Editor’s Note: The author lives and writes from the current and ancestral lands of the Eastern Shoshone, Northern Arapaho, Apsaalooké, and Cheyenne. His direct ancestors landed at Plymouth Rock in…
jaredspaulding.com Posts
Editor’s Note: I wrote this piece, taken from an interview with a NOLS alum, close to two years ago. The interview was done in the process of writing a NOLS…
March 27th 2021–I rose from below a juniper tree that morning. It would be hard to say that I slept or I awoke. Those didn’t come easy on this course. …
September 2017–I knew it was there somewhere. Deep in my second floor storage closet in the Noble Hotel was a rectangular, blue, Tupperware bin of tools. There was an…
“How many times have you done this?” Tim asks. “Oh, probably close to twenty” Ryan replies. Ryan is below us, wedged into a slot, rigging the green static rope to…
I walk with my boots tied loosely, laces sloppy within the confines of my gaiters. No blisters, just loose friction between the socks and the lining of the mid-weight…
I lean on the rusty pipe rail fence, watching a dance of equine and person. Within the confines of the sandy arena Des methodically moves a small black flag up…
I knew there would be some choice words for the cars in front of us whenever we next stopped, but the truth is I am glad we were going twenty…
Editor’s Note: This was written in late May as I tried to settle into a pandemic routine at NOLS’ Three Peaks Ranch. Andy met me at the Steele House…
The phone rang. I looked down at my desktop and saw a 307 number–Wyoming–but not one I recognized. I picked it up. Three weeks earlier in mid-March, NOLS had…
Jeremiah was born in a holding cell and raised in prison. He never walked shoeless through rolling, windswept sage and greasewood; his hungry stomach never ached for saltbrush or winterfat…
Editor’s Note: a compilation of various things I have written in the past mixed with new material, this is posted here today in honor of what would have been my…
NOLS courses are hard. My jaw thrusts downward and outward while my hands cup the sides of my mouth. “Rrreeddd tent, close your vestibule” I yell from my tent door…
From the beginning, I was skeptical. That is what drew me in; that and a desire to be involved. I read the paperwork; the .pdf described various recommended practices. We…