Sharing the Trail with Ghosts and Gadabouts (working title). Characters met along the trail. Mountain hiking can attract the independent, idiosyncratic, the unusual. Trails can be an open marketplace for the exchange of opinions and even a frisky place where inhibitions are loosened. Met along the trail: a woman visiting from a South American country with an unusual viewpoints on the physical characteristics of American men; a CEO of a tech company who introduced himself by giving his name as “Discovery” leading to a perplexing dialogue of malapropisms; a hiker who predicted whether I would summit based on an ancient book of astrology he was carrying; and many more.

Lost Strongholds of the Cowboy West (working title). Explorations in the wild backcountry of the western mountains and deserts blending vivid descriptions of the landscape with snapshots from history including: the mountain redoubt of Apache warrior Cochise in the Dragoon Mountains of Arizona; sites along the San Pedro River where a Mormon Battalion clashed in battle with a herd of cattle, and the nearby ruins of the “bloodiest cabin in the west” with its haunting history.