How to Take up Hiking When You’re Almost Dead

Seeking an escape from the numbing dreariness of late January 2023, I took a trip to the Canary Islands. I’ve never heard anybody I know talk about them. A lot of folks will guess that they’re somewhere in the South Pacific. In fact, they are just off the coast of Morocco. Americans don’t go there much. As it turns out, the place is swarming with winter vacationers, seeking refuge from the damp, gray climates of Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and northern sections of the UK. The largest island in the chain of seven is Tenerife, where the beach-going party animals coexist with the denizens slower-paced retirement communities. There are boardwalks filled with restaurants, bars, and funky stores where you can buy corny beach stuff. Volleyball in conspicuously played by strapping young men and bikini clad young women. Wake from the ferry to La Gomera Higher up into the mountainous interior however, you will encounter a whole different kind tourist. These are the tree hugging lovers

  You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it, you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths . John Wesley Powell -Canyons of the Colorado When John Wesley Powell, one-armed explorer/geologist and his cohort of intrepid crewmen, made their first journey, through the canyons of the Colorado, they were confronted by death-defying rapids, food shortages, tense relationships with indigenous peoples , and such serious infighting that some of Powell’s men deserted him, preferring to take their chances scaling the walls of the canyon, rather than remain under the leadership of a man whose sanity was in doubt.  Powell and his crew would be incredulous if they could see the Grand Canyon National Park today. They might have pulled out their muskets and confronted the rangers at the gate after being enraged by the exorbitant fees. On the other hand, they might have enjoyed steak and cocktails a

  The Yak Dung Diaries: 11-day trek to Gokyo Lakes-Everest Region-Nepal   With trepidation, on May 1st, 2022, after two years of restrictive Covid life, I got up the nerve to get my 67-year-old self on a plane and flew halfway around the world from New York to Kathmandu.  The close quarters during the first leg of the journey from Newark to Istanbul made me uncomfortable. To make matters worse, some troglodyte federal judge had ruled that mask mandates in federal transportation facilities were unconstitutional and struck down their legality. What this unfortunate decision did was to make airports a lot more dangerous particularly for elderly people like myself or others with health issues that affect their immune systems.  Turkish Airlines claimed they required all passengers to wear masks once inside the plane. On my flight there were 75 to 100 members of a well-known religious sect who were either unmasked or laissez-faire about covering the entire mouth and nose. Throughout the pand

During the summer of 2021 I lifted myself out of a stupor brought on by 15 months of hermetically sealed Covid-19 isolation. After endless hours of watching cable news from my couch, I felt like shit, left with the impression that this was the summer of the apocalypse. Around the world there were searing hot temperatures, forest fires, earthquakes, biblical floods, and resurgence of a new strain of Covid called the Delta variant. The news was all about it. It was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Disinformation from politicians, the internet, cable TV and talk radio left the population, divided, confused and fearful. Physical violence broke out in public places over disagreements concerning, masks, vaccines, Antifa, BLM, QAnon and the validity of the 2020 election. An unsuccessful insurrection had taken place, and mass shootings were becoming a daily experience. It felt like the end of the world. But was it? Was it really? Things were actually pretty quiet in my little upstate New York t