Field Notes

I thought dropper posts were silly when they first came out, then finally tried one and of course can’t fathom returning to the pre-dropper post Stone Age, but until a couple years ago I never much thought about the dropper lever. Was there a lever? Did it work? Great, that’ll do, was my general approach. … Read more

When I was working with a Kenyan outdoor instructor in Wyoming’s Wind River Range a couple of decades ago, he surprised me one day by saying, “Hiking here feels like a walk in the park.” With armed guards, he was used to moving through wild places in Africa full of dangerous animals. He said he … Read more

There are plenty more big walls for climbing within Yosemite National Park besides those in Yosemite Valley. Here’s a taste of what Hetch Hetchy, San Francisco’s city-managed reservoir, oddly enough, holds for big wall climbers.

We’ve covered before the importance of having a pair of binoculars that you can toss in a backpack, not think too hard about them, or worry over every jostle and bump they might take on the trail. We loved the Celestron Nature DX series of binoculars, but the cool kids love Nocs, a modern, stylish … Read more

Ecologists used to believe that the systems they studied tended toward balance. Over the course of the 20th century, though, they realized that disturbance is not a detour but a destination. Humans can do terrible harm to ecosystems, of course, but disturbance itself is not necessarily a problem; in most ecosystems, the only steady state … Read more

Wanna get pumped for next summer’s adventures to warm your bones through the chill of winter? Well, here you go.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. You just gather with people you love on the last Thursday in November, and give thanks for what you have. It’s not overly commercialized, and doesn’t belong to a certain religion or group. My only gripe with the holiday is that it’s usually held indoors, rather than the desert rivers, … Read more

At every Thanksgiving dinner, my family asks everyone around the table to say what they’re grateful for. It puts new guests on the spot, so sometimes they just thank the hosts — an easy out that makes it harder for anyone else struggling for a good answer. I’ve been in that position, but this year … Read more

We’re just real big fans of Cody Townsend’s The Fifty series. Each episode is strong, no matter what classic ski descent he’s tackling. This time, it’s The Uber Tour, a mysterious line that required all sorts of hairball decisions and potentially sucky consequences. Lots of them, actually.