 Mountain Media - June 2010
It’s June, which means lots of the snow in the High Country has melted out and it’s officially hiking season above 14,000 feet in Colorado. Here’s some software with a pre-made peak-bagging list, and if you’re not into that, a couple books for the more sedentary.
 Mountain Media - May 2010
Mud Season is upon us, and it’s time to either whine about ski season being over, or start dreaming of what you can do this summer. The first selection in this column, “180 South,” might make you start tracing the map for a good road trip. Or it could make you quit your job. Got something that you think might fit here? E-mail me at media@mountaingazette.com
 Mountain Media - March 2010
 Mountain Media - April 2010
This month’s Mountain Media: Things you can do (take your kids in the outdoors with some tips from Eugene Buchanan), things you can’t do (climb like the folks in Progression) and a feeling you probably can’t put your finger on (ColdSplinters.com). E-mail me at media@mountaingazette.com.
 An Inside Passage
Interesting connection between the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, the annual award given to “the best work of literary nonfiction submitted to the annual contest sponsored by River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative”: The 2009 prize was won by long-time Mountain Gazette contributor Ana Maria Spagna; the 2006 prize was won by my old professor at the University of Montana, Michael Downs, and the 2008 prize was won by Kurt Caswell, another longtime MG writer.
 Alpine Time Machine
Ever wish you could travel back to climbing’s early days and follow the
earliest first-ascent visionaries? This fantasy comes to life in Daniel
Arnold’s Early Days in the Range of Light: Encounters with Legendary
Mountaineers ($28, counterpointpress.com). Arnold, cleverly,
chose 15 classic peaks in California’s High Sierras and spent three
years studying the lives of the peaks’ pioneers, groundbreakers like
John Muir, Clarence King, and Norman Clyde.
 A Royal Life
Most people wouldn’t need seven volumes to tell their life story — but
then again, most people aren’t Royal Robbins. In My Life: To Be Brave
($19.95, royalrobbinsthebook.com), the first in this autobiographical
series, Robbins lays bare the driving forces — external and internal — that
have shaped him. Chapter one dives straight into his landmark solo
of the Leaning Tower: the insecure belays, the pumped arms, and the
stubbornness it took to overcome the ominous wall.
 Mountain Media - Deep Winter
Plenty of famous folks have written for the Mountain Gazette over the years — David Roberts, Royal Robbins, Ed Abbey, Mary Sojourner, Charles Bowden, John Nichols et al. Plenty of MG writers have done other cool things, and all the items in this month’s Mountain Media just happen to come from writers who have been published in this magazine. Hey, speaking of famous MG writers, if anyone wants to buy/publish a 60,000-word manuscript tentatively titled “The Only Good Story I Know,” drop me a line. media@mountaingazette.com.
 Mountain Media - Holidays 2009
This month’s column does not have a holiday-type
theme running throughout, because you probably have
enough people telling you to buy a bunch of crap this time
of year. Instead, here’s a book about a guy trying to save
the earth, a movie about a newspaper about saving Moab, and
a short video about how the mountain doesn’t care if you’re an
avalanche expert.
 Mountain Media - November 2009
Well, it’s November, so that must mean it’s time to hit the slopes, if you’re the type of person who bolts into the garage to wax your skis after hearing the first report of snowflakes falling in Summit County or Park City or Big Sky. In my neck of the woods, that also means the hell of I-70 ski traffic, the phenomenon that allows Denver-area weekend warriors to experience road rage all seven days of the week, if they so wish.
 Mountain Media - October 2009
Didn’t get everything done this summer, did you? Slept under the stars about half as much as you would have liked. Didn’t get to the top of that peak you said you were going to. Probably drank away most of the money you told yourself you were going to save to buy a new pair of skis for this season, too. Well, that’s okay, as the season of doldrums is upon us.
 The Thinning of the Herd
In the mid-18th century, when the United States was
merely a whispered fantasy among a few intrepid colonial patriots,
somewhere close to 40 million wild, free-ranging buffalo
roamed the vast North American continent from Florida
to British Columbia, mostly on the western Great Plains. By 1911,
only around 2,200 remained. Although the buffalo now hover at a
relatively stable population of around half a million (96-percent of
which are privately owned livestock), we still aren’t very conscious
of the history of an animal that played such an integral part in the
dawn of the American West.
 Norman Clyde: Legendary Mountaineer of California's Sierra Nevada
Before sticky rubber, bolts, and chalk—heck, before harnesses—Norman Clyde, wearing army boots, was bagging summits throughout the Sierra Nevadas, leading vertical rock on hip belay. “I sort of went off on a tangent from civilization and never came back,” explains Clyde in Robert Pavlik’s Norman Clyde: Legendary Mountaineer of California’s Sierra Nevada ($14.95, heydaybooks.com).
 On the Railroad, Again
When my copy of Paul Theroux's new travel book, "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star," arrived in the mail, I thought: Oh god, can't this guy do anything in this world but ride around on trains and write books? If you look over the list of Theroux's endeavors, you'll count 14 books of nonfiction, one book of criticism and 27 books of fiction. This is an astonishing list, and a little creepy too.
 Morality at Play
Every so often a book is published that brings the larger world into clear focus through a well-polished, high-quality lens directed at one small part of that world. “Bargaining for Eden” is such a book, and everyone who is interested in the human condition and the natural environment and their connections to and effects on each other will be well served by reading it.
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