As often happens, this offering of field notes runs long–so long I’ve broken it into parts. Even more of interest to me than usual unfolded during this trip to Crossfire Canyon (not the canyon’s real name). Because of the nature of this experience, some of the material leans toward the technological, so many thanks in [...]
Warning! Warning! Long post.
Dec. 21st, a.m. As I started out, temperatures bumped around in the low 20s. A ragged ceiling of waxy yellow clouds sometimes let through bright sunlight. Mostly, though, the cloud cover took the polish off the snow. An unexpectedly cold breeze chilled the denim of my jeans and cut through my gloves, [...]
October 2, 2009. This morning, as I walk down the road toward Crossfire, I barely avoid stepping on a small, silver-and-grey-winged butterfly sitting on the pavement, trying, I think, to warm itself after our first night of ice-on-the-dog’s-dish cold. The insect’s coloration matches that of surrounding gravel. Only its thin wings and their accompanying shadow [...]
Guest post by Saul
Mom came home at just after 11 AM on Saturday and told me that she wanted me to finish what I was doing and go down into Crossfire Canyon. She explained that the creek had stopped flowing, leaving some fish stranded in a puddle, at the mercy of garter snakes.
I was working [...]
This is the first part in a two-part Field Notes entry written by two authors. I’ll take the first part, my son Saul the second. It wasn’t my intention to put up Field Notes again so soon, but this story is just too good to wait for.
July 11, 2009. As I take Coyote Way into [...]
From time to time, someone asks why I don’t write about the meaner, nastier side of nature, especially the predator-prey drama. Until I go on that man-eating African lion-hunting trip or bag me an Alaskan grizzly or happen to be on hand when a puma takes down a mule deer buck, I just don’t have much to offer on [...]
Forgive, please, the late, overhasty and not especially informative nature of this post, but I wished to get something up for Earth Day before the opportunity passed. As usual, consider yourself invited to report on your own Earth Day activities in the comments section.
Here in SE Utah, Earth Day opened gorgeously. Warm and blue. To the south, [...]
April 13, 2009
Why do I still do this? Why, at my age, do I follow as if I were nine years old unmarked, unpaved trails away from what I know into the wilds of what I don’t know? That’s how this striving creation—part light, part water, part air, part earth, and all aspiring flesh—shows itself [...]
Posts in this series are semi-polished exerpts from the pocket-sized hiking journal I carry when I go out walking in local canyons, etc. If something interesting happens or a bolt from the blue strikes, I pull out the old journal and get down the basics. I’ve left Field Notes elsewhere around the bloggernacle, such as here and here, but I thought that for Wilderness Interface Zone and [...]