I FINALLY SHARED a mountain night with one of my offspring this last weekend. Pretty late in the year, but goodness was it worth the wait! My approach to getting my children into the outdoors has always been gentle – to not force it. We’ve all seen parents dragging reluctant kids on walks, which never
SATURDAY WAS A BIG DAY for me. After 30 years of dreaming about publishing a book, and after many years of writing one, re-writing it, and then re-writing it again, my book was finally ready to publish. Originally, I’d chosen May 1 as the day it would happen, a symbolic date – the date that
THE FORECAST LAST night was too good to resist: clear skies, little wind, mild temperatures, a full moon, and shortly before sunrise a lunar eclipse… sleeping indoors with all that on offer would contravene everything I believe in! The only argument against heading out for my 20th mountain night of the year was the extravagant
I’VE BEEN ON a journey. And what a journey it has been! It’s been long, for one thing. And challenging. And full of unexpected twists and turns. It’s taken me to places I never expected to visit. It’s led to discoveries, to growth, to moments of joy. And goodness, but also to moments of frustration,
MY LAST BLOG was all about The ‘Other’ Places, and so this week I thought I’d follow up with a few photos from The Other Italy – the wild side of Italy that most visitors miss… To simplify things, I’ve limited the photos to just one region of Italy – the Abruzzo region in the
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS ago today I stood alone in an Italy that very few people know. I was three days into my 18-month walk across Europe, and surrounding me were mountains that were far wilder than I’d expected, and far harder to cross than I wanted. It was a bit of a shock. The location was
IT’S NOT EASY running a new independent publishing imprint dedicated to wild nature when wild nature itself calls. Talk about distractions! There are a thousand and one details I ought to be taking care of to make certain that The Earth Beneath My Feet doesn’t sink without a trace when I launch it on
WINTER HAS RETURNED to the foothills of Colorado’s Front Range, as it so often does this time of year. Mid April? Spring? Hah! With flakes wafting down and cold nipping at one’s exposed digits you’d barely know it. Which made it the perfect time to share a night in the hills with Igloo Ed. Igloo Ed is
Or, The Unexpected Benefits of Sleeping Without a Tent. ONE OF MY goals this year (aside from successfully publishing The Earth Beneath My Feet) is to sleep out at least fifty-two times. That’s once every week on average. Fifty-two mountain nights. As quests go, it should be easy, right? Once upon a time it would