Changes I’m back after a hiatus (explanation below) and am making a few changes. First, I’m switching to a weekly rather than semi-daily Appalachian Trail journal to focus a larger portion of my daily writing time on more time-intensive articles and book reviews. This week’s journal brings me just past the halfway point, a fitting...

Once making that commitment, I feel unable to change course. Broadly, putting constraint on freedom, I believe, makes the journey more difficult and also more rewarding.

The Earth renews itself with fresh winds and rain. I returned from a lovely visit to Harrisonburg VA with my uncle, aunt, and cousin rejuvenated. The trail greeted me with rain and cool. Color swelled in leaves. Vigor replaced arduousness, vibrancy displacing a miry sky. A visit with family in Harrisonburg Shenandoah National Park is...

For now, we will experience a year or so of El Niño, which is like a short-term climate change preview. It gives us a rapid year-over-year increase in global average temperature, with the associated local consequences

Look left 2 months past. 2 months of traveling this well-trodden path. 2 months of chasing a dream, one of thousands on a great migration northward. 2 months and 884 miles lie behind, when I look to the left. 2 months of trail towns, of benefiting from the generosity of others, of forming relationships in...

Because characteristics, like Chef, are misnomers. Indicative but incomplete.

The two great fluid bodies of our planet, atmosphere and ocean, linked to us and to everything through great continuous chains of water.

On day 29, I wrote a post on national parks arguing that discounting our participation, particularly historic Native American participation, in natural systems harms and deludes us. I wrote another post making a related argument through the lens of Leave No Trace principles instead of national parks. I tinkered with this article for a long...

The famous views of this section of trail displayed all the folded ridges, emergent green, and faded Eastern skylines off central Virginia in early April. These photos and those below convey the scale of the cliffs, the emergence of spring, and the setting better than words. McAfee Knob relaxing Since leaving Pearisburg, VA, I’ve spent...

Hope blooms in each flower if you are willing to sit down and marvel at its exquisite detail. Hope emerges with each leaf that imbues a bleak landscape with a splotch of vibrant color.