Featured

When Wilderness Turns Deadly

This year, at the Maine Conference for Small Town Jewish Life, I’m teaching a course on basic orienteering. If you follow this site, you know that I’m a big advocate for the...

A lonely, tiny lighthouse sits on an overlook at Cape Enrage on the Bay of Fundy.

Camping, Featured, International Travel

Getting Back to Fundy-Mentals

From where I live in Maine, I have an embarrassment of hiking riches. I’m four hours or so from Jacques-Cartier, an hour from both Baxter State Park and Katahdin Woods & Waters...

Davening by Cove Brook in Winterport, Maine

Featured

From Soldier to Wilderness Rabbi

We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being. Abraham Joshua Heschel Over a span of thirty years, I served in the active-duty Army, the Pennsylvania...

Featured, Hiking, International Travel

Autumn in Parc National de la Jacques Cartier

Where I live in Maine, for weekend adventures, I have a “can I get there and back again on a single tank of gas” philosophy. As it turns out, just north of Quebec is a gem of a...

Featured, Hiking, International Travel, Staff Picks

Backpacking Nagano Prefecture in Japan

A flower of snow On your shoulder seems to say: Welcome to Nagano! Keiko Yoshida – Nagano City My middle daughter, Avi, is a student at Temple University’s Tokyo campus....

Camping, Featured, Hiking, Wilderness Parsha

Memorial Day

When my unit returned from its Operation Iraqi Freedom mobilization, I had a conversation with my friend, Jimmy. I came home early due to a custodial matter, but we stayed in touch for the...

Camping, Featured, Hiking

Backcountry with Dogs

Knowing Where to Go When I was stationed in Alaska, my ex-wife and I adopted a dog from the Anchorage shelter. We named him D’Artagnan. He was a Husky mix, former sled dog. He...

Featured, Hiking, News, Staff Picks, Travel

Backpacking with Autistic Children

Backpacking is a really exciting experience for a lot of kids. For children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), it can be fraught with anxiety, as it involves multiple changes in...

Featured, Gear Reviews, Winter Activities

A Snowshoe Buying Guide – 2024

The ground in Maine exists in three states: Lovely, moss-covered, and solid A muddy, boggy, colloidal mass Frozen over and bound in snow Subsequently, a key feature of living in Maine is a...

Appalachian Trail, Featured, Hiking, News

New Permit Requirements on AT in Shenandoah

Starting this month, you will now be required to buy a permit at Recreation.gov in order to complete the Shenandoah National Park portion of the Appalachian Trail. The previous system,...