Andrew Terrill's Blog, page 10

A Momentous Weekend

SATURDAY WAS A BIG DAY for me. After 30 years of dreaming about publishing a book, and after many years of writing one, re-writing it, and then re-writing it again, my book was finally ready to publish. Originally, I’d chosen May 1 as the day it would happen, a symbolic date – the date that my walk across Europe had started. But I soon discovered that producing a professionally formatted book took significant work, and so I pushed the date back a month to June 1. But this was a symbolic date too...

No lunar eclipse. But no complaints!

THE FORECAST LAST night was too good to resist: clear skies, little wind, mild temperatures, a full moon, and shortly before sunrise a lunar eclipse… sleeping indoors with all that on offer would contravene everything I believe in! The only argument against heading out for my 20th mountain night of the year was the extravagant name the full moon had been given: the ‘Super Flower Blood Moon’. Seriously? Did I want anyone to think I’d fallen victim to hyperbolic over-labeling?! That would be emb...

A Journey Worth Taking

I’VE BEEN ON a journey. And what a journey it has been!

It’s been long, for one thing. And challenging. And full of unexpected twists and turns. It’s taken me to places I never expected to visit. It’s led to discoveries, to growth, to moments of joy. And goodness, but also to moments of frustration, doubt and anxiety.

And when I started, I didn’t even realize it was a journey. I just wanted to write a book!

Heading for village and a re-supply, Germany, January 1998.

The journey began, in one se...

The ‘Other’ Italy

MY LAST BLOG was all about The ‘Other’ Places, and so this week I thought I’d follow up with a few photos from The Other Italy – the wild side of Italy that most visitors miss…

To simplify things, I’ve limited the photos to just one region of Italy – the Abruzzo region in the Central Apennines. The Abruzzo is home to the highest and rockiest Apennine mountains, and many of its wildest corners remain relatively untouched. Just a short distance away is Rome, with its famous sights and crowds of to...

The ‘Other’ Places

Wild forests of the Aspromonte, Calabria, May 3, 1997. Twenty-four years ago.

TWENTY-FOUR YEARS ago today I stood alone in an Italy that very few people know. I was three days into my 18-month walk across Europe, and surrounding me were mountains that were far wilder than I’d expected, and far harder to cross than I wanted. It was a bit of a shock.

The location was the Aspromonte, in Calabria, at the southern end of the Apennines, and the mountains weren’t like any I’d previously walked. Instead...

Nature Before Work

 

IT’S NOT EASY running a new independent publishing imprint dedicated to wild nature when wild nature itself calls. Talk about distractions! There are a thousand and one details I ought to be taking care of to make certain that The Earth Beneath My Feet doesn’t sink without a trace when I launch it on June 1st… but how can I sit before my computer screen when the Colorado foothills outside my window are wrapped in snow and are gleaming beneath a bluebird sky?

Truth is, I can’t. And if I did, t...

To Vegas with Igloo Ed

WINTER HAS RETURNED to the foothills of Colorado’s Front Range, as it so often does this time of year. Mid April? Spring? Hah! With flakes wafting down and cold nipping at one’s exposed digits you’d barely know it.

Which made it the perfect time to share a night in the hills with Igloo Ed.

Igloo Ed is a one-of-a-kind mountain man. I’ve known him in person for roughly six years – after hearing about him for many years more. Usually, the ‘hearing about’ was in relation to igloos, as one might exp...

The Fifty-Two Night Quest

Or, The Unexpected Benefits of Sleeping Without a Tent.

A perch with a view. Basking in early morning sunlight.

ONE OF MY goals this year (aside from successfully publishing The Earth Beneath My Feet) is to sleep out at least fifty-two times. That’s once every week on average. Fifty-two mountain nights. As quests go, it should be easy, right?

Once upon a time it would have been. Twenty-five years ago, sleeping outdoors was a common occurrence. A hundred nights a year...

A Cabin Beside A Creek

 

I WENT ON a family trip last week: four nights and five days in a cabin beside a creek.

The location wasn’t anywhere well known or especially scenic. It was merely a rustic little cabin perched beside a modest little brook, a tumbling watercourse similar to many thousands right across Colorado. At first glance it looked like ‘just another mountain stream splashing across a few ordinary gray rocks‘. Nothing special. And technically, that was all it was.

The cabin, found on ...

Exclusive accommodation

IT WAS A fairly typical spring week along Colorado’s Front Range: snow one day, warmth the next; clear one moment, cloudy the next. As winter ebbed into spring and then slipped back into winter each day brought something new. For a wanderer on foot, it was just about perfect.

 

A resumption of winter early during the week: a dusting of snow upon North Table Mountain.




A snowy trail beneath the mesa.







A day later, and a beckoning snow trail leads into the foothills.

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