[Originally published at Outsideonline.com, September 26, 2013]

How do you create a crapocalypse?

Here’s how: Between September 10th and 15th, heavy rains engulfed Boulder, Colorado, where I live, dumping 16.4 inches on the People’s Republic. On September 12, the city set an all-time 24-hour rainfall record, at 9.08 inches. Boulder is situated in a semi-arid region that averages about 20 inches of rain annually, and yet we managed to tally up 80 percent of our yearly total in just five days. An udometer (a fancy term for rain gauge) near my home in South Boulder measured 21.13 inches—our entire year in less than a work-week! Continue reading →

In a place where every third person is an elite triathlete, competitive ultrarunner, or just maniacally OCD about exercise, a catastrophic flood creates its own set of only-in-Boulder problems. All of the county’s 97,000 acres of open space are closed—trails have been ravaged and many are impassible. Most of Boulder’s biking and running paths doubled as flood-mitigation canals. They’re either still submerged or decimated, or both. Continue reading →

[Originally published at Onearth.org, September 19, 2013]

The first clue that something truly strange was going on came from a peep on my iPhone. “I need a wet-vac NOW,” a buddy across town texted shortly after 10 p.m. on September 11. “Seriously, anyone have one and is awake?” I did, in my garage, and offered it up. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he pinged back.

By now rain had been hammering Boulder, where I live, for 24 hours. This wasn’t one of the short-lived bursts typical of summer squalls on the Front Range. It was a steady, enveloping downpour. Weather usually rolls in swiftly and leaves just as hastily in the Rocky Mountains, carried from west to east by the fast-moving jet stream. So surely, I thought, the skies would clear by morning? Continue reading →

In September, Men’s Health published “Barefoot Backlash,” my second article, on barefoot/minimalist running. My first profiled Danny Abshire, founder of Newton Running. Both stories explore the theory that landing toward the front of your foot rather than on your heel makes you a more efficient runner and might prevent injuries. Both pieces also investigate whether less underfoot is better than plump soles that purportedly encourage us to slam the pavement heels-first, which can amplify impact forces, according to several studies. Personally, I think if you’re running and not getting hurt, you shouldn’t change a thing. My Newtons used to make my calves agonizingly sore because I was forcing myself to land on my forefoot—something I’d been told was a more “natural” gait. When I finally stopped thinking about form and let my feet land where they wanted, the soreness vanished. Continue reading →

I’ve lost count of how many articles I’ve written on Virgin Galactic—five, maybe six perhaps? What can I say? A company trying to build the world’s first commercial spaceliner makes for good copy. My latest story is a cheeky take on how one might accomplish such a seemingly outrageous feat. I’ll admit that in 2004 when Virgin founder Richard Branson first announced his intent to hurl tourists into space inside privately built rocket ships, my first thought was, “What’s he smoking?” But Branson and crew have made me a believer. Yes, there have been delays, setbacks, and even an explosion in 2007 that killed three—this is rocket science, after all. Despite endless hurdles, the Virgin team has persisted to where they are now a few months away from their first flights. I’m not a big fan of Versions 1.0, especially when it comes to flying bombs. But give a couple of years—and a few dozen successful flights—and you might get me onboard. I’ve already done the training; now I just need a ticket. Donations accepted.

As so often happens, the idea for a new story surfaces while reporting another. While on-assignment in California with the crew of the Missing Aircraft Search Team (you can read that story here) I had been exchanging emails with Jim Herd, and engineer and pilot who has been flying since 1981 and is a prolific contributor to online aviation forums. We somehow got on the subject of my next big story and Jim wrote: “The demise of leaded avgas [aviation gasoline] is the next shoe that will drop. It is already such a threat that it is seriously impeding progress and confidence. There is no hard plan yet, but lead will probably be mandated out in less than 10 years—and so far, unlike with autos, there is no clear solution.” Continue reading →

My house is visible in the backdrop of the opening spread for my Air & Space magazine story on Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spaceplane. I’ve been covering NASA and aerospace for many years, and my assignments almost always require trips to Cape Canaveral, Florida—where it rains whenever I go—or the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where I sweat too much. I relished the commute for reporting the Dream Chaser story: Sierra Nevada is building what might become the next Space Shuttle in a warehouse just 15 minutes from Boulder; the first test flights took place directly over town. Continue reading →

Lately, I’ve been asking friends who profess to know something about the Interweb how I go about increasing traffic to my website. Better yet, how do I get those same people to visit my Byliner page? Byliner posts my articles to its site, then charges subscribers to read them. You get my stories, beautifully formatted, of course, delivered to your iPad, iPhone, or i-Whatever. Kindles, too! That’s worth something, right? Get the app here. For me, it’s free money, sort of. Before Byliner, my entire portfolio sat idle on my website, earning nothing. The generous editors at Byliner offered to take my prose and post it online—and then give me a cut of the profits. So here’s the deal: If I can drive a million people a day to my Byliner page, and get them all to subscribe, I can buy a big yacht and go kiteboarding with my family for the rest of my life. Please help me fulfill this dream. I’m told I can achieve this by doing something called “Search Engine Optimization.” But until I figure that out, I’ll just repeat this link: Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner, Byliner. That’ll work, right?

There are some perks that come with freelance journalism. Pay isn’t one of them. Powder is. I live in Colorado, less than two hours from Vail, where I buy my annual ski pass. Working from home, for myself, mostly on my own schedule, means I can be extraordinarily picky about the days I choose to ski. And picky I am. For me, it’s weekdays only, with a minimum of six inches of new snow overnight—and that’s after lifts close. I don’t like wind, crowds, or tracks. Freelance writing means skiing only epic days, and then making all your friends hate you by posting photos of the spoils to Facebook. Obnoxious? Perhaps. My profile of Joel Gratz in Outside introduces you to the man that has made this pickiness possible. Continue reading →

My recent feature in Mother Jones magazine adds to the anti-fracking arsenal. Activists rejoice. Before reporting this assignment, I was neutral on fracking, mostly because I didn’t know much about it. What I discovered is that fracking is an ingenious way of getting fossil fuels out of the ground. It’s also woefully under-regulated to the point where outright bans might make sense. Even those within the industry confessed to me that the fracking boom is the “lawless Wild West” all over again. Continue reading →