Western Perspective: Words, Works and Wanderings about the American West

I am a 36-year-old resident and 15-year student of the American West. Like many Westerners I’ve met during this journey I landed here inauspiciously as an 18-year-old, wide-eyed young man, not yet educated and fleeing things I brought upon myself as an Appalachian adolescent. That journey has now included long-term residencies in Summit County, Colorado (Breckenridge, Frisco, Dillon and Silverthorne); Gunnison and Crested Butte, Colorado; Sun Valley, Idaho; Boulder, Colorado; and, now, Boise, Idaho. Along the way I’ve come to know many of the West’s people and places, my most important teachers and classrooms, which have done far more than any university ever could. I’ve learned while being humbled by the West’s wild rapids and while climbing her peaks. I’ve spent the night in her abandoned mine shafts during freak storms. I’ve been lost and next to hypothermia in her meandering slot canyons and have hiked thousands of her rocky trails. I’ve visited her reservations, where the proud original residents of this wild, unforgiving country have been squeezed. I’ve seen her cities and slept beneath her moon. I’ve dined with her politicians. And I’ve lost in the jagged teeth of her mysterious mountains. I've loved there, too.

What's more, I've written and photographed my journey. I've got little technical training with a camera or on a computer, having received an education in English-lit and then honing my writing skills as a reporter. But for much of the journey that has been my residence in the West, I have recorded both with my pen and lens what I've seen, heard and felt. That is hopefully what you find here.

For more of my work, please visit my homepage at: http://www.westernperspective.com. Or, for my latest ramblings, travels and photos, visit my Web log at: http://www.westernperspective.com/blog.