Steep Trails

In these lively sketches the narrator roams from the snow‑capped peaks of Shasta to the arid expanses of Nevada, offering a series of first‑hand impressions that feel as immediate as a breath of mountain air. The prose captures the hush of a winter walk among silent glaciers, the startling drama of a storm on a high summit, and the delicate hush of wild lilies swaying in a desert valley. Readers are invited to follow the author's steady step across rivers, forests, and canyons, each scene rendered with a keen eye for both detail and feeling.

Beyond the scenery, the essays touch on the people and places that shape the West—miners in ghost towns, indigenous families gathering pine nuts, and the modest towns that cling to riverbanks. The writer’s reverence for the land is balanced by thoughtful observations on how progress reshapes it, lending the collection a quietly reflective tone. Listeners will come away with a deeper sense of the region’s grandeur and the fragile beauty that persists within it.