High Country Snapshots
By Hayden Mellsop / September 20, 2023
Lightning flickers, casting distant peaks in occasional silhouette. Collar turned up, I sit with whiskey in gloved hands, wisps of...
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High Country Snapshots
By Hayden Mellsop / August 1, 2023
Lightning flickers, casting distant peaks in occasional silhouette. Collar turned up, I sit with whiskey in gloved hands, wisps of...
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Above The Reservoir
By Hayden Mellsop / July 13, 2023
I woke to wind buffeting the camper. At least it would help keep the skeeters at bay, despite adding another...
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Private Sattler
By Hayden Mellsop / November 30, 2021
The remains of Private Jacob Sattler are laid to rest on a bluff just off the two track as it...
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After the Flood
By Hayden Mellsop / November 30, 2021
Despite the overnight dousing, next morning the river still ran clear. We breakfasted, broke camp and I volunteered to row...
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November in the High Country
By Hayden Mellsop / November 18, 2020
Following a fifteen degree night in a twenty degree sleeping bag, I wake to a frozen five- gallon water jug,...
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Of Wind and Willows
By Hayden Mellsop / September 25, 2020
The stream flowed, a succession of riffles interspersed with oxbow bends, meandering across hayfields green with the last cut of...
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On Top of the World
By Hayden Mellsop / June 25, 2020
The first rays of light angled up the mountainside, bathing the trunks of the pines in a golden hue. On...
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Sixty Times Around the Sun: Part 2
By Hayden Mellsop / June 3, 2020
So far, so good—the day had proceeded according to plan. I’d left town early, hiked several miles into the mountains...
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Sixty Times Around the Sun
By Hayden Mellsop / May 20, 2020
It seemed an appropriate way to celebrate the completion of my sixtieth journey around the sun. I’d rise early, head...
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What’s Lost, and Gained
By Hayden Mellsop / April 30, 2020
We paused to refuel and rehydrate at the foot of the final ascent towards the lake. A furrow in the...
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We’re All Getting Old
By Hayden Mellsop / April 1, 2020
I cut a generous chunk of summer sausage from the log, sliced it in two again and handed him one...
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Toward the Summit
By Hayden Mellsop / January 29, 2020
The snow yielded softly underfoot as we walked up the steady incline of the pass. Ahead the dog ran free,...
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Another Day, Another Season
By Hayden Mellsop / December 4, 2019
Fire had swept through the landscape several years past, and the stream’s course was a tangle of deadfall that regularly...
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A Cold Flat Tops Morning
By Hayden Mellsop / November 18, 2019
The river below me reflected the blood red of a dawn sky, the countryside through which it flowed still a...
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