September 2025

Books read:

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet by Kate Marvel
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Trails walked:

Spectacle Lakes (almost) in Rocky Mountain National Park (Sept 4th)
Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (Sept 15th)
Green Mountain near Boulder (Sept 25th)
Bob and Betty Lakes in the Indian Peaks Wilderness near Eldora (Sept 26th)

Song(s) of the month:

Lukas Nelson – Turn Off the News
John Prine – Spanish Pipedream

September Summary:

It is now officially fall, my favorite season in Colorado so far. The mountains are changing their palette from green to yellow and red, the days are getting cooler, and the nights are crisp. My garden is trying to squeeze out the last of the season’s tomatoes and I don’t need to water the plants as much. Hiking in the mountains contains much less risk of thunderstorms so it’s a good time to hike up high. Of course, there’s less daylight too which means you have to start your long hikes pretty early to avoid getting caught in the dark and in the quickly descending temperatures. But do you know what’s even better than all that? You guessed it. Baseball playoffs and the World Series! I don’t really have a team in this year’s playoffs but I’ll be rooting for the Red Sox since the first game I ever attended was as a 12-year-old at Fenway Park back in 1971. It was the Tigers (Al Kaline, Willie Horton) vs the Red Sox (Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Smith) and I gave my dad a framed copy of the box score from that game for father’s day one year; it now resides in my house; maybe it will end up in one of my grandkids' homes somewhere down the line. I guess I might also cheer for Seattle since they’ve never been to a World Series. In any case it will be fun to see if we get a rematch of the Dodgers vs Yankees (what the TV networks want), or if the Phillies can finally manage to win one for Bryce Harper (I know of one person who will be cheering hard for that to happen). Stay tuned, all 5 of you who watch baseball.

The news this month has been too depressing to write about, but I’ll refer you instead to my songs of the month section below. This month’s hiking has taken me to high lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park and in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, plus I got to experience a very cool event on Green Mountain near Boulder. My reading took me from a 700-page World War II classic to a definitive book on climate change and then to a gripping novel about immigration. Enjoy!

Things My Grandkids Say:

I had the privilege of picking up my oldest grandson from kindergarten the other day. He didn’t know I would be picking him up. I waited in the grassy area talking to other parents and grandparents that I knew while we were waiting for the bell to ring. When it rang, kids streamed out of the different doors with the energy only five-year-olds have. When he finally saw me after looking for his parents he yelled, “Grandpa Miiiike!” and ran over and gave me a big hug. Then he started telling all his friends and his friends’ parents, “This is my grandpa!” How long will that unbridled joy last before he gets older and asks his parents (or grandparents) to please wait in the car for him instead? Hopefully forever. I walked back to his parents’ house while he rode his bike back and forth, showing me all the mud holes in the path on the way home. It was wonderful.

Song(s) of the month:

Lukas Nelson – Turn Off the News
John Prine – Spanish Pipedream

Just as I’m writing this, our country is reeling from several senseless shootings, including one where the criminal not only shot and killed people at church, but he also burned the building. There are monsters among us. Immigrants with no criminal records are being rounded up and sent to countries they’ve never lived in, national guard troops are invading cities in the name of crime prevention, even though crime has been declining for decades. Political shootings, Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine. It’s too much. I recently heard Lukas Nelson’s song Turn Off the News even though it was released six years ago. The words are so apt for this moment that I wanted to show all of them to you here, in addition to the video below:

I believe that every heart is kind
Some are just a little under-used
Hatred is a symptom of the times
Lost in these uneducated blues

I just want to love you while I can
All these other thoughts have me confused
I don't need to try and understand
Maybe I'll turn off the f&%$&& news

Chorus: Turn off the news and build a garden
Just my neighborhood and me
We might feel a bit less hardened
We might feel a bit more free
Turn off the news and raise your kids
Give them something to believe in
Teach them how to be good people
Give them hope that they can see
Hope that they can see
Turn off the news and build a garden with me

Trust builds trust
All that negativity's a bust
Trust builds trust
Don't you wanna be happy?

Repeat chorus

It reminded me of another song about turning off the TV and returning to a simpler life. It was the late great John Prine’s Spanish Pipedream which he wrote way back in 1971 just as the Vietnam War was getting awful as it was ending. I guess not a lot has changed in 54 years….The most famous words to John’s song are:

Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Go to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try an' find Jesus on your own

Here are both videos

Turn off the News (sorry for the expletive, but it’s fitting don’t you think?). I love this acoustic version with Lukas’ brother and his legendary dad, Willie. Did I spot Willie wiping a tear as the song began? And his little nod of approval at the end shows how super proud he was of this song from his talented son:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPrPtDoaB3s&list=RDMPrPtDoaB3s&start_radio=1

Spanish Pipedream. There are so many good live versions and covers, but I still like his original studio version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ6INAayEJI&list=RDvZ6INAayEJI&start_radio=1

There are hundreds (maybe thousands?) of covers of Spanish Pipedream, but I like this one by some guy named Jolie Blue who sang it on the banks of the Kootenay River in Alaska, which is about the most perfect place to play this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA1PiWlW19Y&list=RDKA1PiWlW19Y&start_radio=1

Spectacle Lakes (almost) in Rocky Mountain NP – Last month I hiked Ypsilon Mountain and was able to see the spectacular Spectacle Lakes far below me. Today I had a chance to hike to those lakes from below. I ended up about 100 feet short of my goal. It’s a steady 2,000-foot climb over 4.5 miles just to get to Ypsilon Lake. Then it’s another 700 feet in less than half a mile to reach Spectacle Lakes. I made it to 600 feet when I reached a rock scramble that I was not comfortable doing by myself. I’ll have to come up here again with an experienced hiking partner. Probably next year. But it wasn’t a total loss. The area above Ypsilon Lake and below Spectacle Lakes is stunningly beautiful. Waterfalls surround you and it was so green in early September. There were lots of curious marmots watching my every move up here…probably waiting for me to tumble down the steep slopes and have a good laugh; and eat my lunch. It was kind of unusual because it was very steep from Ypsilon Lake for about two tenths of a mile, then it was flat for a bit where you’re surrounded by streams and waterfalls, and then it starts the final climb up to the lakes. It was very steep and very slippery and there were several times when I wasn’t sure if I should keep going, but I did, until I didn’t. That final scramble was just too much, and my common sense overtook my drive to see those lakes. So, I stopped, turned around to see the incredible views below me and ate my lunch while the marmots waited for my downfall, so they could eat the rest of my lunch. I’m sure I surprised them by not sliding to my death. I took it VERY slowly back down to Ypsilon Lake. Then it was a very easy downhill walk back to the trailhead. Although I was disappointed not to reach my destination, it was still a beautiful day with a great workout. Rain was forecast for the afternoon, but I just beat it with an early start.

Early morning sun on the canyon carved by the 1982 flood

Lots of up

Pretty Ypsilon Lake

One of several waterfalls between Ypsilon and Spectacle Lakes

Beautiful waterfalls

Water headed to Ypsilon Lake

I had to make it above those hills

Here's where I stopped. I need a spotter to hike this

I turned around and had lunch here...not bad

Marmot was eyeing my lunch

Water heeding gravity's wish

This was a unique waterfall

Chipmunk Lake with the "Y" of Ypsilon Mountain carved in snow

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer – The Modern Library listed this riveting book on its list of 100 best novels of the 20th century. Mailer was only 25 years old when the book was published in 1948. He wrote it based on his experience as a cook in World War II where he was based in the Philippines. At the time it was considered the best book written about that war. Looking back, Mailer (who also wrote The Executioner’s Song) understands that The Naked and the Dead is his most renowned work, but he also believes his writing wasn’t that good yet. I think however that his emotions and experience during the war created the perfect scenario for someone that young to write a book that was so good. It was an epic read, all 721 pages of it!

The story follows a platoon of soldiers as the army invades an island in the Pacific, midway through the war. There’s even a map of the fictional island of Anopopei at the beginning of the book (I found myself flipping back to that fictional map many times; why?, it wasn’t real!). He captures the fear of the soldiers as their landing craft approaches the beach where they’re not sure if they’ll be shot dead as they emerge from the boat. One of them is shot dead on the beach. As the soldiers begin the drudgery of digging fox holes and putting up tents in the heat and the downpour of a tropical island you start getting to know the soldiers. After some of the chapters he flashes back to tell the story of the individual soldiers, many of them from poor and broken families. But he also spends quite a bit of time writing about the officers and the commanding general. So the reader gets to see not only the day-to-day life of the regular soldier, but also the lives of the officers whose decisions mean life or death for those soldiers (and possible promotions for the officers). Due to obscenity laws at the time, the word “fug” was used many times throughout the book which was weird at first but eventually became normal.

I enjoyed the description of the soldiers’ lives and the mind games played between some of the officers (especially that of General Cummings and his aid, Lieutenant Hearn). The last half of the book was the most heart-pounding as it described the platoon’s mission to hike 30 miles through uncharted jungles and mountains to scout the enemy’s flank. I kept trying to picture myself on that mission, carrying over 60 pounds of equipment, fording raging rivers, hacking through dense jungle, and climbing rocky, slippery slopes. It seemed impossible, but I’m sure many soldiers have done this exact thing. In the end the story covered so many pertinent topics: racism and prejudice of the time, the use of soldiers as pawns to be killed at the whim of officer’s ideas which always included the possibility of promotion, the cruelty of sometimes mentally unstable NCOs in charge of other men, and of course the constant idea of death and missing home. So good. Here are some lines:

It was not yet 6 a.m., and the day had already the depressing quality which early mornings always had in the Army. It meant they were moving, it meant something new, something unpleasant.

He had always lived his life in himself, able to carry his belongings on his back. “The more things you own, the more things you need to keep you comfortable.”

Their jeep would round the bend, be hit by a dozen bullets at once, and that would be the end of his petty history of unfocused gropings and unimportant dissatisfactions.

“After a couple of years of war, there are only two considerations that make a good army: a superior material force and a poor standard of living. Why do you think a regiment of Southerners is worth two regiments of Easterners?”

Red thought of the mother Wyman would have to support if he married his girl, and he a had a quick elliptic knowledge of everything that would contain – the arguments, the worries over money, the grinding extinction of their youth until they would look like the people who walked by them in the park - it was all clear to Red.

They went farther and farther up until their limbs were trembling and their packs felt like hundred pound bags of flour. And each time they came to a minor peak they were certain the crest of the mountain was near, and all they saw instead was another half mile of tortuous ridge which abutted still another crest. (I feel like I’ve been on hikes like this…without the chance of being shot though.)

…they did not think of themselves as individual men any longer. They were merely envelopes of suffering.

They were carrying him on and on, and he would not die. His stomach had been ripped apart, he had bled and sh!t, wallowed through the leaden swells of fever, endured all the tortures of the rough litter, the uneven ground, and still Wilson had not died. They still carried him. There was a meaning here and Goldstein lumbered after it, his mind pumping like the absurd legs of a man chasing a train he has missed.

Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park – Last September I hiked to Chasm Lake and witnessed one of the coolest animal events I’ve seen. Read about it here in my September 2024 blog post. In that post I also listed my top five places in Rocky Mountain National Park:

- Flattop Mountain and Hallett Peak
- The alpine lakes above Black Lake
- The Lion Lakes area below Mount Alice
- Chasm Lake
- Mount Ida

Mount Ida may have been replaced in the top 5 with last month’s Ypsilon Mountain hike. But Chasm Lake is still in my top 5 which is probably why I try to head up there every year. The first 2.5 miles and 1300 feet of elevation gain are through the forest with no views. There are some nice streams and small waterfalls, and the incline is fairly moderate so it’s a decent workout in the forest. At 2.5 miles I reached the junction with the Battle Mountain campsite and the views just explode, along with your lungs as it starts to get steeper and higher. Longs Peak peeks at you, enticing you to climb it instead of the “easy” Chasm Lake. Well, it really doesn’t entice me anymore. I talked to several people today who had to end their summit goal a few hundred feet short of their destination due to heavy snow and ice on the approach due to the previous days’ storms.

After another 1.2 miles and 800 feet of elevation gain I reached the junction with the Longs Peak Trail. Turn right to climb Longs Peak, go straight to get to Chasm Lake. I went straight. One more mile gets you to the lake, but that last mile is spectacular. Roaring Fork Creek spills out of Chasm Lake in a series of two large waterfalls, the 2nd one pouring a hundred feet into Peacock Pool below before carving a green valley that looks like it must be teeming with wildlife. Here between the two waterfalls, it is green and there are streams everywhere, with views of the valley below and Mount Meeker and Longs Peak above. I could have spent the whole day here. But there was that last quarter mile scramble up around 300 feet to get to Chasm Lake. Once at the lake you are part of an amphitheater surrounded by Longs Peak, Mount Meeker and Mount Lady Washington. Sometimes I’ve seen climbers on the world famous “Diamond” on the east face of Longs Peak. It’s a 1,000-foot vertical drop at over 13,000 feet and climbers from all over the world try to tackle it. I didn’t see any today, likely due to storms from the past two days. Like I usually do, I picked a rock and sat on it in awe for a while…and caught my breath and rested my legs. From here it’s less than 2 miles as the crow flies to another of my top 5 places in the park: the alpine lakes above Black Lake which are on the west side of Longs Peak. They seem many more miles away than that. My walk back to the trailhead was uneventful, no big animal sightings, just the usual marmots and pikas above the tree line. Such a beautiful place, and practically in my backyard.

Aspens at the ranger station barely starting to turn

First peek at Longs Peak

Water falling from Chasm Lake

The pretty valley below Chasm Lake

Trail between Chasm and Peacock Lakes

Chasm Lake with Longs Peak looming

Chasm Lake

Valley below with Twin Sisters in the background

That's the last scramble up to Chasm

Clouds and rocks

This is the valley where I saw moose and elk last year

Pretty shot of Longs

Longs and Mount Lady Washington with Alpine Brook in the foreground

Some trees were starting to change

Human Nature by Kate Marvel – A couple of years ago, when I was doing a monthly scientist spotlight on this blog, I wrote about Kate Marvel. Here’s what I said: “She not only has a name worthy of saving our planet, but she also does work that helps take us a few steps closer to acting on the enormous issue of climate change. Marvel has a BA in physics and astronomy from Cal Berkeley and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar. She’s done postdoctoral work on climate science and energy at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and at the Carnegie Institution for Science before joining the research faculty at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University. The marvelous Ms. Marvel currently works as a senior climate scientist at Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions. Even more important than her climate research (in my opinion) is her outstanding ability to communicate this complex information. Most scientists are good at science, but generally not so good at communication with the general public. Kate is great at both. She was a contributor to the book I reviewed in my April 2022 blog called All We Can Save, she's provided regular articles on climate change to Scientific American and Nautilus, she gave an entertaining talk on the complexity of clouds and climate change in a TED Talk, and she began her public writing career with this terrific blog piece. We need more Kate Marvel’s in our universe.”

So, as you can imagine, I was very excited to read her first book which just came out this year. She approaches the complex topic of climate change through nine different emotions: wonder, anger, guilt, fear, grief, surprise, pride, hope and love. She actually had to address this idea early in the book because as she says, people don’t want emotion from their scientists, they want data. But she thought that her message would be better received if people could see that this was not just a scientist, but a human being, with all the multitudes that we contain. I think it was pretty easy for her to express her views both scientifically and emotionally, due to the undiagnosed condition she is dealing with that creates blood clots, sometimes rendering her unconscious and in the hospital. Here’s how she put the topic of emotions in her book: “Science says that as long as human beings emit greenhouse gases by cutting down trees and burning fossil fuels, the planet will keep getting warmer. Physics says this will mean higher sea levels, heavier rainfall, worse and longer droughts. It says nothing about how we should feel about this. And it says nothing about what we’ll decide to do. The future remains uncertain. But I’m sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel.”

You can feel all of her emotions, especially in the chapters on anger and fear. One of my favorite lines in the book is this: “The physics of the greenhouse effect is well understood and essentially unshakable. We understand that the planet is getting warmer, and we know why. Anyone who wishes to deny these things is referred to chapter 2 of this book (Anger). I’m not interested in relitigating the foundations of basic science. And I don’t want to waste time engaging with various falsehoods and conspiracy theories; if I’m going to read fiction, it should have a better plot and more likable characters.” In the climate space these days there’s a lot to be angry and fearful about, especially if you have kids as she does. In a relatively short book (just over 200 pages) you not only learn about the science of climate change in fascinating and fun ways, but you also encounter Greek mythology, witch hunts, and Frankenstein.

If you only read one climate book this year, make it this one (sorry Bill McKibben, but I do hope to read your book soon...). Here are some lines:

Aren’t researchers supposed to be perfectly objective, unemotional, and neutral about the world we study? I can’t be. I need to declare a conflict of interest regarding Earth: Everyone I love lives here.

This is our curse: to shout, unheard, into the void. To make predictions that can’t help but come true. To warn and warn and warn again until the entire world is engulfed in needless, predictable flames.

So here it is: I’m mad. I am angry at the cynicism, the lies, and the greed. I feel burning rage when I hear the same tired talking points, the falsehoods repeated credulously by people who should (and do) know better. I’m annoyed at how I and my fellow scientists have been treated. And I am absolutely furious when I see the uncertainty inherent in the scientific method twisted into something evil

This is history: Scientists discovered things, companies lied, and the world heated up.

Here, then, is the clear culprit behind modern-day climate change. We’ve checked exhaustively: It’s not internal variability. It’s not the sun. It’s not Earth’s orbit. It’s not volcanoes. It’s not our aerosol emissions, though those have had definite cooling effects that partially offset the warming. It’s also not any of the more obscure things people have proposed: cosmic rays, or Earth’s core, or waste heat from factories, or nuclear tests. It’s greenhouse gases, guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

The statistics are staggering. To cite the 2023 U.S. National Climate Assessment, in the 1980s there was one (inflation-adjusted) billion-dollar disaster in the United States every four months. Now there is one every three weeks

When food or fuel becomes expensive, people get angry. Irate populations may begin to see the appeal of charismatic liars with easy answers. Political systems may be strained, institutions undermined, trust in one another broken down. Climate change threatens our food supply. It may also threaten our democracy.

The models show us the physical changes that could have led to strange weather and failed harvests. But they do not show the rise of dictators, the appeal of populism, or the end of democracy.

(Yosemite Valley) is almost brutal in its loveliness. It is certainly the most beautiful place on the planet. It is, in all probability, the most beautiful place anywhere. (I have to agree here, it is the most beautiful place I’ve seen)

So for 800,000 years, carbon dioxide fluctuated between roughly 180 and 300 parts per million. And then, in the twentieth century, the levels began to shoot up. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is now more than 420 parts per million—far higher than it’s been in the last several hundred millennia.

This is my dream: a movie in which the scientists issue a warning, everyone listens and acts accordingly, and then—surprise!—it turns into a romantic comedy. Please, I’m begging you: Make this movie. And then, to the extent possible, make it a reality.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing. — ARUNDHATI ROY, AN ORDINARY PERSON’S GUIDE TO EMPIRE

Abandon all hope. We have something much better: certainty. We are more sure that greenhouse gases are warming the planet than we are that smoking causes cancer. There is no mystery here, no supernatural force, no asteroid hurtling toward us that we are powerless to stop. We know that greenhouse gases cause climate change. To stop the planet warming, we simply have to stop emitting them.

Green Mountain near Boulder – I wasn’t initially going to write about this workout hike, but a very cool thing happened on top of the mountain which I wanted to describe. I’ve hiked to Green Mountain from nearly every possible trailhead because it’s such a good workout and because the views on top are great. Today I started from Baseline Road at Chautauqua Park and combined the Baseline, Amphitheater, Saddle Rock, and EM Greenman trails to climb 2,400 feet in 2.4 miles. If you’re from Phoenix, that’s like two Squaw (er..Piestewa) Peaks on top of each other. It’s a seriously steep workout. You have sweeping views of the Flatirons at the beginning and then it’s a steep haul through the forest all the way to the top (with large deposits of berry-filled bear poop along the trail). There are some really nice views of the big mountains to the west once you get on the EM Greenman trail. As I made my way to the peak, I was getting swarmed by bugs, but it didn’t “bug” me since they were just ladybugs. I sat down for a well-deserved rest and noticed even more ladybugs. Side note: did you know that a group of ladybugs is called a loveliness of ladybugs? How perfect is that? Anyway, there were ladybugs completely covering tree branches and rocks, making them completely orange. I had never seen this before. There were a couple of lady-humans at the top who Googled it while we were up there. They discovered that after the first freeze of the year, ladybugs start swarming together in order to keep warm and to find a winter hibernation spot. I never knew this, and it was so cool to witness. The lady-human Googling also found that swarms have been large enough to show up on weather radar! That’s a lot of ladybugs... a loveliness of them. There are a couple of photos below. Also, on my way down I encountered a very long gopher snake that made my heart skip a beat. Even though I knew it wasn’t dangerous, a snake on the trail is not something you normally want to encounter. Nice workout day today in the beautiful hills around Boulder.

Nice views of the Flatirons at the start

Great views of the high mountains as you climb

Very dense brush on this hike

Steep steps with a tiny aspen changing color

Ladybugs!

So many ladybugs

Great views from up here

It's like a jungle in spots

Views

Big gopher snake

A lone tree near the trailhead

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins – There are going to be two sections to this review. First, I’ll address the controversy surrounding this 2020 novel, and then I’ll tell you about the book. Spoiler alert, the book is great.

The author is of Irish and Puerto Rican decent. She has lived in Spain, Ireland, and the US and has written a memoir and four novels. American Dirt tells the story of a woman and her 8-year-old son escaping gang violence in Acapulco by emigrating to the United States. Oprah Winfrey loved the book so much, she included it in her prestigious and fame-making book club. This is where the controversy started. A group of 142 authors, tried to persuade Oprah to remove it from her book club because they didn’t believe that Cummins had the background to write a migration novel and felt that parts of her descriptions of Mexico and migrants were inaccurate. I’ve read great books by three of the authors on this list of 142 (Tommy Orange, Rebecca Solnit, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine) so I have nothing negative to say about them, but I do wonder how many of these signees actually read the whole novel, or did they just read the other negative reviews before signing? Two of the better-known Hispanic authors that I’ve read wrote glowing reviews of American Dirt. Both Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street, Caramelo) and Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies) loved it. Cisneros wrote that American Dirt was "the great novel of las Americas" and "the international story of our time." So, who is right? First of all, this is a FICTIONAL book. Those 142 authors seem to be trying to “cancel” this novel by claiming it wasn’t an accurate portrayal of what they believe. It sounds very similar to the way right wing activists are trying to cancel Toni Morrison’s work because it had scenes that were not appropriate in their opinion and made slavery seem too cruel. I think that this is a disappointing reaction from a group of authors. Writing a review, providing your opinion of a book is perfectly fine, but sending a signed letter to Oprah, asking her to cancel this book crosses a line for me. That is cancel culture, which is part of what got the current administration elected in 2024. One of the authors who criticized the novel and signed the letter to Oprah thought that the author’s description of the main character being shocked at seeing an ice rink in Mexico was misguided because that author ice skated in Mexico when she was young. Well, I’m willing to bet that many people in Mexico have never seen an ice rink and would be amazed to see one, but what do I know, I’m only from NEW Mexico and I was amazed when I first saw an ice rink in Arizona! I’m half Hispanic myself. I grew up in New Mexico with many Hispanic friends and relatives. I personally didn’t find anything in American Dirt to be racially discriminatory or culturally insensitive, and it gave me an even greater respect for the immigrant experience…that doesn’t sound like a bad thing.

As for the novel itself: My daughter recommended it to me and I’m really glad she did. You will be hooked from the first few incredibly intense pages, and it will be hard to put down even after that, because it just gets better and better. So many heart pounding scenes. Like the great movie, Sin Nombre (find it and watch it, seriously), it left me with a renewed respect for what many immigrants go through in order to escape violence or find a better life. The novel tells the story of Lydia and her son who survive a gang massacre in their hometown of Acapulco. They are a middle-class family; her husband is a journalist, and she runs a bookstore. Luca is her 8-year-old son. The massacre shatters their world and after a harrowing escape from the city find themselves among other immigrants from Central America and Mexico; some escaping violence, some looking for work in El Norte. They experience the kindness of strangers who feed and house immigrants and they experience the evil of men who prey on the immigrants by taking their money and perpetrating acts of sexual violence. As one of the kind pastors tells them on their journey, most of you will be robbed by the time you get to the border and many will experience even worse. They end up traveling atop the freight trains, called La Bestia and befriend two teenaged girls from Honduras and a ten-year-old boy from Tijuana. Together, they all experience joy and tragedy on the journey. There are so many gripping scenes, but for me, the last part of their journey, through the deserts of southern Arizona at night were the most memorable. Just stopping to dress a blister could mean the difference between life and death. Like the real world, the novel is full of both kind people and terrible people. We have all experienced both. Read this book and decide for yourself if it’s a case of “cultural appropriation” or if it’s just a thrilling novel that will give you a new view of the immigrant experience. Here are some lines:

“They told him to stop writing about the cartels.” “Or?” “Or they would kill his whole family.” Her voice is flat.

She kisses the top of his head and they begin to walk, away from the reporters, away from the orange car, Abuela’s house, their annihilated life.

There’s a wall of hedges to hide the work of tourism from the tourists,

That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.

Soledad catches Lydia’s eye across the top of Luca’s head, and some byway of recognition darts between them. They perceive each other, the unspoken trauma they’ve both endured, their reasons for being here. It’s as subtle and significant as a heartbeat.

how easily young people can slip into their weariness like a warm bath. She used to do that, too, she remembers, before she was a mother. She could do anything back then, before she had maternal fear to spark any real caution in her soul.

It seems impossible that good people—so many good people—can exist in the same world where men shoot up whole families at birthday parties

Her exhaustion is no match for her fear, and she keeps pushing ahead as quickly as they can go.

Luca wonders if they’re moving perpendicular to that boundary now, that place where the fence disappears and the only thing to delineate one country from the next is a line that some random guy drew on a map years and years ago.

El Chacal knows where there’s a water station, a place where aid workers leave water for passing migrants. He’s made them conserve their supplies anyway, because sometimes the water’s not there— sometimes the Border Patrol or vigilantes find it first and destroy it.

…maybe someone will recognize the wallet, which will remain intact long after the skin is gone, long after the flesh is entirely scavenged or decomposed. Bodies disappear with astonishing speed in the desert.

Bob and Betty Lakes in the Indian Peaks Wilderness – I picked the peak of the fall leaf color season on this day hike. The drive from my home to the Hessie trailhead west of Eldora was gorgeous. So many yellows and reds among the green pines and firs. Stunning. There were already several cars parked along the road on this Friday at 8am and I had to walk about a quarter mile to get to the trail. I’ve hiked many of the trails up here, including to Lost Lake, Jasper Lake, and Skyscraper Lake. They are all beautiful, which is why it’s so popular up here. Back in September of 2021 my son and I drove the very bumpy Rollinsville Pass road and hiked the railroad trestles over to King Lake. It was a great hike (after a terrible drive), but I remember looking into that valley below King Lake and wondering if there were any trails there. There are, and it’s great, but also long. The first 4.5 miles, I followed Middle Boulder Creek as it passed the junctions to Lost Lake, Jasper Lake, and Skyscraper Lake. It’s mostly hiking in the woods with very few views until that 4.5-mile mark where you gaze up toward Guinn Mountain and spot those Devil’s Slide trestles that my son and I walked on 4 years ago. The mountain had a dusting of snow from a big storm that blew through here a few days before my hike. It was beautiful. From here it was another 1.3 miles to the junction of the King Lake and Bob/Betty Lake trails. I turned right and headed up to visit Bob and Betty. In a half mile of steep climbing I reached Betty Lake which was gorgeous. I sat and contemplated this beauty for a while and also tried to decide if it was best to stop here or go another half mile to visit Bob. It wasn’t an easy decision because the trail to Bob was covered with snow. I finally decided, why not, I came this far. So I broke out my hiking poles and navigated the knee-deep snow up to Bob. It was a great decision. Not only is Bob a spectacular alpine lake at the base of Skyscraper Peak, but its higher elevation provides a great view of Betty Lake below and of the high peaks of the James Peak Wilderness to the south. I don’t know how I didn’t see a moose on this hike, there were so many moose prints and so much moose poop around Betty Lake. But sometimes, you just don’t see the animals (but they always see you…). That’s OK because the beauty took center stage today. I passed about seven backpackers headed up for the weekend as I made my way back to the trailhead. They were gonna have a nice weekend. I finally got to my car, very tired from a long and beautiful 13.4 mile hike.