The trail description said it gained 700 feet, but I didn’t remember it all happening in the first five minutes. I didn’t read the notices at the trailhead or carry a map because it’s just a canyon, one way in,… Read More ›
pacific northwest
The Head of the Snake: Backcountry Ballad in ‘E’
Superstitious, sentimental, stupid: put these together and that’s me going back into the mountains to get in shape again. So my first outing had to be perfect and auspicious and just how it used to be five years ago, when… Read More ›
Lost in the woods
It wasn’t in the outfit I chose for myself each day before going to work, and it wasn’t in the mirror or the photographs on our walls at home. I lost track of where it went and sometimes wondered if I… Read More ›
For anyone who cares what they look like when found dead, puts on make-up to jog, or combs their hair before bed
We go to Portland for the weekend, to get away. They’re so polite in Portland, their graffiti looks like this: LIFE CHECKLIST WORK HARD PLAY HARD LOVE YOURSELF All the boxes are checked. I look around and think, maybe it… Read More ›
Cow dung in foreground
Lily and I drive up the Teanaway to get away, bond. We pull the Pilot over at mile marker 11, where the trail report says you should start: pass the gate that says No Motorized Vehicles, head up the private… Read More ›
Climbing cocks, steep peaks, dry tools
When I look deep inside myself to remember why I joined the Mountaineers climbing club, the only reason I can come up with is that I’m cocky. It may be a male-thing, too. I had already climbed Mount Rainier, which… Read More ›
Winter’s Playground
Drinking good wine out of paper cups at the Howard Johnson’s in the mountains, the knocking through the wall could be the neighbors signaling Keep it down, or the neighbors knocking each other around, with the bed frame. We decide… Read More ›
Lower case letters
I got up then, it was time to get up, and I made my way down to the den, to write. The clock said 3:20 and it took a good long time to make out whether it said 3:20 or… Read More ›
Seaview, 2003
We lived in a 800 square-foot, two bedroom shack in West Seattle built in 1919. You had to go outside to do the laundry, to get to the basement. That was the one drawback because the basement flooded, you had… Read More ›
As I lay dying, lying about death
All the people who work at the bar seem to have part of their brains missing. They’re confused about what’s on tap and always have to check with someone else; I wonder if they’re hungover or just stupid. And that’s… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 