Featured photo: Teton Rescue Ranger Nick Armitage airlifting his “package” Steve Markusen. The rest of the rescue team (lower left corner) remain on the Exum Ridge, Grand Teton, August 8, 2014. Credit Brian Carver “What is your name? Where are you?” My eyes opened to see a chiseled face with furrowed brow. Pain stabbed my […]
Featured Photo: Balance traverse on the East ridge of Wolfs Tooth, Wind river Range, Wyoming. Photo Credit: Paul Gardner I balance on the balls of my feet pressing the sticky rubber soles of my climbing shoes to the narrow ledge. The heels of my shoes stick out over five hundred feet of big air. I […]
The dog days of August 1974 had found us at our local crag. Perched on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, Taylors Falls is a narrow gorge of billion-year-old basalt, 40-foot cliffs carved 10,000 years ago by the meltwaters of retreating glaciers. The gorge hosts over a hundred trad- and sport-climbing routes. Relatively flat ground above […]
Featured photo: Escalante wilderness at sunset. The names on the map tell stories: Scorpion Gulch, Deadman Ridge, Carcass Canyon, Fifty Mile Cliffs, Rattlesnake Bench and Little Death Hollow. This is the Escalante, three million acres of National Monument and National Recreation Area in Southern Utah. One of the most remote wilderness areas in the country, […]
Photo: Looking up at Wimpys, my exit tracks on the left, Grand Teton National Park, January 2022 “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery none but ourselves can free our minds” Bob Marley: Redemption Song My skis slip… again. I say to myself, “Why can’t you do this? Are you too old? Too weak” I am struggling […]
Featured Photo: Middle Fork Lake with Pronghorn Peak and Mt Bonneville in the far background, Wind River Range, Wyoming “The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. […]
Featured photo: Buck Mountain in winter. Credit Jinrui Qu I step out of the pine forest into the meadow, touched by the first light of a new day. After three days of heavy rain, the air smells cool and clean. On a ridge marking the far side of the meadow, the silhouette of two elk. […]
Photo: Gary on the summit of the Grand Teton 13,775 feet, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Photo credit: Gary Christensen collection. Sweat rolls down our foreheads and into our eyes. The steep, rocky trail offers no relief from the mid-day sun; not a breath of wind, 92 degrees and humid. Reaching the top of the […]
Photo: Pingora, Wind River Range, Wyoming. The 1200 foot Northeast Face route, one of the Fifty Classic Climbs of North America, ascends the middle of the face. Awaking from a fitful sleep, I check the time, 1:30 am. Wake up alarm coming in 90 minutes. It is mid-August 2009 in the Cirque of the Towers, […]
The ski track ended at tree line, the top of a three thousand vertical foot backcountry ski run called Mavericks at ten thousand feet elevation on the east flank of Buck Mountain, in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. I started breaking my own trail, but quickly gave up. Strong winds were transporting thirty inches of […]