Public lands are the backbone of the American West, and they are under attack. Sagebrush rebels, state governments and political action committees want to do away with federal oversight, while robber barons from back east buy vacation homes, put up gates and seize their own personal forest. When the locals protest, they lawyer up. The…
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Getting lost
A wind blew out of the canyon and scoured the slickrock. It bellowed and roared all day and into the night, slipping around corners and thrumming against the tent. I burrowed into my sleeping bag, curled up in a ball until the wind died and sleep came. The following day a breeze swirled, the camp…
A short history of Yuma
The goldfields were calling – go west young fella, and Godspeed. And so men boarded ships or loaded horses and mules and followed various routes to get to California. One route followed the Gila River through jagged peaks and deep canyons, over hellfire desert with plants like razor wire, the horses spent, days hot, nights…
Hiking Wooden Shoe Canyon
Things change. Why, just a few months ago, you could hike Squaw Canyon in Canyonlands National Park, spend a night at SQ1 or SQ, connect with Lost Canyon or Big Spring Canyon for a nice loop, and come back with some great memories and a few swell photos. But things change, and the canyon is…
A digital black hole
Arizona is losing its history. Rats build nests in historic documents, old buildings sag and buckle, roofs leak and records blacken with mold. Collectors slip a few papers into their homes and looters plunder archeological sites. Historians and archivists say the problem keeps getting worse as budgets are slashed and information is processed digitally, then…
The path slowly traveled
The Happy Jack passage runs about 29.5 miles from end to end in Coconino National Forest, and I imagine there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of hikers who have done it from top to bottom in one shot. I am not one of those hikers. I am lazy and unfocused. Also, when I did this passage,…
The Apaches, a history
Historians will lead you to believe it was all a misunderstanding. How the Americans, in their ignorance, failed to appreciate the differences between Apache bands, between raiding and warfare, how they had a tin ear for language and other cultures. The implication is that if only the Americans were not so stubborn, so unreasonable, so…
Hiking Vallecito Creek
We hoisted big packs and tottered upstream, the day sunny, our brains foggy with the flotsam of a night spent in a Durango brewpub. Vallecito Creek offers a back door to Chicago Basin, where you’ll find some of the coolest peaks in southern Colorado. Yes, there is another way to gain access to the Basin…
The red ghost
Word spread through the territory – a beast roamed the Arizona frontier, though each sighting was little more than a glimpse: A flash of red. Hooves and old bones. When the beast trampled a ranch woman to death at Eagle Creek, a witness described the creature: Red, tall, and ridden by a devil. It was…
Arizona Trail, Kaibab Plateau
The Kaibab Plateau sneaks up on you. A few sections of the Arizona Trail cut across its eastern flank, through big country that sticks to your memory and gets under your skin. There are some gorgeous walks up there. The trail cuts through timber and meadow, though aspen glens and evergreen clusters, mile after mile….