In 1970, I began contributing articles on planning and environmental subjects to the Pacific Sun, a weekly newspaper in Marin County, California. It happened to be an interesting place and time: a booming suburban county, uncommonly rich in natural beauty, that was just then seeking to rein in sprawl and preserve parks and agricultural lands. These assignments gave me a rapid introduction to the broader environmental field.
My next regular outlet was Cry California, a then-influential magazine published by the planning advocacy group California Tomorrow. In a series of meaty articles over a decade, I covered all aspects of the California environmental scene, returning often to water policy and farm policy. Later I assembled two decades of Cry California articles by many authors in the collection The New Book of California Tomorrow: Reflections and Projections from the Golden State (1989). The group no longer exists, though we need it more than ever.
Meanwhile I was hooked on backpacking, climbing, and desert hiking, and writing about it all for the likes of Ascent, Backpacker, Climbing, Outside, Sierra, and Summit, as well as in the form of books (lots of poetry, too).
These days I’m contributing regularly to Bay Nature and High Country News.