“The whole time you’ve been waiting to get to the money spot that’s worthy of bragging rights and interminable slideshows, you’ve been surrounded by expanses of redrock, fine coral sands, pungent sage, inviting potholes, forgotten drainages full of remnants of the past, canyon wren song, and the dizzying swoops of swallows. The first Indian paintbrush of the year is blazing at your feet, and the most beautiful cloudscape that no atlas can map is above your head.

In your search for that one brushstroke of Eden, you missed the whole damned canvas full of paradise.”

—excerpted from “A Hiker’s Guide to the Desert,” Mountain Gazette, Issue 177—