Two weeks ago, the sun stood still. June 21—the solstice—marked the year’s longest light. I’ve started calling it Great Feeder Day. It’s not on any calendar except my own. But it should be. Because that same date in 1895 marked something rare and extraordinary: the...
I once fell thirty feet off the Red Slab in Rock Canyon. I say “thirty” because that’s where I stopped—but it began as a fifteen-foot drop. I was leading, and my last piece of gear hadn’t held as expected. What saved me was my belay partner and good friend down...
Mountain biking the other day, I rounded a tight bend on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and nearly crashed into a hiker hidden by thick undergrowth. Instinct took over: I slammed my brakes, skidded off the path, and we stopped inches apart. “Just me out here,” he...
The other day, I rode hard for a couple of hours, cutting through new spring growth of scrub oak and wild roses, mapping unfamiliar terrain. I returned home well before dusk. Yet as night fell, the stinging in my legs—remnants of those relentless thorns—kept my mind...
People occasionally ask why I return to the canyon so often. My wife, with genuine curiosity. Friends, with a teasing edge. Even my kids, wondering what could possibly be up there that isn’t already seen, walked, and done. “What’s the draw?” they ask. And the irony,...
There’s a spot along the canyon trail where the river shoulders into a hard left bend—calm on the inside, turbulent on the outside, like it’s trying to make up for lost time. That outer bank takes a beating. Years ago—probably sometime between the Great Depression and...
