Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers’ (RFOV) paid internship, Youth in Nature, became my anticipated monthly highlight as a sophomore. The internship nurtured my passion for the outdoors, yet, all the while, I learned not just about our local ecosystems but about myself, too. The application to participate next school year is still open, until April 4 […]
Nature
Posted inColumns
Another note from Brazil
Upon arriving in Brazil, I was enraptured by the flora and fauna of the Atlantic Forest. Nova Friburgo, my exchange city, sits in the Serra dos Órgãos mountain range; it’s surrounded by lush hills and is distinctly colder than the rest of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Though I moved from one mountain town […]
Posted inFiction
Works in Progress
Verge: An ode to time spent outdoorsBy Annalise Grueter “I am — really am — an extremist, one who lives and loves by choice far out on the very verge of things,on the edge of the abyss, where this world falls off into the depths of another. That’s the way I like it.” – Edward […]
Posted inNews, Uncategorized
Crystal River Restoration Project hits another snag
For years, the Crystal River Restoration Project (CRRP) has been a topic of conversation. In 2016, a section of the river south of Crystal Bridge Drive in Carbondale was identified by the Roaring Fork Conservancy as “unsustainably impaired” due to its wide and shallow channel, which can trap fish in warm waters during low-flow. In […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion, Uncategorized
Branching Out: Choosing change and complexity
Most of us can look back on life and think, “Yeah, that moment changed me forever.” I’m grateful for those moments, because they reconnected me to the natural world. I say “re” because we’re born connected but capitalism breeds it out. It’s a choice to find our way back. When I was 9, I stepped […]
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Catto’s artistic efforts reveal Nature’s designs
In an essay titled “The Study of Color in Nature”, published in the 1896 edition of The Observer: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine, naturalist and artist F. Schuyler Mathews noted: “Color in Nature is illimitable; there is positively no end to its complexity.” The essay offers the reader a few simple color theory experiments to perform, […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion, Uncategorized
Branching Out: Lessons in life are seasonal
Decades ago, I lay in my childhood bed watching my Love’s sleeping eyes twitch, the orbs within, racing. He’d moan, or start, and toss. We were recent graduates, road tripping the States in pursuit of a new landing place, our undetermined adult lives ahead of us. We’d met climbing; he, a carpenter, me a landscaper […]
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Journeying beyond the threshold
My family and I first connected with Colleen and Thompson Bishop, co-founders of Alchemy of Prana (AOP), in the fall of 2018. It was a brisk morning, but they greeted us warmly, emanating assurance and serenity. Situating ourselves in a grassy opening enclosed by conifers, we let the sounds and feeling of nature draw us […]