The last time I took Wilderness First Aid (WFA) was in January 2020. A few months later, the world shut down. When it came time to recertify in 2022, life wasn’t back to normal, or even the new normal, and spending a weekend taking a WFA class didn’t make my top ten. It should have. …
Continue reading Learning is not compulsory… Wilderness First Aid Redux
It’s wet outside. Very wet. The ground around our house was saturated from the storm just a few days ago. The current downpour is dumping even more water. I’m half-worried that some overzealous bureaucrat might designate our backyard as a wetland. There’s a Norwegian saying, “Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlig klær!” which translates …
The goal was simple: hike the Grand Canyon from the North Rim to the South Rim in a day. I've been training for this for months: hiking and trail running. Five thousand feet of gain; no problem. 15K trail runs; no sweat. (Okay, a lot of sweat, but you get the idea.) I felt ready. …
In the book ’50 Trail Runs in Southern California’, the authors state, “If you can only run two trails in Southern California, one should be the Ray Miller Trail and the other should be the Ray Miller Trail in the opposite direction.” Sadly, part of the loop, the La Jolla Canyon Trail, was damaged in …
Here I am, participating in a Zoom forum with other industry professionals, feeling out of place, unqualified, and in way over my head. There are many reasons for this, the main one being I’ve only been at this job for less than a week. -------------------- Longtime readers of this site know of my love for …
Continue reading Adventures in Baroque Music – Not All Adventures Occur Outdoors
Several of my friends have dumped their Facebook accounts (including one of my favorite writers), some are snoozing on social media, at least until after the election, others are moving over to Instagram. (You couldn’t pay me enough to use Twitter or TikTok, but that’s another story.)You may be wondering, “What does social media have …
(A Poem From Yesterday's Outing in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.) Grey and hazy My view obscured Yet, climb I must Higher, still higher Until only a Few cubits remain Finally Sol’s rays Warmth instead of Mist on my cheeks An igneous summit Called Sandstone Peak Along Boney Ridge …
Overcast skies limit the view. A month ago, Catalina Island beckoned me from this same vantage point, but not today. “June Gloom” has set in along the coast of Southern California. A few days prior, the resulting drizzle made seeing through my glasses difficult; there are no such problems on this, the last full day …
When we dream about venturing outdoors, most of us envision bucolic strolls through wildflower-filled fields, sunny mornings ascending steep rock faces, being first to put skis to powder on virgin slopes, or watching the sunset from our lakeside camp. Days like these live on in our memory, drawing us again and again to new and …
Continue reading Being Prepared for a ‘Bad Day’ – Wilderness First Aid
It’s Small Business Saturday. The weather is cold by Southern California standards. There are many other ways to spend the last day of November, yet here I am, braving the holiday weekend drivers, many of them staring at their phones instead of paying attention to the road, all to go to a store. But it’s …
Adventure-to-Adventure 