Category: The Moosilauke Letters

PittsburghPennsylvaniaApril  1998 Cleanliness is just as important on the trail as it is in the city.  But because it isn’t as convenient as absentmindedly twisting a handle as you would do over your kitchen sink, daily chores on the trail take on more deliberate, thoughtful preparation and behavior. If you have ever tried to wash… Continue reading Waterless Soap

Great Smoky MountainsTennesseeMay  2013 The upper altitudes of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have a covering of a large spruce-fir forest.  The Fraser fir is named after — this is too easy — John Fraser.  He was a Scottish botanist in the 18th and 19th centuries who did some of his best work right here… Continue reading Fraser Fir

Jonathan Dickinson State ParkFloridaDecember  2000 Camping along the east coast of Florida, we have the distinct feeling that we are being watched.  Because we are.  Perched in the trees surrounding our tent is a flock of sinister-looking vultures. Have you ever seen a friendly-looking vulture?  I keep repeating to myself, “They eat dead things.  They… Continue reading Predators

Driskill MountainArkansasJune  2012 Due to my damnable blisters today, we choose a shorter hike than the one we originally planned, the one we really want to do.  We’ve never hiked in Arkansas before and we were excited to be discovering a brand new land.  We intended to hike ten miles south from Cove Lake across… Continue reading Blisters

North CarolinaTennesseeJune  1998 It is a somewhat complex plan, involving three main moving parts.  First, Laura backpacks the Pisgah National Forest for a week on her own.  On Day 8, I meet her at a trailhead and we plunge into the forest for another week on the Pisgah.  Then for the third week, the rest… Continue reading Best Wilderness Meal Ever

FrostburgMarylandApril  2015 We are on our way to scale the mighty hillock that is the 409-foot tall summit of Washington D C.  On the north side of Interstate 68 in Frostburg, Maryland, we drive past a steel girder framework that looks like it could become a small, ordinary three- or four-story hotel.  It won’t.  It… Continue reading Arky, Arky

KerhonksonNew YorkMay  2019 Philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, social critic, “father of modern linguistics,” professor, author, National Science Fellow, scholar and a guy who made it onto Richard Nixon’s Enemies list. This is none other than Noam Chomsky. Although he still has an office at MIT (Professor Chomsky is 90 years old at the time… Continue reading A Very Large Tiny Old Man

Pleasant Valley ParkPennsylvaniaSeptember  2018 A skink I think It’s on the brink Of going extinct Plink! Don’t… that… stink.

Mount RogersVirginiaJuly  2011 Here we are, in the Jefferson National Forest, the Appalachian Trail, on our way up to the summit of Mount Rogers.  Just the two of us, Lisa and me, and we haven’t seen anyone else for a while except for the distant ponies.  Minding their own business, as we do ours. A… Continue reading A Couple of Fun Loving Folks

Frick ParkPittsburghJune  1982 I started running after college.  I mean, not like The Running Man, where you literally had to run for your life, and definitely not like what one does in politics.  The running I was doing was sometimes, in those days, referred to as jogging.  Y’know, fitness. I live two blocks from Frick… Continue reading A Little Romance