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...
A World Built for Walking Last weekend, I drove cattle from winter pasture to summer grazing lands. We could’ve trucked them, but the five-mile ride offered lessons that don’t come any other way. The mother cows seemed to know the rhythm of it; the calves, on the...
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Last week, as I walked through the Boston Public Garden, I was struck by a familiar but still startling realization: spring is a traveler, but she doesn’t move quite how we expect. A...
