Open Letter to Bikers Everywhere

The recent opinion piece in High Country News sparked a viral amount of dialogue on that magazine’s site and on other platforms that picked up the piece, like Adventure Journal. It begged a follow-up on improving understanding for all who use multi-use trails. Believe it […]

Kevin Fedarko Interview, Part I

We spoke recently with Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon. Fedarko, a former senior editor of Outside magazine, spoke at the Cortez Public Library as part of the […]

Kevin Fedarko Interview, Part II

Kevin Fedarko, Part III

Bench Benefits

Nina Fuller, photographer and equine-facilitated mental health practitioner, once asked me during a visit if I’d walk with her to “the bench.” It seemed like an innocuous enough invitation, so I joined her. We walked with her dogs past the horse and sheep pastures, past […]

Is Utah’s outside troubling your insides?

A few astute doctors are reporting a worrisome increase in brain-related cancers and diseases in and around Salt Lake County. The state rate of Parkinson’s Disease is double the national average. Some think the PD numbers are even under-reported because of the dearth of qualified […]

Five stay warm tips

Car rides with the windows down Tall, ice-filled drinks Swims with your horse The pleasures of summer seem far, far away. At my place, pasture walks are slow, laborious efforts of postholing, walking in snow that goes to my thighs and fills my boots. I’d […]

Species Parade, Week Seven

Back in the day, bird identification came with a gun, not a pair of binoculars. Of course, the explorers and scientists didn’t have a Peterson Guide on their desk. They quantified and qualified what would later make it into the Peterson Guide. Nearly two centuries […]

Species Parade, Week Five

Babies have left the nest. You can hear and watch them still begging their parents for food, beaks open, wings shivering. They can be clumsy flyers, sometimes struggling to land right on branches. The ravens, in my observation, are the loudest and klutziest of newbies. […]

Real live streaming

Never has getting outside been a more conscious, deliberate activity. But when you get out, where goes your brain? Assuming you’re alone, do you focus on emptying your mind and being ‘present?’ Or, do you let your mind flit restlessly from topic to topic, like […]