The Usual

21 August 2025 at 11:00

Photo of forest and text: The first question the interviewer asked was: “What’s your chosen landscape?” I thought for a few seconds, then said, “I guess the forest on top of Mt. Sentinel?” I’d been there about 90 minutes prior, on my usual trail running loop. map rendering of route to the top of Mt. Sentinel and text: Which is to say: I hiked up to the summit of Mt. Sentinel (running some of the less-steep parts), and then ran down from the top and into the forest. In a good week, I get to do this run twice. photo looking up into trees and text: It’s only about one-third of a mile, my jaunt through the forest. I stay on the trail, and many days, I’m so in my own head that I barely notice the trees—but I notice the shade they provide, and that my breathing has eased now that I’m running downhill. photo of wolf moss on bark of douglas fir tree and text: Some days, the light hits just right on the wolf moss growing on the ponderosa pines and douglas fir, and I slow for a few seconds, maybe glancing at the shrubs to see if they’ve started to turn red yet. map of Mt. Sentinel and text: This forest I run through is really just a small wing of a larger forest—Mt. Sentinel is the north end of the Sapphire Mountains, and you might be able to walk the entire 66-mile length of the range from here and hardly ever leave the trees. photo of trees and text: That’s a big forest, but this part here, that I visit a couple times a week, is technically right down the street from my house. But you still have to use plenty of human power to get here: Even the easiest way to it is a thousand vertical feet from the parking lot. Maybe that’s part of what I like about it. photo of trees and text: I love reaching mountain summits, and I summit Mt. Sentinel pretty much every time I run through this forest (even though it’s a bit out of the way). And the summit view is fine and all, but what I really love is cruising through all these trees, which block the view in every direction—unless by “the view” you mean “the view of the inside of a forest.” photo of fence and mountains and text: Every time I run through this forest, I take a photo of this old fenceline on the south summit of Mt. Sentinel, for no real reason. And every time I take that same (but kinda different!) photo, I wonder if I’m becoming boring, and if I should try to explore new places, or at least run some different trails near town. photo of trees and text: But I like it here. It’s like a coffee shop or restaurant you go to often enough that you know everyone who works there, and when it’s time to order, they ask, “The usual?” And you know there are other restaurants, and other things on the menu you could try for a change, but yeah, the usual sounds good today.

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