Low-angled light, especially in the morning, different angles of light at different times of the year. The low-angled light through the forest when it’s amber colored or even tawny if there’s wildfires. How the impressionists were drawn to that area… Read More ›
prose
Grounded
It is now the time of the wildfires and web worms. The digital map of fire shows their size and location, and we look surrounded—though the air quality is still good. The web worms gather in clumps on certain kinds… Read More ›
Seven weeks left
The fact they released a 4-LP set of Nick Drake’s first album Five Leaves Left didn’t make it any easier; I was rushing fall. It’s a deeply unpopular thing to do in the Pacific Northwest, to summon autumn before summer’s… Read More ›
One last time to Shy Bear Pass
There were two places I wanted my ashes spread. One was our favorite camp spot on the Washington coast, Oil City. No oil, no city. A bad name for a beautiful place. The other, less exotic spot was right here… Read More ›
Solitude (2014 remaster)
By the time I got to the rim trail I was feeling feral. Short with people, not making eye contact, combative. The rim trail comes out of the visitor center at a very touristy part of Mt. Rainier. Let’s just… Read More ›
The Friday overnight
Few things I loved more than getting up really early to go backpacking. Better if it was with a friend or deeper in the year nearing autumn. But today was best because it was happening today and just about to… Read More ›
A different kind of fish
I got to the Marblemount ranger station an hour before it opened, at 6, one other guy in a van with long hair, bearded, already there. They had a Please Take A Number stand and an LED display showing number… Read More ›
The devil’s back side
Here was that spot I’d come to that day in the forest it was snowing. I’d been wanting to find this spot but the trails splinter off and I never look at the maps, I just splice the sections together… Read More ›
Judgment
The trail is dry at the park and crunches underfoot. For the first time I brought a bunch of people with me to my morning walk, Dawn’s family who’s visiting from out of state. We’d just be out for an… Read More ›
Knees post
Like other kids growing up in the 70s my dad had a lead discus, a discus like the kind they throw in the Olympics, a discus that looked like a 1950s photograph of a UFO, perfectly saucer shaped and black,… Read More ›