February – March 2011 | Mountain Gazette

Mountain Dog Photo Contest

by M John Fayhee February 1, 2011 Features

Editor’s note: After eyeballing more than 400 submissions to Mountain Gazette’s 4th Annual Dog Photo Contest over the course of six weeks, I made a stern vow, one that pretty much mirrors the vow I made this time last year: “NEVER AGAIN!!!” It’s just too difficult to try to pick a relative handful of shots [...]

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The Merde in France: Dog Dung Decline

by Michael Brady February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

One hazard of travel in France is underfoot in villages, towns and cities: la merde, literally “the merde,” dog dung, infamously an aspect of life in the country. So much is this so that in English, the word merde, from the French and meaning dung, usually connotes an unlucky event in France. That’s both wrong [...]

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The joy of sliding: Why our feet make skiing feel so sexy

by Wayne Sheldrake February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

It’s long been a cliché among skiers that a good day on the slopes, especially a good powder day, is as good as sex. Maybe skiers who think so are simply better at skiing than they are at sex. Or perhaps the sport is flush with shameless pervs. (It is frickin’ freezing out there and [...]

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Parting Gift

by Karen Chamberlain February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

Editor’s note: On Sept. 11, 2010, long-time Mountain Gazette poetry editor Karen Chamberlain passed away. Her husband, photographer Bob Chamberlain, found the following two pieces on her computer in a folder titled, “Unfinished Poems.” A book of Karen’s poetry will be published by People’s Press in the spring. Obituary Scissoring out of the newspaper The [...]

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The Five Stages of a Nap

by Alan Stark February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

So you are lying on the couch in the living room with a book and maybe an empty beer can or two — maybe even three. Who’s counting? The book is about a 190-foot, wooden, steam sailer called the Bear and Coast Guard operations in the Alaskan waters in the late-1800s. And while you are [...]

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Dogged Pursuits

by Tara Flanagan February 1, 2011 Cartographic

At last count, we Americans had roughly 77.5 million dogs among our ranks. Nearly 40 percent of our households contain at least one dog, and despite the recession, we are spending record amounts on our curs. If you doubt our willingness to spend big, consider Neuticles, a testicular implant that restores “anatomical preciseness” to neutered [...]

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BOB Chamberlain’s Mountain vision

by Bob Chamberlain February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

Street photography is the point of view of the innocent bystander. Empty streets and no traffic; chance meeting in mid-street; a dog named Koa from the free-puppy box at Rose Market. Ice hockey with cubes on the kitchen floor, and Unlimited Class Stick retrieval, including gathering firewood for campfires were his favored activities. Headstones at [...]

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Movie Review: ‘127 Hours’

by Craig Childs February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

Aron Ralston? He had to have been an idiot getting stuck in that canyon the way he did. That’s all I could figure at the time. Even if you kick it hard as a test, you don’t put your weight on some chintzy chockstone. Clan of half-naked desert spawn who call this region of southeast [...]

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The Grief Counselor: A Search Concludes in the Gila

by Dave Baldridge February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

For Christmas, I got him this little wooden cross that dangles from his dog collar, only half-jokingly to signify his calling. I threaten to get him a little black robe with a white collar, but he — with his classic border collie coat — already wears those. I, once his equal partner in search and [...]

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Eating Wolf

by Tricia M. Cook February 1, 2011 February - March 2011

I have stopped at the top long enough to rip the skins from my skis, taking breaths more slowly now than the ones I stopped counting on the way up. The even, heavy cadence of my breathing as I lay down a fresh up-track is addictive. The exhale louder, more pronounced, than the inhale. The [...]

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