The Air Condtioned Daydream When people I don't like ask me about Death Valley, I tell them it’s hot. A horrible place. A lifeless hell. When people ask me what I did to deserve a job and life in Death Valley, I nod my head in no particular direction and smile. Similar to the nine or so adjacent mountain ranges, misconception enfolds this place with the ominous name, Death Valley. In many ways I am glad that there is such misconception. Besides simply being overlooked and forgotten, it's this misconception which so often gives an entire canyon, mountain peak, or even an entire 100 mile length of road to one human being to experience for himself, and for most of the time, even better, to only those organisms who are meant to be there, those that ... read more

Now and then life dips its greasy hands into the belly, through an incision in the universe's ether, and thus into the void. Every once in a while my heart races with each balanced step on the edge of a steep scree slope, as if it mattered. Today I stared at a computer for ten hours, while nibbling on pretzels, digitally drawing my life experience and perceptions over a 2D map, with satellite accuracy(DOP1m). Yesterday I climbed to 8000 ft above the sea of this tiny planet, to the top of a mountain ridge(1/3 skin of apple), then back and down, the last 3 miles in absolute darkness, pre-moonlight, followed by an hour drive, pumping CO2 out the Explorer tail pipe, probably too fast, until I submerged below the level of the rising sea to this ... read more

We woke up on a strange barren planet. We were in a valley covered in salt, which was inhabited by creatures much like ourselves, but whom oddly had no sense of their own nakedness. Overcome with confusion and slight disgust, we sought escape. Marty, the 5-foot tall, 55 year-old BLM Wilderness Manager led myself, 5 SCA volunteers, and a certified chainsawman on a death defying trek into Cougar Canyon. After dropping into this sharp little incision in the Inyo Mountains, we found ourselves trapped in a thick and tangled Tamarisk jungle. This vicious vegetation was growing before our eyes, closing us in, sucking up copious quantities of water from deep beneath the ground and depositing salt from its needle-like leaves. Besides ourselves, the Tamarisk was also threatening the little bit of remaining native riparian vegetation in ... read more

Today is last night. Now is tomorrow. Seconds ago will be coming soon. Each day has the same differences. Somewhere over 90 degrees, ground temperatures much higher than that, the sun hanging heavily in the sky with its dense rays completely unobstructed. Displaced clouds occasionally wander though. The mountains no longer merely smile, but rather laugh: spitting, drooling , fracture-toothed cackles. At night it gets dark. This doesn't happen anywhere else but here. Don't delude yourself. There are stars and such things standing out in all that black, but nothing more. Without the wind there is no noise, only the usual inner diatribe, a continual public radio fundraising campaign, repeating, "you are not worthy..." The desert is hot. It is also dry. When I survey by myself I feel sub atomic, weak, my heart beats louder ... read more

Horse bits strewn, bones and hair. A skull, a jaw, a tail, etc. scattered along the east bank of Black Bear Lake. The blood crusted in the dirt, entrails long digested. They pack you in; you blow them up. One stick of dynamite carefully placed, carefully lit. Light it up and equestrians be gone...running on foot. Bobcat tracks in the mud flats, Great Horn calls through the lodgepoles, sleeping by the coals under the icy milky way. The mule deer were on edge as the hunters gathered around their illegal backcountry fires. We lugged our synthetic fabrics, petroleum products, and processed food into the wilderness, leaving Our white Jeep Cherokee (Forest Service Vehicle # 4433) at Leavitt Lake. East of the crest, glacier blue lakes dotted the gray, pink, and white painted rocks: sandstone, basalt, and ... read more