19th century mystic Sri Kamakrishna once said, “Do not seek enlightenment unless you seek it as the man whose hair is on fire seeks the pond.” So I’ll refrain here from trying to make sense of the adventure drive – no anecdotes drawing connections between challenge and satisfaction; no essays muddling through the allure, Read More
Upon discovering my hunting pack, loaded and stashed for the morning, my 3 year old ignored the knife, the saw, the lighter, the rope, the Snickers, the Fritos, the laser range finder, the flagging tape, the camelback, the .30-06 cartridges and other tempting tools of mess and mayhem. He went instead, straight for the, Read More
Steven’s been running. As his friend, this worries me. It’s out of character. And arriving as it does hot on the heels of his move to Bozeman, I can’t help but wonder what other lifestyle shifts I’ve missed. Does he do hot yoga now too? Has he retained a veterinary herbalist for the dogs?, Read More
“So there I am,” said Jeremy, leaning across my kitchen table for emphasis “right above them on this hillside, maybe sixty yards away. They’re thrashing around in the brush. I can hear their antlers banging and clashing together. The wind was perfect, just like it had been all day. Then… ” Between birds, big, Read More
You left the house at 4 a.m. By 5 you were hiking through the frozen darkness. 6 found you prepared, your body and your gear positioned just so. The blackness is absolute, the limestone at your back cold and sharp. A favorable wind brings imagined smells to your nose, half-heard noises to your ears, Read More
The pack that hangs in my garage could be mistaken for a living thing. At first glance it’s just luggage stuffed with an assortment of other inanimate objects. A close observer though will notice that it’s constantly adapting to the demands of the season. Layers disappear and reappear with shifts in the weather., Read More
“Dada, can I um… can I go over to Al and Anne’s house… pleeease Dada?” asked my five year old. Al and Anne are our next-door neighbors. My son visits most days, but he’d missed them the day before. They’d been in the mountains, scouting for elk. They’re 81 and 75 years old, respectively., Read More
Kids are born hunters. “Can I go catch a grasshopper?” asks my son at dawn. “Sure” we tell him, and off he goes through the dog-door, clad in cape and undies, to creep around the dewy lawn with his jar. The jar rarely comes home empty. “You have to be quiet.” he tells me, Read More
For wildlife researcher Dr. Hall Sawyer the seeds of discovery were fertilized, as is often the case, by hard labor. In the spring of 1999 Sawyer, mountain-man fit, affably handsome and freshly minted by the University of Wyoming as a Master of Science in Zoology, was working for the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife, Read More
This is the heart of fantasy season; the time of year when I stay up late, alone in my dusky office, and once the house is still, spread before me a lurid collection of sportrotica. I like it graphic.