Blog
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…
Avy Advice–snow go or no go
I love winter. I love snow. And I love winter sports! I grew up in New Hampshire where we had a saying that the weather there consisted of 11 months of winter and one month of damn poor sledding. Point-when you live in an area that has real winters, those winters can be long unless…
Smash and Grab! What’s a hiker to do?
There’s nothing like spending a day on the trail deep in the wilderness far from the ills of modern society–to return to your vehicle at the trailhead to see that the ills of modern society have paid you a visit. Car break-ins, smash-and-grabs, car clouting-whatever you want to call it is far too common at…
Happy Presidents’ Day and a Bipartisan plea for more Mount Roosevelts
Today is the day we honor our presidents. I remember when we had two separate holidays in February for specific presidents—one for Lincoln’s birthday and one for Washington’s. But somewhere down the road of watering down holidays to make them just three day weekends and excuses to go shopping, we amalgamated those two days into…
The Loonie dives! Time to visit Canada again!
Back in the roaring 1990s I spent a lot of time traveling in Canada. Matter-of-fact, a lot of Americans did and it had a lot to do with a strong American dollar. Back then the Canadian dollar–affectionately referred to as the loonie (after the common loon on its dollar coin) was trading between 65 and…
National Squirrel Appreciation Day–what a nutty idea!
How could I get through most of January 21st without realizing that it is National Squirrel Appreciation Day? Yep-another one of those appreciation days decreed by some declaration somewhere sometime in the past. Evidently this one was founded back in 2001 by Christy Hargrove, a wildlife rehabilitator in Asheville, North Carolina in the Great Smoky…