Ninety minutes outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mt. Taylor (11,301 feet) rears its lofty head. The Navajo call this peak Tsoodził, translated as Blue Bead or Turquoise Mountain. Tsoodził is considered a sacred mountain, marking the southern extent of the Dinétah or ancestral homeland of the Navajo people. As I neared the summit, I wondered if I might encounter Turquoise Boy, Blue Corn Girl, or Cougar, who are Holy People said to live there. Continue reading “You Never Know Who You Might Meet on the Summit of Tsoodził”
1000 Mountains
Hybrid Navigation Approach for the Catskills Off-trail Regime
Old-schoolers insist on carrying maps. Paper maps.
I used to carry paper maps. Back in my Army Ranger days, some 40 years ago – always. Of course, that was before GPS. Since then — not so much. In August 2021, I was thru-hiking the John Muir Trail, and I distinctly remember reaching into my pocket for the map, but it wasn’t there. I’d stopped at Woods Creek to filter water and placed the map on a rock to keep it from getting wet. This was two miles back. I was so upset when I realized I’d have to go back to retrieve it.
Today, I rarely carry paper maps, and never in the Catskill Mountains, which lie in New York’s Hudson Valley, an area I know intimately. Instead, I use technology. That’s not to say I’m ignorant of the risks. The more you stare at a compass needle or screen, the less you look around and think. David Barrie, a fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation, describes GPS as one of the great achievements of modern times. But then he comments on what the technology is doing to us, now that we’ve become dependent: “Though we may not realize it, we are fast becoming navigational idiots.” Continue reading “Hybrid Navigation Approach for the Catskills Off-trail Regime”
Place of Mystery/Center of the Universe
Bump — wheels down, LAX, right on schedule. Baggage secured, I’m on the bus to the rental car center and then barreling along the freeway to my cousin’s home to hang with his family for ten days. And climb some mountains, too – why, I have a long list of them.
From the highway, I see big peaks floating to the north. Faint silhouettes cloaked by haze and ocean mist. Baking in the late afternoon glare…
13,000 Miles Barefoot
The 19th-century English art critic John Ruskin saw in mountains a story of endurance and destruction. All we can know about a mountain is that “it was once greater than it is now, and it only gathers vastness, and still gathers, as it fades into the abyss of the unknown.”
And so it is with people – we endure as long as we can, hoping to leave something behind.
This is my report on reaching 13,000 miles of barefoot walking, hiking, and running, after starting on this unexpected journey some ten years ago. Continue reading “13,000 Miles Barefoot”
Fourteen Peaks in the Taconics
I’ve set myself a daunting objective – bag 1,000 mountains barefoot — a task so large it will take many years to complete. It’s a crazy project — partly an effort to retreat from the digital environment, refresh, refuel, and rearm so I can reenter the fray — partly a chance to live more naturally, as a participator in nature instead of as a passive observer — partly a chance to explore and learn, and the funny thing is, the project keeps dragging in themes and thoughts about the rest of life, and snatches of history. Regardless, I’m not even at the half-way point, so better keep moving.
This summer I summited some big ones, including the Navajo’s sacred mountain of the west, Dooks’o’osliid AKA Humphrey Peak (12,633 feet) outside Flagstaff, Arizona, and Colorado’s Mt. Elbert (14,440 feet), the second-tallest peak in the continental US. It was slow work, though, with six summits eating up two weeks of precious vacation time, a rate of progress so slow I might well be 100 years old before I finish. Continue reading “Fourteen Peaks in the Taconics”
The 1,000 Mountains Project and a Cosmic Dragon
One cold evening, as I was ruminating about my future, a sly thought crept into my vacant mind — to climb 1,000 mountains. And it felt so right, although I held off from making a firm commitment, reminding myself to “give yourself some time to think it through.” But the allure was powerful and immediate. You see, I’m the kind of person who likes to take on big projects and get them done. Like when I ran the Leadville 100-mile ultramarathon, and a few miles before the half-way point, there was this sign – “Go Big or Go Home.” And then the trail headed up and up and up, rising relentlessly into the mountains, until it finally crested at Hope Pass, elevation 12,600 feet, where I felt like lying down on the trail and dying, although I hadn’t yet reached the half-way point.
Mind you I didn’t initially draw any connection between this project and the dragon. Which I’d only seen once before. A year ago, to be precise, in December 2022. I was hurtling south on route 26 toward Grapevine, Texas, in a rental (black Dodge Charger with a 370-horsepower HEMI v8), satellite radio blasting Soundgarden’s alternative edgy angst — when my eye was snagged by the roadside foliage’s autumnal tints. Oaks in green and red and bronze and mottled orange. Cedar elms turning tangerine. Frilly mesquite leaves waving green and lemon. What did these colors signify? Could there be, I wondered, a cosmic dragon studying our world from a parallel neighboring universe – and were these spots of color, flecks in the iris of its eye? Continue reading “The 1,000 Mountains Project and a Cosmic Dragon”
The Long Brown Path 