be, and the clear view of lights snaking south and east through Townsend and White Sulphur Springs to peter out halfway to North Dakota left me thinking…
-
Bears Ears in crisis
Add.: Now that the alterations discussed below have become law (however, we hope, temporary) it is worth paying close attention to the reactions. Patagonia blacking out their webpage and declaring “The President Stole Your Land” is a satisfying bold statement, but companies on the REI side of the line don’t really have much to loose…
-
Our Kuiu problem
[Greetings to the small flood of new readers brought here by internet searches concerning the fate of Jason Hairston. As of 2100 MDT on September 5 we know that Mr. Hairston died recently. Internet rumors strongly suggest, but do not confirm, suicide. After you’ve satisfied your curiosity on that front and mourned the loss of…
-
Understanding the Sperry fire
I must confess, now with some guilt, that I was excited when I heard about the Sprague Fire. Anyone who has hiked the trail from Crystal Ford up to Sperry, the Snyder Ridge trail, or especially been anywhere off trail in that neighborhood will understand how profoundly old that forest is. Or rather, was. Fire…
-
National Parks; the future is now
I’ve written extensively about US National Parks here; about how they’re the best candidate for helping US culture mature beyond late capitalism, and about how they have failed to keep up with 21st century modes of visitation and as a result are increasingly failing to fulfill the mission given to them 101 years ago. In…
-
New happiness
Or; what the hell I’ve been doing for the past month. When I look at a graph of the number of posts I’ve made here each month for the past 10.5 years a number of significant trends become obvious. First, that the average number of posts went down back in 2010 when I switched from…
Bedrock & Paradox 
You must be logged in to post a comment.