Articles / Posts
Articles and Archives
The True Tale of Togo
Togo, the lead dog for champion musher Leonhard Seppala, was the true hero of the original Race for Mercy. In March of 1998, I stretched slightly from my usual beat as outdoors writer/editor at the San Francisco Chronicle to do an “elective,” a feature story on...
The ‘Glades of My Youth
To summon a memory of the music of the wild that whirled from our woods each night of my childhood, is, for me, a way to recall all of Florida’s vast botanic and biologic grandeur. I don’t mean Florida as it is now. I mean the way it was back in the Fifties, when I...
Musings on Storycraft
Book Review of "The Drop (A Harry Bosch Novel)" by Michael Connelly I just finished my new favorite work by Michael Connelly: “The Drop,” a Harry Bosch mystery from 2011. (It displaces “Void Moon,” from 1999.) I realize the dude’s scribbled four or five more volumes...
Hike Like a Deer Hunter
Or How to Skulk In the Woods Our first lesson is stillness. Not easy, perhaps, to generate or even locate deep quietude in frenetic modern times. But nature doesn’t tend to do frenzy for long – that realm prefers to remain tranquil, rational, and chary of waste. Sink...
Orwell’s Last Resort
Optimistic subtext in 1984 A literary pilgrimage can be rather fraught. One might journey to a famed writer’s studio or home, only to make a utterly unwished discovery – something that will diminish an author or his (her) work. But still worse, what if you gain zero...
Archives: First Ascent of Mount Trashmore
Mt. Trashmore reverses that ancient poet’s line. Here, mice labored to give birth to a mountain. That was among my last lucid perceptions as I struggled upward through a methane miasma. Up here, at elevations above 100 feet, consciousness itself became mighty...
Navy Seal Series
Stories on training, background, and history.
A Real SEALs Deal
More than a dozen top national security figures gathered in the White House Situation Room to tensely observe as elite door-kickers from the U.S. SEAL teams took down über-terrorist Osama Bin Laden.
Buddy ethic of Navy SEALs revealed in story of survival
Modern Navy SEAL commando missions range from clandestine reconnaissance to direct action combat raids, from “foreign internal defense” (training local forces) to protection of human resources, and even counter-drug operations.
Navy SEALs put out call to attract young athletes
A nationwide crusade for fitness might improve kids’ health and create a better pool of potential soldiers, but U.S. Navy SEALs recruiters aren’t waiting.
‘Right stuff’ is tough on ‘old’ guys
SEAL trainees’ screening test is a challenge for all
Building Elite Forces for Military of Future
A neat line of 177 Navy SEAL recruits link arms and wade into the sea.
North Coast Kayaking Series
A 400-mile, sea kayak voyage along California’s shore. A remarkable sequence of stories published in the San Francisco Chronicle and on S.F. Gate
North Coast Series Postlude
400-mile reflection on respect for our coast.
Home are the Sailors, Home from the Sea
After many weeks of wrestling Pacific storms, ripping up our navigation plans then taping them back together, we’d touched the bay’s golden threshold.
Drawing Inside the Strait to a Golden Gate
After a modicum, of good-natured grousing we gobbled some breakfast, packed up, and launched. Then something interesting happened: we lost Bo Barnes.
Try to Go Past the Landlord’s Lair
We felt warmly welcomed by many folks at each port-of-call along our voyage
The Greening of Bodega Head
Amid the course of human events, warring parties often do battle via dueling narratives long before they get around to exchanging blows.
Sailin’ on South
Lucky me! Dawn drove up from just south of San Francisco to share part of a day and evening with me on another gorgeous stretch of California’s North Coast.