One day in late October I was hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains when my wife texted to tell me that Michael, an old friend I hadn’t seen for awhile, was dying. One of his closest friends, Tim, didn’t have my phone number, so he came by my house and told my wife that Michael […]

In May of 2015, I hiked with four other people to the summit of Mt. Baldy, the mountain officially known as Mount San Antonio although hardly anyone calls it that. At just over ten thousand feet, it’s the highest point in the San Gabriel Mountains, the transverse range that rises north of downtown Los Angeles […]