AUTUMN COMES EARLY to Colorado’s high country. It doesn’t wait until October to get going the way it does back where I grew up in London, but instead begins altering the landscape even before August is done. The thrill and wonder of it catches me out pretty much every year. When I set out uphill […]
Autumn Comes Early Read More »
SLOW AND IMMERSIVE travel in nature can bring HUGE rewards. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced a few of them myself, and I’ve tried to convey them in my writing as best I can. Moving gently, senses open and engaged, stopping often to lose oneself in the details of the land, strolling along, or sauntering
To Saunter, or not to saunter, that is the question. Read More »
LAST YEAR I had a plan: to get to know one place. To spend twelve months travelling in only one spot. Why? Well, the reasons were many. Some were understood. Some were deeper and less understood. Some were probably hidden even from me. And some were shallow. One reason was to write a book about
SPRING COULD WELL be my favourite season in the High Country. The fading away of feet of snow, the re-emergence of the living earth after being buried for so long, the first flush of green, the first flowers, the return of blissful warmth on bare arms and legs that had previously been encased in layers
From White to Green Read More »
ON THE SECOND day of June, 1993, I fell down a mountain. It nearly killed me. On the twentieth day of August, 1994, I went back. Happily, this second visit went better. There were no finger nails lost, you’ll be glad to know. No cartwheeling down glaciers. But there were tears, and not only from
A Return To Hohtürli Read More »
ON THURSDAY LAST week I saw mention on social media that a powerful solar storm was about to begin. Potentially, it would be so powerful that a consequence of it – the aurora borealis – would be observable at far lower latitudes than usual. But I quickly discounted it. The chances of seeing the northern
Is this real life? Is this fantasy? Read More »
AMONGST THE MANY trips I’ve taken this past winter eight of them have been to the same location, to a wild spot often overlooked: a forested ridge that rises above a broad pass. Returning to this place again and again has been a joy. In fact, going back has felt more joyful each time, like
Connections, Love, and an Igloo Read More »
LAST WEEKEND’S PLANNED night in the mountains almost fell through at the very last moment. The aim had been to return to an igloo I built months ago (an igloo I’ll blog about in due course) but a change in family circumstances just as I was preparing to leave home meant I’d have to return
The More You Go The Luckier You Get Read More »
THE WATERFALL DIDN’T last long. A day and a half, then it was done. It was a quick flood formed by the rapid thawing of two-feet of snow. It spilled over the edge of the typically desert-dry mesa; a temporary rush of water that cascaded downward, scattering sunlight with diamond flashes as it fell, spreading
I THOUGHT IT was high time I shared an update on Chris Townsend’s book, High Summer, to be republished this summer through my imprint, the Enchanted Rock Press. (Launch date to be confirmed, but watch this space!) Chris has been sorting through the 3,000 or so slides that he took during the journey, digitising a
High Summer – an update Read More »