Here’s a story in Ojai Quarterly about my struggle with the legacy of my long-time hero John Muir while walking his trail — in smoke — this past September. [This first image comes from the story in the winter issue of the magazine, as linked above, and has a slightly different tone and fewer picturesContinue reading “BLAME JOHN MUIR: Fire on the JMT 2025”
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From Silver Creek to Bear Creek: SOBO on the JMT
Here’s a junction sign at a crossroads: one arrow points towards Lake Edison and the Ferry, and another arrow points up the long forested hill to the Bear Creek Meadows area. It’s a relentless but soft under foot climb of about five miles and 2,000 feet. On that all-afternoon uphill stretch, I ran into aContinue reading “From Silver Creek to Bear Creek: SOBO on the JMT”
Smoky Afternoons on the JMT: SOBO Sept 2025
From Tully Hole and the Fish Creek Trail junction at 9,091 feet, the trail ascends almost seventeen hundred feet in 3.3 miles, so it’s a fairly hard climb to Silver Pass. On the other hand, it’s a good trail and footpath too, and this time going over the nearly 11k pass I didn’t bonk orContinue reading “Smoky Afternoons on the JMT: SOBO Sept 2025”
Southbound on the JMT: Gladys Lake to Red’s Meadow
From Gladys Lake to Red’s Meadow is what Muir would call a saunter — a long lovely walk, brisk but as it happens mostly downhill, through a sunny and mostly dry forest. Not especially taxing and pleasant in a cozy sort of way, such as this little trailside pond, which officially is one of theContinue reading “Southbound on the JMT: Gladys Lake to Red’s Meadow”
Southbound on the JMT: Thousand-Island Lake to Gladys Lake
We had a luminous full moon night at a well-known campsite overlooking the famed Thousand Island Lake, this early September night. Though the ground was a flat planteau made mostly of granite, the tentsites were impressively well laid out and groomed completely clear of sharp little rocks or stones by thousands of ‘packers, perhaps). WeContinue reading “Southbound on the JMT: Thousand-Island Lake to Gladys Lake”
Southbound on the JMT September 2025
The first two nights on the John Muir Trail, southbound, in September 2025.
STATE FINDS CHEMICAL AND RADIOACTIVITY EMERGENCY IN FORMER BURN PIT AT SANTA SUSANA FIELD LAB
From the Ojai Valley News/VCSun At an online Nov. 9 meeting with nearly 60 community members, Jamie Slaughter, a public participation specialist for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, announced plans for soil removal, cleanup and further testing at the former 6-acre burn pit site within the Santa Susana Field Lab site in easternContinue reading “STATE FINDS CHEMICAL AND RADIOACTIVITY EMERGENCY IN FORMER BURN PIT AT SANTA SUSANA FIELD LAB”
Hetch-Hetchy Loop 2023
Yours truly took an exploratory journey around a favorite new locale in the Sierra, the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, which is well-known and much-loved, and deservedly so. I wanted to see a little more of what surrounds this spectacular river canyon. And, to be honest, I also wanted to spend a day just hangingContinue reading “Hetch-Hetchy Loop 2023”
The Eternal Return of the Grateful Dead
Here’s a story I wrote for the Ventura County Reporter on the Skull and Roses festival coming up next week at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. Let me post the published version (below) and add some color, for those who like a little extra. From the VCR: At the end of 1995 the much beloved jamContinue reading “The Eternal Return of the Grateful Dead”
Orwell and the earth
When [the critic] Woodcock compared Orwell to Antaeus, who draws his strength from the earth, he might have also meant that he drew his intellectual strength from the specific and the tangible and from firsthand experience. It set him at odds with an era in which ideologies led many astray, not least as doctrines defendingContinue reading “Orwell and the earth”
Kit Stolz 