Just Keep Swimming
I was lost, adrift in a sea of blank white granite. I spotted the next bolt, unfortunately 20 feet directly to my right. In my haste I had gotten myself irreversibly off route. I couldn’t up-climb, down-climb, left-climb, or right-climb. My last bolt was at least 20 feet behind me. As the reality of the […]
Switchback- Should Mountain Bikes be Allowed in Wilderness Areas?
Last summer President Obama signed the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Jerry Peak Wilderness Additions Act, creating 3 new wilderness areas in the Boulder- White Cloud Mountains of Central Idaho. The new wilderness, while mostly remote with challenging access, also closed several mountain bike trails that were held in high regard by local cyclists. The […]
20 Seconds of Terror
For a photographer, the Grand Canyon is a 280-mile candy store.  Great images hide on almost every bend, and despite frantic attempts at forcing the trip to be IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME, no plan ever works; no single trip has time to hike and photograph even half of the magic side […]
Under the Rim and Dreaming
It’s sort of a rite of passage kind of thing; ski season ends and everyone starts to get that itch to go the desert. I get that same itch. Unfortunately, I tend to get it before the parts of the desert that I like to visit are actually warm enough to enjoy. Nonetheless, I […]
Mountain Bikes in the Wilderness?
Mountain bikes are fun, they’re quiet, and they take their riders to amazing places. So why are they banned in wilderness? It’s a question of great concern to Ted Stroll, who, as head of the non-profit Sustainable Trails Coalition (STC), is working to change the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes in some of […]
53 Days to Climate Action
If you would have asked me 16 years ago, I would have told you there is no road connecting a two-month self-supported mountain bike ride with running for federal office. But I traveled that unlikely road, and it has been one worth taking. Back in 2000, I embarked on what was then the […]
Rescue in the Roost
Can Adventure Sports and Travel Change You? November 2015  Tyson scrambles around for his air pressure gauge trying to deflate his tires by 20 pounds.  We turn off Highway 24 and onto one of my favorite roads in Utah—The Maze Road—a road that takes the desert traveler to some of the “best†in Utah: […]
