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SierraDescents | Category | Musings

Halloween

Halloween

I know Halloween is a ghosts and goblins holiday, but for me it's snow time. Even here in the basin leaves are falling, and high country snow is either here or near. For me (more)

Will There Be Snow?

Will There Be Snow?

Will there be snow? For Southern California skiers it is the eternal question. As leaves turn and temperatures drop, memories of winters past begin to swirl like snowflakes in (more)

October

October

Fall colors arrive and my thoughts turn to winter. For me, October is the most contemplative of months. An in-between place in which we mark the end of one cycle, in which we (more)

Notes For A Film

Notes For A Film

(characters will interact/argue with narrator) Opening shots of Death Valley. Stark. Bleak. Desolate. SUPER: "If Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what then is (more)

What I’m Doing (And Not Doing)

What I'm Doing (And Not Doing)

Here's sunset on Coronado Island, just off San Diego. Having spent the past weekend wandering about, I have the say the place is very impressive—almost as nice as Santa (more)

2005: Origins

2005: Origins

SierraDescents officially started in November 2005 (when the first post appeared), but I tend to think the site began during the 2004-2005 winter, when I was extensively climbing (more)

The Agonies of Digital Media

The Agonies of Digital Media

For those of you with not a bit of digital data in any form, I envy you. You must be out there, somewhere, perhaps as part of some primitive tribe living deep within an (more)

Skiing’s Man-Made Future

Skiing's Man-Made Future

As I contemplate the reality of what appears to be the worst Sierra winter any of us have ever seen, I find myself thinking about the obvious importance snowmaking is going to (more)

Blind to the Bishop

Blind to the Bishop

Over the years I've become increasingly fascinated with the discrepancy between Reality and my perception of it. If you've never contemplated this divide, discovering it is like (more)

The West’s Fiery Future

The West's Fiery Future

If you want a canary in the coalmine for climate change in the western U.S., try Northern Arizona's Coconino National Forest. The forest features the world's largest contiguous (more)

The Invisible Note

The Invisible Note

I've been dutifully changing diapers for a long, long time, but also of course working towards getting my kids out of diapers, and though I think I can at last declare success, I (more)

My Halloween Visitor

Climbing Telegraph Peak - 300x300 placeholder

It's not the Giant Spider hanging outside my window yesterday which makes me nervous. It's the Giant Spider which was hanging outside my window yesterday but which today has gone (more)

Shifting Baselines

Shifting Baselines

I've been scanning some of my dad's old Kodachrome slides of the Grand Canyon, and this shot in particular caught my eye. Here we see the south rim, as seen from Bright Angel (more)

Nothing Endures But Change (Bodie Edition)

Nothing Endures But Change (Bodie Edition)

From the glass towers of Chicago to the ghost town of Bodie, California, we go. Bodie, now a state historic park, is thirteen miles off Highway 395, just southeast of Bridgeport. (more)

Chicago

Chicago

Sometime in the 1970's my family packed all their belongings into a used station wagon and drove from Chicago to Flagstaff. One of my earliest and most iconic memories is the (more)

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About SierraDescents

When there is snow, SierraDescents is Andy Lewicky's California backcountry skiing and mountaineering website. Without snow, sierradescents becomes an ill-tempered hiking and climbing blog.

Pray for snow.