When you've managed to stumble directly into the heart of the unknown - either through the misdirection of others, or better yet, through your own creative ineptitude - there is no one there to hold your hand or tell you what to do. In those bad lost moments, in the times when are advised not to panic, we own the unknown, and the world belongs to us. The child within has full reign. Few of us are ever so free

The sensual caress of waist deep cold smoke.... glory in skiing virgin snow, in being the first to mark the powder with the signature of their run.

Many people go into the wilderness to experience it, and if they experience it in comfort, there's very little in a literary sense for them to write about.

The blues style - moody or rollicking or boastful or bashful - developed in the Delta around 1900 and was, for a time, exclusively African-American. That isn't the case anymore.

Editors, for the most part, don't care ''what'' you've done, or how astounding the physical event may have been. You need to write well. Many others are capable of doing what you have done (probably), so you must write better than they.

My problem with most athletic challenges is training. I'm lazy and find that workouts cut into my drinking time.

The hard wind we get around here on the eastern slopes of the Rockies is called a Chinook. It's a katabatic wind and comes from mountains to the west of us and the mountains to the south.