Largemouth Bass

We were waiting for Dick Bass. That was normal – waiting for Richard D. Bass: never-say-no human magnet, whirlwind of positive energy, Texas oil tycoon, builder of the Snowbird Resort in Utah, conceiver of the seven-summits project, first man to climb the highest mountain on all seven continents, and at that time (1985) the oldest man, at 55, to climb Everest. Life was a feast too big even for his prodigious appetites. He was constantly suffering, he would tell you, in his raspy Dallas drawl, from “the tyranny o’ the urgent.”

Obvious on the Pacific Crest Trail

The other day I was hiking a piece of the Pacific Crest Trail west of Bend. Not a through hike ala Cheryl Strayed in “Wild.” Just a quick out-and-back to Matthieu Lakes. On the way out I stopped to greet a couple coming back. They were in tank tops and urban sneakers. He had a camera on a neck strap banging his collarbone. Neither one carried so much as a water bottle.