Everyone close to me knows about this every-road-and-trail-on-a-map-under-my-own-power obsession of mine and, the majority of the time, I wander far and wide unimpeded. My friends encourage and laugh at me, my kids just shrug their shoulders, and everything about my job can wait. My husband long ago resigned himself to his wife’s long disappearances into the sage. The upshot for him, I believe, is that he generally gets to watch televised baseball without anyone saying, “OMG

The compulsion to complete every road and trail on a map is fairly arbitrary, as is the approximately forty by sixtyish mile quadrant of the rocky mountains my foldable map represents. The edges of the map are not administrative boundaries, not counties, not even mountain ranges, but simply where the map makers overlaid an imaginary rectangle on a section of earth. The farthest boundaries of my map bisect trails and highways. The bottom is fifteen or so miles of the top of th

The base of Wuanita Pass is about a forty-five-minute drive from my house, making it a challenging after work adventure, especially in the winter. On a Wednesday, to get even a few miles in without a headlamp, the world of spreadsheets and fillable pdfs must be exited abruptly.  At 4:00, I snap the laptop shut with more than a little satisfaction. Typically, the approach to the base of the pass is only plowed just a little past the hot springs ranch, a large snow berm acting

When seen from above, Taylor Canyon is a dark fissure in the brown sage hills that define the southern end of the valley. The deep and narrow scar allows little light, the lichen covered walls towering over steep roofed cabins and a winding two lane road.  The maddening thing about Taylor Canyon is that, unlike its dramatic desert cousins to the west, there is no clear moment when one emerges from within, no sudden table-top to carefully look over. While the views gained are