Winthrop

One minute you’re the only white squirrel in town, and the next thing you know, your fellow anomalies are being spotted all over the valley. You may recall that in early August I reported on the observation of a white squirrel on Wolf Creek Road. No sooner had that column posted to the internet than […]

Imagine if every time your phone hit the ground with a particular force (i.e., it fell out of your pack on a trail run), or you submerged it (i.e., you jumped into the lake with it in your pocket), Aero Methow Rescue Service and the police were automatically notified. How inconvenient would that be? Oh, […]

I was out of the state earlier this month and no matter where I went on my travels, when people asked where I was from and I responded, their immediate reaction was sympathy for the fires. Their perspectives on “the fires” varied greatly. Most seemed to have only heard about the catastrophic Spokane fires. Their […]

Although participating in the Winthrop Quilt Roundup as a spectator will be available all day long on the event date, Saturday, Sept. 19, time is running out for being part of the second annual event as an exhibitor. There’s still a little bit of time to thread your needle, though, event coordinators Cyndy Oliver and […]

If it’s too smoky to hike, the second-best thing is to hear stories about hikes and hikers past. One notorious group of Methow Valley backcountry explorers you may have run into out in the mountains over the past 40-plus years includes Paul Pinsky, Marty Lobdell, Charlie Kinkade, and brothers Les and Chuck McCallum. Chuck and […]

If you did not know that there was a cultural sensation called Jimothy, you are not alone. I only learned of Jimothy’s existence — nay, rabid popularity — when my editor, Don Nelson, who is constantly surfing the curl of popular culture, casually dropped Jimothy’s name in conversation, as denizens of viral sensationalism are wont […]

Methow Valley photographer Shannon Sprout was just a kid when she got hooked on photography in her hometown of Brewster. Her Kodak 110 was the gateway. Later she graduated to a Canon Rebel — her first “real” camera and the rest is if not history, at least well documented in visual images. “I always had […]

One of my colleagues recently returned from a trip to New Mexico and brought some regional treats back to the office, including the New Mexico state cookie — the biscochito, an anise- and cinnamon-flavored shortbread. The wafers were gone in a jiffy, but in their wake a mystery was brewing. Who knew that New Mexico […]

I’m not sure if anyone collected any real data about 4th of July festivities in Twisp on Saturday, but anecdotally the message was consistent: that was the biggest 4th of July parade and that was the best Arts Fest ever. I heard it from people on the street, at Arts Fest, and, afterwards, in the […]

I had a lightweight little column topic queued up for this week — –and by “queued up” I mean that I had the idea, but hadn’t yet executed it, as is typical for me on a Sunday morning. But then the Hamilton Fire happened and it seemed wildly inappropriate to write about anything that didn’t […]