BLM Dispatch #52 - My Daughter's First Backpacking Trip, Part 2
At 7:38 a.m. we shouldered our packs and walked toward the trailhead. The trail to Patterson Lake climbed six miles and 2,460 vertical feet. We tightened our pack straps, fist bumped the leaning wooden Wilderness sign, and started uphill.
That was how the day started. I didn’t know we’d also be finishing the day at the same trailhead. But I’ll get to that…
On fatherhood, red flag weather warnings, and making last second decisions with a 5th grader.
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BLM Dispatch #51 - My Daughter's First Backpacking Trip, Part 1
Several months back, my 11-year-old daughter Vivian asked if we could go on her first real backpacking trip together.
After resisting the urge to weep and then run outside and hoot and holler and howl at the moon in gratitude — DREAMS COME TRUE! — I offered a very cool and relaxed, yes.
Where do you want to go?
One of those tall mountain lakes with clear water.
I immediately had a landscape in mind…
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BLM Dispatch #50 - Books, books, books
Something a little different this week. Fifty dispatches feels like a good excuse to spend an entire newsletter talking about books.
I’ll start with my reading so far in 2026, which has been heavily influenced by a single obsession: the Great Basin.
If a book is about the Great Basin, set in the Great Basin, adjacent to the Great Basin, or can be connected to the Great Basin through an elaborate series of mental gymnastics, it’s on my list.
Plus, A Collection of My Favorite Books…
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