Life rolls along sometimes, With task after task, and lectures piling up, Brains bulging until they push up against skull.   For instance, I learned that in Utah There’s a $100 fine for littering. In Maryland that goes to $30,000, And in Tennessee up to 6 years behind bars.   The other day I wandered around Liberty Park. The pond was dried up and the birds sat in puddles, Near a milk carton alone in the creek. It was the same kind I had drunk the day before. And beer cans were cradled in bushes,  Like bird eggs should have been.   It smelled like weed.   Isn’t it ..read more

Roughly 20,000 years ago, the Earth’s atmosphere was shifting dramatically as an ice age which had begun 100,000 years ago was beginning to thaw. Geologists and Archaeologists alike believe that the ice age reached its end around 13,000 years ago. The Bering land bridge between Asia and North America, which had previously been the sole explanation for ancient human’s travel to North America, had not yet melted but ice sheets between Alaska and Alberta, Canada were thawing to make a passageway across North America.  The ancient people traveling through this area were called the Clovis and ..read more

I had this idea to write about rain one gloomy morning when I stepped out my door to go to the train. As I felt the moisture surround my face, and a chill absorb my fingers, I began the walk. The sound of the tip-tap of rain drops on the hood of my coat was broken only by the splash as my feet stepped between puddles. Every inhale of the cold damp air tingled my nostrils, and the subsequent exhale fogged up my glasses. As I looked past the bustling of State St, the usual mountains that painted the backdrop of my commute were hidden by clouds walking close to the Earth. I felt lazy, or maybe I ..read more

Environmental nonprofits play a crucial role in advocating for, protecting, and preserving the Earth’s natural resources. These organizations, driven by passion and dedication, work tirelessly to address pressing environmental issues and promote sustainability. Their efforts yield numerous benefits, not only for the environment but also for individuals and communities who are affected by their natural surroundings. Salt Lake City, though a hub for outdoor recreation and access to the outdoors, has a multitude of pressing issues that demand problem solving.  HEAL UTAH, the Healthy Environm ..read more

“Being able to be a part of someone reclaiming mobility or finding freedom in a sport is unlike any stoke imaginable and left me wanting more” – Jake   I met Jake at the Momentum climbing gym. Just like everyone else, I was staring at the guy with two prosthetic legs absolutely booking it up a climb like it was the mellowest thing in the gym. I muttered to my boyfriend that it would be so cool to take photos of paraclimbers and he made me go introduce myself. Jake, the climber, and I started chatting and he invited me to an adaptive climbing event. I quickly realized that Jake has a passi ..read more

After digital photography hit the mainstream market in the 1990’s, film photography slowly died out. Having a technology that allowed users to take virtually unlimited photos in comparison to film, where you have to basically buy every single picture you take, made film obsolete almost immediately. Over the following decades, the remaining companies in the film industry slowly faded and transitioned to this new media. Film stocks were discontinued, developing prices skyrocketed, and other than the film photographer here and there, film photography slowly faded out of existence.  It was ab ..read more

Upon A Red Morning  Canyons wake up slowly, so we do too: fifteen tousled heads and thirty dirty feet pressed in a row. Warm inside our wax paper envelopes like tootsie rolls, too cold to poke heads from sleeping bags. Rolling over, I tune my ear to the dirt, listening for the rumble of crustal plates beneath me but they lie still. I leave them sleeping. I have no such luxury and so I rise.  Nestle coffee powder dissolves in hot water like cotton candy on the tongue, but it tastes only a fraction as good. Even so, the warmth and black bite of the chocolate liquid lift my eyelids. Rag ..read more

Flights booked nine hours before departure, jumping off cliffs in the Ionian Sea, late night city wandering, historic ruins, frequented cafes, attempted conversations in a foreign dialect and mouthwatering gyros, so many gyros. Oh, and some attended classes.    I’ve always heard all the lines about how a study abroad experience changes your life, and I’d roll my eyes, mostly because I was jealous not because I didn’t believe it, but I also think it was because I didn’t fully understand what it meant. At the risk of sounding pretentious, there’s something to be said about fully immers ..read more

Wintertime is beautiful. Snow on the ground shines like the sun itself, and breath comes out in lazy little clouds. Hot cocoa and coffee warm hands, and Christmas lights shine into January. But wintertime is also slow. Sometimes, after a while, it just feels gray. The days are shorter. Plants go dormant and many mammals drop their heart rates to hibernate through the season. People are bundled up and run indoors, heads down, to stay out of the snow. Driving along the roads, the speed signs flash red “Slow down.” It’s interesting to think that wintertime is when Western culture decided to put t ..read more

Sometimes something needs to go terribly wrong in order for one to understand what needs to be done right. Call it learning from a stupid mistake, or experimentation on oneself.  Either way, the story starts with me lying upside down on the icy run with one ski on, wondering if I’ll be able to stand up, or if this will be the time I finally need to be dragged down in a sled.  After the first moments following a crash, thoughts are not complicated. It is like stubbing a toe: a string of obscenities for the pain at the stupidity of my own actions and at the world in general. This time ..read more