"A Time To Cast Away Stones…"

Sometimes I grow weary of reading blogs, my own included. I'm sure you must feel the same way once in a while. I wonder if I'm wasting precious time writing and keeping up with predictable blogs that serve up the same old "hash" every day. "Predictability" belongs in a lab or classroom or on the girl next door—the one your mom wanted you to marry.

Fireside Thoughts on a Snowy Mourn...

Hearth embers glow and flicker like neon lights in a liquor store window—warmth, slowly gaining the upper hand on cold radiating from too much Imax glass. Dawn breaks gray; a chalky gloom settles into La Crevice; flurries of snow tag along—so light they can't seem to land, flitting and swirling about like a swarm of angry albino bees. Muse-gusts pile into wind drifts across white cyber-paper. I tint the muse so as to make it stand out against the snow. 

Uranium Cowboys, Big Horn Sheep and Bad Muzak

We ran into a couple different groups of Big Horn Sheep on our walk up county road 14 yesterday. They will begin moving out of The Crevice and up into the high country in a couple weeks, to get away from people and birth their lambs on the edge of a cliff in peace and quiet : ().

Deep Snow at 12,000 Feet, Itching For The Ridge At 13...

Once upon a time long, long ago, when the Box Canyoneer's bodies were younger and hardier, they cross country skied from Red Mountain Pass, above timberline, up, up, up to a 13,000 foot ridge just so they could look over the edge into another magnificent basin. It was a grueling climb on "skinny" skis; we had no climbing skins so there was a lot of slipping going on that had us frequently reverting to the unnatural and awkward herring bone method of ascent to gain elevation. We made the lofty, corniced ridge, ate peanut butter sandwiches and M & M's to recoup some calories, then glided back down in large, sweeping telemark turns. My goal lately has been to duplicate that route on snowshoes, and on this day we almost made it.

Another Trek Through Time, and A Link

Having survived with no (apparent) ill effects, Bobbie and I went snowshoeing again the very next day after our trek up through the old mining remains around Guston. This time we started from Red Mountain pass, 11,000 feet above sea level, and slowly made our way up to the Longfellow Mine-head—so picturesque with it's rusty colored wood and iron against pure white snow. It was warm again, almost too warm, but I didn't hear any complaints from the "locals."  

"Still Here" Part II: Picking Up Where We Left Off, and "Church" Redefined

"I have not grown misanthropic, but with the passage of time I have come to value emptier spaces, to seek out the natural world and the ultimate of what travel has to offer—wilderness. Is it a way of reinvigorating myself with a peek at innocence, of having trespassed into Eden? It hardly matters—so much in travel is self-delusion." Paul Theroux, "Fresh Air Fiend."

I'm Still Here

It's not that I haven't enjoyed the past three months of gentle walks and lesser hikes around Lovely Ouray and Sunny Ridgway. I can even tolerate the stationary bike when outdoor weather is disagreeable, as it now resides in front of Imax Windows that distract from situational realities, not the least of which is no matter how hard I peddle, I'm getting nowhere. 

Ode To The West End, Little Bighorn, and Watching Paint Dry

Crescent Moon Over White House

We headed home to a stretch of balmy weather on the last leg of our trip. I reined Goldie in some so it took a little over three hours to get from Moab to Lovely Ouray. The route is narrow, shoulder-less, and potholed—a backroad that twists and turns with rugged terrain the way all highways did before Interstates builders started "snapping lines" and bypassing Moms and Pops out of business.