Blog
The 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…
Running 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.…
Write 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.…
New 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…
Mangia 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…
Day 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…
Never Cry Wolf Again
The environmental community lost two great and prolific writers these past two weeks, Peter Matthiessen and Farley Mowat. While many of my contemporaries reflected on the influences that Mr Matthiessen had on them and their writings and conservationism–it was Mowat that had the most profound effect on me. It was back in 1982 when my…
Buen Camino 21st Century Pilgrims
This weekend I along with my wife and a group of friends watched at Mount Vernon’s Lincoln Theater, the new film Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago. It was an engaging and fascinating film shining light on six modern day pilgrims from different backgrounds-walking for different reasons on El Camino de Santiago (The way of…
Backcountry Insider
As if I am not busy enough researching and writing books and my regular features-that I have decided to take on a NEW project! I have joined the fun and intrepid folks at Scenic Washington State to be their Backcounty Insider. What does that mean? I will be periodically contributing articles about some of my…
Need Your Trail Fix Now?
Okay, you have all of my books (thanks!), but your trail fix is insatiable. You need more trail info and you need it now! Where can you get it? Well aside from waiting for my next book (thanks again), I write several regular columns where you can find up-to-date trail info, more info on trails…