The Importance of Being Optimistic

At a glance we trail workers are rough around the edges. We’re dirty, smelly, and sunburnt. We cuss and spit. We heckle each other for fun. Beyond the roughness, we are can-do people. Optimists. Visionaries, even. We look at a steep pitch, an eroding hillside, an...

Wagging in the Wind

It is my pleasure to explain to those who aren’t familiar with what a wag bag is. Or even better the exciting contents found inside! To start I’ll explain proper LNT practices when pooping above tree line. Human waste takes much longer to break down up in alpine zones...

Battling Blisters Is No Small Feet

Allow me, if you will, one second to paint a quick metaphor: your body as a hiker is a vehicle, a finely tuned machine that carries you up and down treacherous stretches and summits. Your respiratory and circulatory systems serve as the engine, fueled by the food you...

Krummholz and Quartz

On Mount Princeton last week, I found home in a flat clearing at the top of a private knoll of white quartz. On the outskirts of an adjacent ponderosa stand, low scrubby bristlecones have actively hunkered for hundreds of years. An adaptation that allows them to...

Let’s Talk About It

I’ve been working in the mountains for a few weeks now, and I have observed several disturbing behaviors while out here. To be honest, the biggest one I’ve noticed is people doing it ‘right’ giving away their good mood to anger, geared towards...

Diary of a Rock

May 28, 2018 Dear Diary, Today I saw the most incredible thing, ice. I had no idea what it was until it told me its name. But it was cold and swept up and over me in a cold, wet hug. Boy was I surprised. I asked the ice what it was doing and it said it was shaping the...