The first shit in the woods is a pure rite of passage for any mountain person. Sure, you can be a casual day hiker for years and avoid it, and maybe even last through a few overnight trips. But sooner or later, you’ll need to confront your ancestral self and drop one amongst the evergreens, without your favorite magazine, scented candle, or plush bathroom rug under your toes. Brendon Leonard takes us for a true out back journey. . . .more>>
It doesn’t have to be pure wilderness to be valuable as natural landscape. “We are already running the whole Earth, whether we admit it or not. To run it consciously and effectively, we must admit our role and even embrace it. We must temper our romantic notion of untrammeled wilderness and find room next to it for the more nuanced notion of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden, tended by us.” From Emma Marris’s new book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild Worldmore>>
