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Land in the Sky: Sometimes We Sit

Sometimes we sit in this place, just stare out the window at mountains and forests and parking lots. This is Alaska and that’s what happens here. Elsewhere it’s another story. And another. And yet...

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Land in the Sky: Elephants

We are sitting at the bar in the Blue Fox in Anchorage, Alaska. It’s an election year and the TV is tuned to the National Geographic channel. Right now it’s a show about elephants. On the big screen we...

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Land in the Sky: Dog Days

For the last three months, the collies and I have grown accustomed to hearing the song of the wood thrush during our sunrise walks: one bird here, one bird there, each singing from his own leafy perch....

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Land in the Sky: Accidental Monument

High on one of the highest peaks in the Catskills, just below the summit, in balsam-brake and moss, close by Rip Van Winkle’s now-depleted spring, we came upon the wreckage. Broken wings, battered...

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Land in the Sky: No Going Back

Thirty years ago, my friend Charlie and I got lost while backpacking in the northeast corner of Yosemite National Park. It was all my fault but that’s a long story, almost as long as the “shortcut” I...

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Land in the Sky: Hudson Valley Landscape

Sometimes get into the car and just drive roads unfamiliar or simply unremembered perhaps from childhood past fading farms with ruinous silos collapsing into goldenrod profusions empty of monarchs what...

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Land in the Sky: After That Visit to Walden Pond

When we emerged from the cocktail lounge, it became clear–largely because daylight had returned or maybe had become something other than it ordinarily is–that we should have stuck to beer and ignored...

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Land in the Sky: Another Mountain Excursion

The collies sit for hot dogs as well as cheese, what good boots these are, this Election Day summit of Wittenberg Mountain, heart of the southern Catskills, broad picnic scenery, drowned towns of the...

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Land in the Sky: On Labels

Today at a supermarket in the Catskill Mountains I saw a bottle of vegetable juice adorned with remarkable labeling: “100% Juice with Added Ingredients.” What manner of adjective is this percent? I...

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Land in the Sky: Accidents in North American Mountaineering

East of the Catskills I park close to the summit of Mount Walmart. This prominent snow peak reminds me of Mount Jefferson in the Oregon Cascades. It can be tricky. Today the route looks sketchy. The...

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