Aaron Theisen

In Praise of Gravity: Freeriding the Okanogan

Twenty-some years ago, a small cohort of crazed cyclists skidded their way down the white silt cliffs outside Kamloops, in the Thompson-Okanogan region of south-central British Columbia. Mountain biking had just entered the Olympics; racing was ascendant. But this was something altogether different. Not since Marin County hippies bombed cruiser bikes down dirt roads some twenty years earlier had the …

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Sagebrush and Singletrack: Mountain Biking the Tri-Cities

“Left! Right! Right! Left! Duck!” I’m playing a dizzying game of two-wheeled follow-the-leader in   in the heart of Richland, WA. Leaning my elbows into the fragrant sagebrush that closely flanks the singletrack, I echo the commands as they’re passed down the eight-rider conga line – to turn at the frequent intersections, and to occasionally duck under the head-lopping cottonwood limbs …

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Ride Like the Wind: Cycling the Palouse

The Palouse of eastern Washington and north Idaho is the region’s breadbasket and one the nation’s premier dryland farming regions, its 4,000 square miles of wind-sculpted hills unfolding under an endless sea of wheat and beans. Outside the raucous Greek Rows and stadiums of Washington State University in Pullman and The University of Idaho in Moscow, life is pretty quiet …

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Digging Deep: Crossing the Kettle Range “Cakewalk”

Story and photographs by Aaron Theisen The Kettle Range is the backbone—and heart—of northeastern Washington. A mosaic of closed-canopy forests and open, sagebrush- and wildflower-filled meadows rapidly rebounding from past wildfires, the Kettle Range features a half-dozen of eastern Washington’s highest peaks, from the summits of which one can gape at distant shimmering vistas of the Cascade and Rocky Mountains. …

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