Nehaveigur

Category: Outdoors

  • Air and Light: My favorite outdoor photos from the last few years

    I seem to like close-up photography and patterns.

  • Snow Walk: My first attempt at snowshoes had a slapstick ending

    I’ve never used snowshoes before. This is an account of my first attempt, which, despite ending with me feeling silly, got me wanting to try…

  • Monarch Wings: Now they float in water

  • Anemones: They look like they’re from another planet

    There are no better places than tide pools to find alien-like creatures. Sea anemones are predatory animals, but you wouldn’t know it looking at them.

  • Elephant Seals: Men should try not to be like them

    Animals don’t exist as cautionary tales for humans, but if they did, elephant seals would’ve clearly been created to tell men how not to behave.…

  • Ecojargon: Think like an ecologist, but don’t talk like one, please

    There’s something about the way ecologists talk that makes my eyes glaze over: Prairie plants sequester carbon, prevent erosion and provide key habitat for endangered…

  • Spider Web

    Related: here‘s what happens when you give drugs to spiders.

  • Driftwood

  • Pyromaniac

    Trying to light a camp fire when it’s raining and everything is wet is a humbling experience, and not one that practicing in dry conditions…

  • Unedited

    Donald E. Carr points out that the sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain: “This is philosophically interesting in a rather…

  • Arctic Facts

    Here are the facts I found surprising enough to highlight in my copy of Arctic Dreams: Most animals live lives in biological keeping with the…

  • Arctic Dreams

    Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez still shows the Soviet Union on its maps of the Arctic. There is no mention of global warming, unthinkable for…

  • Dewdrops

    We’re just raindrops on a window. Jerry Seinfeld

  • Wolf

    Wolf by Jim Harrison is a novel about being outdoors and about traveling. It’s Harrison’s first novel, published in 1971. There is a lot in…

  • Wood Swirl

    A piece of wood that reminded me of van Gogh’s Starry Night. Nature imitating art, once again.

  • The Territory is the Map

  • Three Days by the Lake

    For three days, I went to a small lake in the Sierras. There was a dirt track that went in for 30 minutes. The lake…

  • Cruelty

    There’s some cruelty inherent in fishing and hunting. I’m not opposed to either and fish myself, but I think it’d be dishonest not acknowledge that…

  • Human Footprint

    Here is an interactive world map that quantifies the human footprint based on population density, infrastructure and other metrics. The truly wild places are in…

  • Consider the Fish

    Fishing is a bit cruel but also makes me feel closer to nature. Jon Ontario talks about this conundrum here. It’s the same tension David…

  • Where the Mountains are Nameless

    There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And…

  • Edible Plants in the Sierra Nevada: A visual guide

    While backpacking, I frequently wonder if I could eat the berries I encounter. I know I can eat the blackberries but I’m unsure about everything…

  • Outdoor Books

    This is a good list of nature, travel and adventure books compiled by Ken Ilgunas. His personal preferences align more with my own than the…

  • Hitchhiking

    After hiking through the desert for a week, I was standing on the American side of the Mexican border. I was dusty, tired, needed a…

  • Air or Earth

    A gentle reminder that, now more than ever, flying is our punishment for daring to defy gravity. Nein Quarterly (Eric Jarosinski) Air travel is the…

  • Star Bowl Spinning Overhead

    Writing by starlight Can’t see the words Fill a page Nothing there Waterfall distant sound Tree against stars Milky Way Juniper Jupiter white rock Wind…

  • Napping Outside

    One of my favorite things when I’m out backpacking or canoeing is to take an afternoon nap under a tree somewhere. Karl Heinrich Waggerl wrote…

  • Meadows

    This is a mountain meadow in Lower Austria. Comparable meadows in the Sierra Nevada have fewer wildflowers and fewer insects, both in terms of absolute…

  • Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

    I have known about Annie Dillard for some time but I have never before read anything she has written. In retrospect, that was a mistake.…

  • Ted Muller

    Personal websites, updated and added to over many years, tend to be more interesting than social media profiles. Klaus Dierks’ website is an example, and…

  • Rattlesnake Creeks

    My neighbor told me about a swimming hole that nobody knows about. “It’s on Rattlesnake Creek,” he said. Armed with this information, I went to…

  • Ineffective Alternatives

    I don’t get anything out of cold medications. By the time my symptoms are severe enough that I take something, it’s already too late. The…

  • Puddling

    Around a puddle no larger than my hand, I observed three different butterfly species, jostling with bees and other insects. Despite a large lake being…

  • Tree Climbing

    As a kid, I liked to climb a tall fir that stood beside our house. Its branches were spread close and evenly, which made it…

  • Relax About Rain

    Breathable rain jackets get damp on the inside after a few hours of rain. My solution is to not bring a rain jacket if I…

  • Backpacking Resources

    When preparing for backcountry trips, it’s helpful to know what to expect.

  • When Adventure’s Lost its Meaning

    In the quiet misty morning When the moon has gone to bed When the sparrows stop their singing And the sky is clear and red…

  • Using My Phone as a Microscope

    My phone camera beats any magnifying glass. Here are photos of some bugs I encountered on a California beach today. They were 1-5 mm long…

  • National Park Ideas

    Here are some interesting ideas for new national parks by Ken Ilgunas.

  • California Fires

    Much of California has burned at some point. This map keeps track of historical wildfires.

  • Edward Abbey

    Edward Abbey held views that don’t align with our current political dimensions. He was an environmentalist, he was against immigration, he wanted people to have…

  • 30 by 30

    In 2016, Edward O. Wilson proposed that half of Earth‘s surface should be protected similar to a national park. In 2020, California governor Gavin Newsom…

  • Unnecessary Backpacking Gear

    There are lots of backpacking gear lists out there, and one day I may post mine. In the meantime, here is some backpacking gear I…

  • A Great Time to Be Large

    I’d have loved to see Pleistocene megafauna like the mammoth with my own eyes, and maybe one day I will. In the meantime, I am…

  • You Can’t See Them

    This is a recent text by editing director of Alta Journal, Blaise Zerega: The summit at Heavenly Resort in Lake Tahoe is 10,067 feet up. Standing there…

  • California: Great for Trees

    Why does California have the tallest, biggest and oldest trees? Coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are the tallest trees on Earth, reaching 116 meters. Their range…

  • Money or All This

    We’re spending the days between Christmas and New Year at a ranch house on the Eastern slope of Mt Shasta. There are no neighbors apart…

  • Snow Star

  • Geocaching

    Geocaching isn’t as popular as it used to be. Google Trends shows that interest peaked in 2011 and has been at 25% of the peak…

  • The Wall

    What would I do if I were isolated on an island or on an uninhabited planet? is something I sometimes think about. A lot of…

  • Purple Urchins

    These are purple sea urchins in a tide pool on the Mendocino coast.

  • Mushrooms Making Waves

    I believe this is turkey tail mushroom (Trametes versicolor). The water in the background is Bon Tempe Lake in Marin county, California.

  • The Eight Mountains

    What was my father longing for? He, who never managed to stop working. He barely made it to the mountains for a few weeks in…

  • Yearning From Above

    I’m on a plane. This morning, I woke up in a Sheraton hotel room and this afternoon I’ll be in a corporate office with a…

  • The Night is Darkening Round Me

    The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant…

  • Spend it Wisely

    Last week, my wife and I packed our kids into the car and drove four hours to a cabin in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Early…

  • The Overstory

    The Overstory by Richard Powers is different from any novel I’ve ever read. It’s experimental in the sense that it is composed of multiple tangled…

  • Outdoor Books

    I don’t get to spend as much time as I’d like out of doors and try to make up for it by reading. Here are…

  • Needle Ice

    This is needle ice, which I observed growing out of the ground the morning of September 12th next to a backcountry lake in Yosemite National…

  • Insufficiently Fractal

    I’ve just come back from a week of backpacking in the Sierra Nevada. The first day we got altitude sickness, by the second day my…

  • Oh I Am Sick of Brick and Stone

    A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels, I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels; I hunger for…

  • Long Trails

    The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. I was curious if someone has made a list of long-distance hiking…

  • Fog

    The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Carl Sandburg: Fog

  • The Silent Men Who Do Things

    Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on, Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, Big mountains heaved to heaven, which…

  • Happiness Only Real When Shared

    Interstate 80 crosses the Sierra Nevada at Donner Pass. One semi-trailer truck follows the next in a near-continuous train, connecting the mighty economy of California…

  • Two Good Lakes

    I like people but I don’t like crowds. I don’t actually mind crowds either if they don’t cause congestion. Some crowding in a subway station…

  • One Utopia

    Ken Ilgunas’ utopia for North America: A stable population of 100 million humans (a mostly arbitrary number), mostly clustered in metropolitan areas, eating the best,…

  • Nothing Gold Can Stay

    Nature’s first green is gold Her hardest hue to hold Her early leaf’s a flower But only holds an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf…

  • Against Binoculars

    I have nothing against birds. Unlike birdwatchers, I’m more interested in their personalities than their looks. I’m incapable of watching them and not ascribing a…

  • Peace Comes Dropping Slow

    I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows I will…

  • The Woods are Lovely, Dark, and Deep

    Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his…

  • Bears

    Talk with backpackers anywhere in the Western United States, and eventually bears will come up. I’ve come across bears a few times and they now…

  • Bicycle Conversion

    Leaving a hardware store, I saw an e-bike unlike any I had seen before chained to a lamppost. It was a standard road bike with…

  • Into Alaska

    It’s easy to be cynical about YouTube and those who create videos for the platform to make money. Chasing clicks and making videos that make…

  • Ultralight

    The amount of time I spend researching backpacking gear, reading blogs and reviews and watching YouTube videos about tarps, camping stoves, backpacks, sleeping quilts and…

  • The Brotherhood of Mt Shasta

    As you hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, for many days you catch glimpses of Mt Shasta between the trees. As you…

  • A Tall Ship

    I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a…

  • Not Man the Less, but Nature More

    There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep…

  • The River: Drowning

    Most winters, the ice was strong enough for skating, as long as you avoided the fast flowing sections where it was much thinner. As a…

  • The River: Boats

    For Christmas, I wanted a kayak. For months, I had been poring over the catalogs of various suppliers, comparing specifications and accessories and looking at…

  • The River: Fishing

    Beneath the surface, there were trout. On hot days they were suspended in the water without moving. My brother, for a few years, was obsessed…

  • The Gospel of Nature

    John Burroughs published Time and Change in 1912. Hewas a well known naturalist, corresponding with Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir and others. He has been largely…

  • Builds Character

    If a person who has not had enough exercise attempts to backpack, then he will find the going difficult. He might think, “I sweat, I…

  • Tracking

    Excerpts from Jim Harrison’s third-person autobiography Tracking, which appeared in his collection The Summer He Didn’t Die. About rivers: The last few days in the…

  • How Not to Eat Well

    People worry a lot about food. Is it authentic? Is it healthy? Is it local? Is it organic? Is it sustainable? Is it The Best?…

  • Map of California Fossil Sites

    I made an interactive map of California fossil sites based on data by Don Kenney.

  • The First Snowfall

    The snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every…

  • The Tickle Trunk

    Our canoe was made by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation from heavy-duty aluminum and weighted 75 pounds. On account of it being late summer, some…

  • Tree House

    A tree house, a free house, A secret you and me house, A high up in the leafy branches Cozy as can be house. A…

  • Yonder Blue Ridge

    May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on…

  • Jim Harrison

    I’ve been reading a lot of Jim Harrison lately. It’s an infatuation with his work that began a few years ago but has now reached…

  • Desert Tales: Some strange encounters

    The number of weird things that happen to a person in the wild is directly proportional to how much time that person spends in the…