Outdoors

Wind pulsed through the domed labyrinth of quartz monzogranite as I scrambled downward looking for a safer descent. The spring sky was a typically cloudless and brilliant blue. Above, the murmur of voices from the knot of students and my co-instructor at the tabletop summit some 20 feet above faded in and out with the […]

"Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering a farmer’s daughter." Julius Comroe Jr. Looking for a change of pace last month, my wife and I opted to sleep on the marble slab called a futon instead of our comfy bed. I was awakened after dawn by her exclaiming, "Oh! That’s why […]

As I gaze back over the 15 odd "Off The Pavement" articles I have penned for the Journal, it would seem one big theme has emerged. I might define my overall interpretation of them as something like, the necessity of being outside.So if this theme has appealed to you, then you are in luck. This […]

When some of us think of the Alps, we envision long waits in our cars as fire crews remove logs that have trundled hundreds of feet down to the 299 from blackened hillsides that lead up to the vertiginous slopes of the remote Wilderness Area. What the uninitiated don’t know is that the Alps are […]

You have got chains, right, Ben?" We had skipped town again, this time with cross-country skis, to take advantage of the recent cold snap — finally a benefit to the omnipresent Humboldt County winter precipitation. The joy of writing an outdoor column is that you always have a handy excuse to escape, nearly guilt-free, and […]

If you really desire to fall of the map, head down to Sinkyone State Park. It has an almost mythical quality to it, starting with the drive in. From the north, narrow paved roads give way to one lane of dirt a few miles from the rustic visitor’s center at Needle Rock. The muddy strip […]

Some six years ago, during spring break at HSU, I hiked the Lost Coast for the first time. On that trip we hadn’t seen another hiker for two days and nearly 18 miles. It was a bit of a shock when arriving at Big Flat to have our first encounter be with a Cessna and […]

I feel serendipity each time I go to the Lost Coast. It doesn’t matter that I discovered it long ago and have explored it many times. Or that an incredibly diverse cast of historical and contemporary figures have wandered through or made their home or livelihoods there. It always retains that aura of mystique for […]