The Ferris Files

The piece, “Wilderness Calling,” is part of KQED’s Perspectives series, where regular people make their best case on a topic of the day. While some might question if I’m a regular person, I have formed an emphatic opinion about the growing use of cellphones in the great outdoors, based on a jarring experience I had in Yosemite National Park last summer. Listen to the whole thing below.

Today Sierra magazine published a story I wrote about those bizarre ice pinnacles I saw on Mt. Aconcagua earlier this year. The penitentes are a fascinating phenomenon, and even better, they may play a role in saving the glaciers of the Southern Andes. Have a look…
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200711/goodgoing.asp

Just as I visited Libby, Montana, the town was putting a bold new face on its tragic past, a face with beady eyes and a curved beak. The morning of July 4 saw the official inauguration of Libby as “The City of Eagles.”
Libby does have real, blood-and-feathers eagles, as evidenced by the Eagle Cam, but [...]

Storefronts can reveal how a town makes its living. On a sunsplashed morning in early July I drove slowly down U.S. Highway 2 through the mountain town of Libby, Montana, tallying enterprises that together made no sense.
Six tiny casinos, none of them any larger than a Denny’s, and two or three state health offices and, [...]

Today I would like to take a moment to thank the heavy-metal band AC/DC and its unique assistance it has lent to drunk white people who can’t dance. I am, of course, talking about the 1980 anthem “Back in Black,” which is legally required at wedding receptions in 28 states.
Our collective debt to this Aussie [...]

Driving out of Santa Fe, my girlfriend Anjali and I made one final stop to see the New Mexico state capitol building. We stopped in the middle of the street – no traffic anywhere – and looked around expectantly.
“It’s supposed to be right here!” Anjali said.
The capitol, we concluded, must be the adobe to the [...]

My girlfriend Anjali loves trees and this weekend I took her to see my favorites: the coast redwoods of California, the tallest and most venerable on the planet.

We drove to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the oldest state park in California, which is accessed by curvy roads shaded intimately by pines and oaks. It feels [...]

My girlfriend Anjali makes no secret of her desire to move with me to Seattle one day. This weekend we made a quick visit. While staying at her friend’s place in North Ballard I took an evening run down to Puget Sound, to see what I could glean about this place.
I plodded like a slug. [...]

Audio Post:
Descent from Base Camp to Pampa de Lenas (9,100 ft. / 2,800 m)
“…Bursts of wind and snow clattering against the tent…”
Click to play (1 min. 59 sec.)

pp_flashembed(
‘powerpress_player_9622′,
{src: ‘http://theferrisfiles.com/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/FlowPlayerClassic.swf’, width: 320, height: 24, wmode: ‘transparent’ },
{config: { autoPlay: false, autoBuffering: false, initialScale: ’scale’, showFullScreenButton: false, showMenu: false, videoFile: ‘http://theferrisfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/20070126-aconcagua_post_26.mp3′, loop: false, autoRewind: true } }
);

Podcast: [...]

Audio Post:
Plaza Argentina (Base Camp) (elevation 13,790 ft. / 4,203 m.)
“…it’s a question that hurts to ask right now.”
Click to Play (1 min  42 sec)

pp_flashembed(
‘powerpress_player_9623′,
{src: ‘http://theferrisfiles.com/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/FlowPlayerClassic.swf’, width: 320, height: 24, wmode: ‘transparent’ },
{config: { autoPlay: false, autoBuffering: false, initialScale: ’scale’, showFullScreenButton: false, showMenu: false, videoFile: ‘http://theferrisfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/20070125-aconcagua_post_25.mp3′, loop: false, autoRewind: true } }
);

Podcast: Play in new [...]