by admin | Jul 21, 2017 | blog
It’s the Fourth of July today. Thousands and thousands of star-spangled Coloradans, natives and transplants alike, are taking to the trail to celebrate their independence from taxation without representation and sub-alpine air pressure. As these hordes run...
by admin | Jul 13, 2017 | blog
There are many native trees living across the state of Colorado; I am going to focus on three individual trees: the Rocky Mountain Bristlecone pine, which grows along arid, cold ridgelines as the oldest tree in the state; the Quaking Aspen, which is common in the...
by admin | Jul 9, 2017 | blog
If there is one certainty about life working on a Colorado Fourteener, it is that suffering is guaranteed. The hike to the worksite, the weight of the tools and gear, the vital light of the sun that both illuminates and burns, the moisture that can penetrate even the...
by admin | Jul 7, 2017 | blog
The best of books become companions, a comfort you carry and escape into during quiet moments. The late Ellen Meloy’s book, Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild (Vintage Books, 2005) has been such a friend during the first days of CFI’s 2017 season. My...
by admin | Jul 3, 2017 | blog
I wake up in my brand new NEMO one person tent, stiff from the previous days of cutting new trail. It’s five in the morning and I am still trying to get used to waking up so early. I drag my chilly day clothes on, and stumble out of my tent, blinking wildly in...
by admin | Jun 30, 2017 | blog
I’ll have to admit, when brainstorming a topic for a blog post this early in the season, I was a bit stumped. Then the lightbulb turned on, and I thought, “stumped! That’s it, how relevant!” So over the last week, a few of us on the...