Author Archives: Alan Kesselheim

“In my personal bubble, I’m doing fine. Pretty good, actually. But when I think outside of my space, when I think about the wider world out there, it gets really depressing. I can hardly go there.” I’ve been hearing this … Continue reading →

The morning after Donald Trump got elected in 2016, I faced an 8 am college seminar class. Roughly half the class was giddy with the fact that their crazy candidate had somehow gotten himself elected. The other half of the … Continue reading →

For 23 days we got more and more deeply into the groove of River Time. Starting on September 7th, seven of us paddling SOAR inflatable canoes launched on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, near its source at Boundary … Continue reading →

Everything feels hazy these days, like the smoke-filled skies of Montana lately. Whatever we do, going about our lives, is overhung with the pall of uncertainty, tainted by an air of anxiety. We all keep going, because what else are … Continue reading →

It’s tempting to just give in. These times are so strange and fraught that it’s easy to just put things off, cancel, wait for the next shoe to drop. I wasn’t sure how to handle this year’s Memorial Day, 3 … Continue reading →

It is familiar, these local outings on the East Gallatin River. Every spring for 35 years I’ve done all or some of this small stream that runs fresh and boisterous for a month or two each year. We’ve already done … Continue reading →

April, this final month in a yearly round that has stretched from just south of the Arctic Circle to the Mexican border, from deep wilderness to manicured flows, from nearly a month in length to only a few days, from … Continue reading →

It wasn’t for lack of trying. The logistics for these winter outings have been both fun and daunting. I left my rig and trailer with a cousin in San Diego back in January after my stint on the lower Colorado. … Continue reading →

For 12 days we disappeared. Poof. No news, no people, no air traffic, no light pollution, no distraction. Big Bend, Texas is big, empty, mysterious, evocative country. The Lower Canyons, downstream of the National Park boundary, are all of that … Continue reading →

Heading south on the two-lane between Needles, California and Quartzite, Arizona, pulling my little camper trailer and listening to a fading radio station, I see a figure. Someone walking along the edge of the road. Not hitchhiking, carrying nothing, wearing … Continue reading →