Last year I volunteered for the first time to campaign in a presidential election. My assignment for the Obama team was in Carson City, Nevada, forty miles from my home in northern California. Was I nervous? Very. Any disturbed occupant might wing open a door and argue me and my canvassing partner speechless. Lucky for [...]

By Laura Read
In a cleft of the Northern Sierra, straddling two rivers that once lured gold miners, Downieville, California is enjoying a 21st-century treasure boom in the form of extreme sports. Cashing in is easy. Rent a mountain bike for the epic “Downieville Downhill,” a 4,080-foot descent through gullies and meadows. Paddle Class III, IV, [...]

From Thomas Swick’s book of essays, A Way to See the World
In his wonderful opening biographical essay, Swick expresses the yearning he felt during a post-college stint at a language school in Provence:
“There was something about the landscape, too, so lauded by others, that depressed me. The earth was harsh and dry and lacking in [...]

By Laura Read
It took Bay Area writer Jennifer Woodlief more than two years to reconstruct one of the Sierra Nevada’s worst tragedies, the 1982 avalanche at Alpine Meadows ski resort. In interviews reviving memories that most people would rather forget, Woodlief uncovered fine details about how the mountains of Bear Creek Canyon, 5 miles north [...]

By Laura Read
Three decades ago, Tahoe Nordic Center founder Skip Reedy hatched an idea: host a point-to-point ski race 30 kilometers (18 miles) along an old ski route between Tahoe City and Truckee. Skiers would love it, he thought: after enjoying a seven-mile uphill to the 7,770-foot Starratt Pass, they’d swoop downhill through a couple [...]

Last fall, in a quest to run across America in record time, Marshall Ulrich covered  the equivalent of two marathons plus a 10-kilometer run – every day for 52.5 days. Lying in motel beds at night, his sore feet nested in ice packs, he would doze off past midnight. Waking five hours later, he’d squeeze into [...]