hiking

Grand Canyon/Photo Credit: Becca Bright

Backpacking the Arizona Trail with Jason Mark

Here at Island Press, I spend much of my time reading about our authors’ work in wild and remote places from the confines of a desk chair. So last May, I jumped at the chance to venture away from the office on a backpacking trip with Jason Mark, author of Satellites in the High Country, and the winners of our Keep It Wild sweepstakes contest.

#KeepItWild Q&A with Jason Mark

Enter the sweepstakes here! Why is Arizona significant to you and why should it be significant to the rest of the world? I was born and raised in Arizona, and I have a huge affection for the place: the Sonoran Desert with its creosote cloves, the “sky islands” around Tucson, the ponderosa pine forests outside of Prescott where I learned how to ride horses. And of course the Grand Canyon, which is a marvel of the world.
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Rants from the Hill: Seashells on Desert Mountaintops

Our daughter Caroline is six years old, a fact that is less important to her than the much more exciting fact that she is about to turn seven. The other day Caroline and I were discussing plans for her birthday celebration when she asked, out of nowhere, “If I’m going to be seven, how old is the earth going to be?” “Four and a half billion,” I replied. After being reassured that billion was not, like zillion or cajillion, a made-up word, Caroline wanted to know “how anybody ever figured out such a big birthday number.” “It all started with seashells on mountaintops,” I told her.
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Rants from the Hill: Arid Lands Bibliopedestrianism

I’ll admit that those of us who live in remote desert places tend to be idiosyncratic, though it is unclear to me whether the weird are attracted to the wild, dry country or if we are instead sculpted by it. And when you live in relative isolation—and in a physical environment that conspires with that isolation to scour away affectation and superfluity—you discover some odd things about yourself, among which is that you are odd.