Author Archives: admin

Walked by my old house yesterday. The four-bedroom ranch structure that Sternenberg Lumber Company built for Bob Bellah in 1957 hasn’t been occupied by my family since 1968. It’s only a few blocks from where I now live, but I … Continue reading →

I knew it a week before the climb. But I didn’t tell the others until the night before. What I knew is that since we had settled on a smaller mountain, then we could get everyone to the top. Everyone—even … Continue reading →

Rising from the high desert plateau just north of Santa Fe, Atalaya Mountain culminates in a 9,121-foot peak that looks down on both New Mexico’s capitol and the rugged Rio Grande River Valley. The Atalaya Trail, which starts on the … Continue reading →

How do you prepare folks for their first peak climb? Turns out I’m not the person to ask. Seems I’m a better teacher than I am a coach. That’s what I told our Finishers hikers about a week ago when … Continue reading →

Parnell, Texas—it’s a ghost town now—a collection of old concrete foundations, dilapidated lumber, some sheets of corrugated tin that once served as roofs, all barely visible above the tall weeds. It was April of 2006, and my buddy Clark and … Continue reading →

We’re calling it The Wheeler Challenge, an attempt by our Finishers group to climb New Mexico’s highest peak. So at 5:00 a.m. MDT, August 25, when we strap on camelbacks and headlamps at the Taos Ski Valley trailhead, my adrenaline … Continue reading →

Why is Finishers successful? I will do a workshop in a couple of weeks when I’ll be expected to answer that question. My first response is to be cautious. We don’t know yet how well it’s working. The fast growth … Continue reading →

They call themselves Finishers: A group of Amarillo College students who are changing their worlds, and mine. It started a year and a half ago. For some time I had been visiting with colleagues about a dream I had to … Continue reading →

Am visiting my youngest child this morning—in his own town, in his own house, with his own family—and it has me thinking. About times with my dad when I was Jeremy’s age. We’d sit out by the pool in Phoenix … Continue reading →

Place. Got to thinking about it while riding Amtrak’s Empire Builder between Seattle and Chicago. Does a place shape its people? Are the folks in Wenatchee, Washington (the sign says “Apple Capital of the World”) different from the anglers and … Continue reading →