Lonesome Miner Trail FAQ 2023.07.22 Blog How long is the LMT? The Lonesome Miner trail is in fact 30 miles long, not 40 or 50 like rumored. I’ve mapped nearly every single switchback faithfully, and the track is just barely over 30 miles long. Maybe it was originally estimated to be 40-50 miles because it’s a really difficult trail and people couldn’t imagine a shorter trail taking so much time as it can. But it is without a doubt roughly 30 miles long from trailhead to trailhead. The 30 miles does not include the 1.1 miles from Saline Valley road to the Hunter Cyn TH. That road is often washed out and you’ll likely have to walk it, in which case your hike will be 31 miles. The LMT is definitely not a […] Read more
PNS sounds a lot like a “Pain in the Ass” 2021.05.27 Blog I recently wrote about “What It’s Like to Live In a Dying Forest.” So — update from the forest! I’m still battling the tiny green beasties! They’re still unhatched but not for much longer. Soon they’ll turn into their crusty brown pinyon needle sap-sucking selves. Until then there’s a window to prolong some trees lives by destroying eggs. After they hatched the “solution” becomes to spray the trees with poisons. I’d rather not, but I’m ready for that too. Falling back on “safer” things like neem oil and mineral oil and diatomaceous earth. I’ve been spending a lot of time hunched under these wild trees, my hat brim pushed down into my eyes and my back getting bitten to bits by no-seeums. Lots of time to ponder […] Read more
What it’s like to live in a dying forest 2021.05.01 Blog A few weeks ago my friend pointed to a tall thin piñon (pinyon) pine near the road and remarked, “hm, it’s dying.” Its needles had mostly all turned shades of gold; it was definitely dying. Poor little thing. It made a good go of it! Not satisfied with that cheap sentiment, the next day I returned to it to figure out why the pine was dying. On a closer look I could see many hundreds of what appeared to be chia seeds attached to the needles. A quick search of the Internet suggested we had “piñon scale,” which is a type of aphid. A quick look over the horizon suggested that the millions of acres of trees surrounding us also have piñon scale. Last year they seemed […] Read more
Agde, France 2012.04.06 Blog The highlight of our day was a walk through the center of Agde, France, one of the oldest villages in France, and a visit to the fantastic restaurant, Lou Pescadou. Read more
Boob Tubes and Ozone Doosies 2004.04.19 Blog It’s National TV Turnoff week, and Americans will play along (in theory). This event seems geared towards getting children off the sofa. We found this month that television is both bad and good for children. What about grown-ups? And don’ forget Earth Day this week, Thursday. As a resident of Stripmallville, Oregon, I think I’ll adopt sprawl as my personal theme for Earth Day, and maybe I’ll come back with my ideas (aside from dirty bombing) as to how to combat it. In Stripmallville, it’s the first time I haven’t lived in the hub of a city (or even in a city at all). Today in Portland I walked several blocks to use a payphone because my mom doesn’t have a land line. Portland felt like my […] Read more