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Hunters, Get a tripod
A few days ago I went for an evening hunt on public land, a 20 minute drive from home. I spent a few hours hiking up ridges, through gullies, and around forests that were the evergreen species different and the cacti a little more robust could be in northern Arizona rather than central Montana. I…
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All 4
I was tired enough that looking elsewhere lacked appeal, and sleeping atop elk scat must be good luck so I suspended tarp corners from branches and rocks, rolled out my stamp of Ridgerest, and laid down. Even at 6500′ it was far too warm to be in a sleeping bag, and after I eventually fell…
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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…
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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…
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My fav
Do you have a favorite place on earth? Me too. As Ed wrote, there are many such places. Especially in early autumn I’ll take a certain corner of the North Fork that nicely bestrides the seasons; deep creek bottoms still firmly shadowed in spring, clear pools whose depths breath winter, and larch stands marching with…
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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…
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Fizan Compact trekking poles
Danny Milks from Massdrop contacted me a few months ago about a new version of Fizan’s compact trekking pole they were producing, and he ended up sending me a pair to use with no strings attached. With one major flaw I’ve found them to be excellent summer poles, and a good discussion point for what…
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Local fate
The most acute danger of being local to a given area is taking that place for granted, and allowing your perceptions to fall in line with the received wisdom: which trails give the best riding, where to find good powder, what is the choice fishing spot. The ideal balance is to be aware of the…
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The best packs of the last five years
On several occasions and in several places I’ve written that one only needs three packs: a daypack, a 40ish liter light framed pack (for light backpacking and heavy day things), and a big load hauler. At no time in the last five years have there been fewer than 10 packs in our household, even if…
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The 10 mpd club
One of the most significant moments in parenting, for us 21st century types for whom proliferation of the species is both an abstraction and a choice, is mourning the trappings of your pre-kid life as they are filed and filtered away, never to be seen again. With an infant around your life will become totally…
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Bedrock & Paradox 
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