Blog
$5.00 and a good guess may get you a brand new pair of Oboz hiking shoes
The Washington Trails Association Hike-A-Thon has begun and I am on a quest to hike my butt off spreading the good word about WTA and how they protect our trails—and to raise $5,000 for them. I am currently 60% there on the fundraising and have just begun on the hiking. My good friends at Green…
Read MoreI Got Caught in a Burning Ring of Fire
With this year’s extreme fire danger–it is not only important that you adhere to all sound fire prevention measures–but that you are also fire aware. We usually don’t think much about being caught in a fire–but the danger is very real. Washington Trails Magazine editor Eli Boschetto just recently had a harrowing experience being caught…
Read MoreA Royal Difference in snow cover
So that’s what the small tarn in the upper Royal Basin looks like–and wow is it beautiful! Last week I returned to the Royal Basin in Olympic National Park. It had been 9 years since I had hiked to this rugged beautiful hanging valley in the northeast corner of the Olympics. In 2006 I made…
Read MoreHiking among Paedomorphic and Neotonic critters—oh my!
Here are a couple of fifty cents words you can impress (or bore) your hiking friends with over your next post-adventure beer. I recently had an encounter with a paedomorphic critter. They are actually quite common in the Cascades and Olympics of Washington. Just what is paedomorphois? It’s a condition (sometimes referred to as…
Read MoreThe Hardest, Nastiest, Meanest Trail in the Olympics
What is wrong with me? What the heck was I thinking? I swore to myself back in July of 2006 never to ever do this trail again. I hated it. It was pure misery. I swore more times on it than I did watching (fill in your favorite team or politician) lose. It was back…
Read MoreRunning for Water
This weekend, Heather and I along with our son Giovanni once again ran for water in Abbotsford, BC. This is the fourth year in a row that we have participated in this amazing running event-Run for Water— that raises money for water projects in Africa. This year’s event raised over $300,000 for a village in Ethiopia.…
Read MoreWrite on! Join me for an environmental writing workshop at Seattle’s Burke Museum
I’m pretty excited to be part of an award-winning trio of authors that will be conducting an all day environmental writing workshop at Seattle’s Burke Museum this April 12th. If you’re an outdoors writer, a student of writing, or want to be an outdoors writer, please consider signing up and joining us for this workshop.…
Read MoreNew Path–Same Dangerous Traverse
Back in 2006 I swore never to hike up Olympic National Park’s Pyramid Peak again? Why? Certainly not because of the beautiful old-growth forest, historic fire lookout and breathtaking views of Crescent Lake below–those are all good reasons to make the grunt up this peak. The reason was that the section across a huge slide…
Read MoreMangia Bene
Being Italian American, the first Italian word my Nona taught me was mangia-which in the command form means, Eat! And oh how I love to eat! If I wasn’t a hardcore hiker and runner, I fret over what my hardcore eating would do to my body. But aside from eating for basic functioning and for…
Read MoreDay Hiking the San Juans and Gulf Islands has been released!
At last–my Day Hiking the San Juans and Gulf Islands guidebook is available. I just received my review copy and the book is now busily making its way into bookstores and retail centers across the Northwest. As with my 11 previously authored and co-authored books, I am proud of the work that I put into making this…
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