On Storm Traveling

Sara B. May, "After the Storm (with TTV framing props to seriykotik1970 on flickr)"FROM THE RADIO CAME WARNINGS of dangerous water spouts as far inland as downtown, of power outages across the city, of imminent debris slides along the burned-out scarp of the San Gabriels. Animal shelters were flooded. Planes were being struck by lightning.

The advice was simple: batten the hatches, hunker down, do not go outdoors, DO NOT TRAVEL...

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Traveler's Omertà: On the Secrets We Might Should Keep

Mining the Fagaras Range, Transylvanian Alps, Romania. Photo by mountain guide Iulian Cozma.YOU BEAT YOUR WAY to the next great "undiscovered" village, the ultimate "secret" beach. You write about the wonder of it. Maybe you give it away for a fraction of a cent per hit. Maybe you get two bucks a word. But in your wake the wonder is gone.

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The One Thousand Dozen (on breaking trail)

By Jack London, from The Faith of Men and Other Stories

(First published in The National Magazine, v. 17, March 1903, 703-713)

DAVID RASMUNSEN WAS A HUSTLER, and, like many a greater man, a man of the one idea. Wherefore, when the clarion call of the North rang on his ear, he conceived an adventure in eggs and bent all his energy to its achievement.

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Skiing Death Valley

Bernie Rosow takes on the ancient Bristlecones, Death Valley's Secret Stash, Men's Journal, Feb. 2010ONCE UPON A TIME there was a certain utility to climbing mountains: to get the lay of the land, to see which way to run the wagons, to be the first to do it. That time is gone.

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On the Road to Little Petroglyph

On Wild Horse Mesa, by Bill Becher for the New York TimesBY WAY OF A WILLOW-CHOKED WASH we left the China Lake basin and climbed up into the Cosos.

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On Assignment: Ridgecrest, CA, USA

China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, NASA

1. About Erik Schat's Pumpkin Pie

I LISTENED TO the country music station coming down the grade. It was all I could get. The weather said 150 mph gusts over the crest by midnight. My trailer was already blowing all over the road.

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