I don’t know what it is about me and hats, but I keep losing mine. There was the green Irish cap I got in a small, West Cork town: I wrote the name inside the rim (SKIBBEREEN 12-15) to mark… Read More ›
Pacific Northwest hiking
The rat torture scene reveal | Field notes from the Pacific coast
This is a series of posts I started in late May and plan to continue for 40 days, with a goal of hitting 50,000 words by July 5 (now +25% complete!). It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the… Read More ›
Field notes from the Pacific coast | The influence of the tides on the streams
This is a series of posts I started in late May and plan to continue for 40 days, with a goal of hitting 50,000 words by July 5. It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the Washington coast, with… Read More ›
Field notes from the Pacific Coast | up Ulrich’s Couloir, Stuart
I was probably the only student in class who fell that day, and the instructors pretended not to notice, either to save me the embarrassment or because they were embarrassed themselves. How do you fall on a belay? I couldn’t… Read More ›
Field notes from the Pacific Coast (day 3 of 40)
I cleaned out the refrigerator, what I didn’t think Dawn or the kids would eat while I was gone, put it in a cooler with a freezer pack while I was at work then got it out once I came… Read More ›
Field notes from the Pacific Coast | 101 to Aberdeen
This is a series of posts from three days out on my favorite stretch of the Pacific Coast. The posts don’t need to be read in order and serve as a memoir experiment with side-stories from related trips and themes… Read More ›
Entering Elma | field notes from the Pacific Coast
May 28, SAMMAMISH By the time I got to Kalaloch they’d stopped serving breakfast and were turning things over for lunch, but not in a rush for anyone. We were backing up in the lobby and I was second, a… Read More ›
‘Reentry Burns,’ coming back to America
When I got back from Germany Dawn met me at the airport and we went for lunch at the brewhouse. The bathroom smelled the same as it always did and I think the bartender recognized me, even though we’d been… Read More ›
Shy bear lookout
The forest has grown in now, this time in spring the green darkens and I am inside a giant’s beard hacking my way through fronds and fallen limbs, unsure where I’m going or why, just that I need to be… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 