Deep Winter

The trail through the snow was easy enough to follow at night, without a flashlight to show the way. Pausing occasionally, I’d wait until my eyes could discern the subtly darker shadow that snaked through a stand of fir and pine: a trail carved by my boots and...

The Great Return

It is a beautiful, sunny day not long before the summer solstice and I am hiking once again in the mountains near my home in western North Carolina. For weeks before this, the late spring sky has been overcast, or it has rained – seemingly non-stop in dismal and...