Ridgeline

This blog was originally created to log some of my hikes, so let’s do that. I’m staying at a cabin in the Cascades this weekend to spend time with family - reading, writing, playing cards and guitar. We’re right on the South Fork of the Skykomish in Index, Washington. I know it’s midwinter, and there was some consideration for a day trip over Stevens Pass to the faux Bavarian snowy mountain town of Leavenworth. But it was stunningly windless, cloudless and only in the low 40s. A sun-drenched Cascades bluebird day. (And we hadn’t brought skis.) So we headed up the Heybrook Lookout trail. It’s about 2.5 miles and 1000 feet vertical to reach an open fire tower with panoramic mountain views. With the weather, it wasn’t a surprise that th trail was crowded with lots of families and dogs. But honestly, cloudless and windless, and it could’ve been June as far as I’m concerned. No bugs, and even the mud was not bad; a little bit toward the bottom and a bit 2/3 of the way up. The only wind was ...

I’m finding myself in a particularly creative mood these days. 2025 has started out energized, optimistic, and hopeful, like never before. One rule I want to remember in the month of resolutions is that creators engage other creations. Writers read. Artists are viewers. Netflix currently has a biography in the works for release this year about Bruce Springsteen and the making of his Nebraska album . If you’re not familiar with it, it began as homemade demos on a four track tape recorder in his New Jersey bedroom in 1981. The songs are spare, dark, and hauntingly, beautiful. Jeremy Allen White is slated to star as Bruce Springsteen. As demos, on a four track tape recorder, he was limited to guitar, harmonica, and vocals. And somewhere, as he began sharing this material with his band for a full album, he came to realize that that cassette tape was the whole album. Which was a journey itself. "Nebraska" by Bruce Springsteen on Amazon Music. Why am I sharing this? Well, I was c...