by Natalie Ogbourne | | Navigating Tough Terrain
We pulled into the gravel parking lot at the base of Bunsen Peak, piled out, grabbed day packs and water from the back of the vehicle, and set off. Dust had barely begun to accumulate around our ankles when we saw him: a lone bison, a bull, just twenty-five feet off...
by Natalie Ogbourne | | Navigating Tough Terrain
A thud near my head stirred me from sleep. The stirring wasn’t difficult. I was on the ground. We were camping, tucked away in a tent that hadn’t been warmed by the sun since we last slept in it in the back yard seven summers before. We weren’t in the back yard that...
by Natalie Ogbourne | | Navigating Tough Terrain
My parents are not lake people. They aren’t river people. When my brother and I occasionally talked about swimming in a nearby lake, they talked about field runoff. So when my mom told me we would be wading a river as we–my parents, the five grandchildren, and I–made...
by Natalie Ogbourne | | Navigating Tough Terrain, Pondering Life Outside
We wore the road to Norris thin. Home to a geyser our family favored, it was a must-stop. Every time. Echinus’ eruption cycle was short, thirty-five to seventy-five minutes. A half-mile path through the woods led to the broad depression in the earth that was its pool....