Geocaching: Not just for geeks anymore
March 14, 2002 — Hi. My name is Dan. And I’m a geocacher. There, I said it. Are your geek alarms going off?
Believe it or not, I’ve never watched a full episode of “Star Trek.” I still haven’t seen the most recent “Star Wars” installment. And I have no interest in reading “The Lord of [...]
Hiking: Waterfalls are welcome during tournament time
March 7, 2002 — Sometimes you need to get away.
I spent the better part of last week covering the first three rounds of the state basketball tournament in Rome.
I am now on a first-name basis with the staffs of the Days Inn and Applebee’s there. I know well the roads that link the gymnasiums at [...]
Winter Hiking: The refreshment of refrigeration
January 10, 2002 — I went home for the holidays again this year. Bloomsburg, Pa., hadn’t changed much. It never does.
The town was just a year older. And, as I was often reminded during my stay, so was I.
Annual tackle football games with old friends take longer and longer to recover from. So do late-night [...]
Hiking Tallulah: Gorged on adventure
July 31, 2001 — Tallulah Gorge sucked me in. It swallowed me whole.
Inside this 1,000-foot crack in the Earth, I discovered a world far removed from the four-lane federal [...]
Hawaii Hiking: Walking on the moon — in the ‘House of the Sun’
June 19, 2001 — “This is weird, dude.”
Between labored breaths, that’s all my friend could say. That’s all that needed to be said.
We were into mile seven of [...]
Geocaching: High-tech hide-and-seek
March 20, 2001 — The Appalachian Trail was crowded on Saturday.
Skies were clear for a change, and warm winter temperatures made a trip to the North Georgia mountains [...]
Hiking: Escape into the backcountry
August 22, 2000 — The food just kept on coming.
Biscuits and cornbread. Fried chicken and country ham. Fried okra and corn on the cob. Plenty of sweet [...]
Hiking: Big adventure in Big Sky country
June 13, 2000 — Hiking up Trail 427 in Montana’s Gallatin National Forest is one colossal internal struggle.
The instinct toward self preservation [...]
Hiking: I hear the mountains are doing fine
May 30, 2000 — My mom, a mountain and I. Not a bad way to spend Mother’s Day.
We escaped to the granite cliffs of nearby Yonah Mountain three Sundays ago, hiking along the [...]
Hiking: Ragtag group hikes in the ‘Hooch’s headwaters
July 20, 1999 — The fly fisherman did a double take.
I imagine he selected this remote bend on the upper, upper Chattahoochee River expecting to encounter [...]