The image [of a coyote lifting a leg] should be struck on a new coin, with Charles Darwin on the other side, not negotiable, but a good-luck coin to remind us of change and evolution, and of creatures that will be happy to adapt if we ourselves cannot…The land has been hurt. Misuse is not to be excused, and its ill effects will long be felt. But nature will not be eliminated…Rain, moss, and time apply their healing bandage, and the injured land at last recovers. Nature is evergreen, after all.

I've long been an admirer of Harold William "Bill" Tilman (1898-1977). I first encountered his name – and his legend – on my first trip to Nepal in 1992. My trip leader, Nick Yardley, and our sirdar, Urgen Sherpa, pointed out a distant, rugged pass leading from the Langtang Valley into the Jugal Himal and […]

I suppose we go to Mount Everest, granted the opportunity, because—in a word—we can’t help it. Or, to state the matter rather differently, because we are mountaineers…. To refuse the adventure is to run the risk of drying up like a pea in its shell.