The wader-repair department at Patagonia is a standalone, self-sustained operation in a hard-to-find corner of a 342,000-square-foot warehouse in Reno, Nevada, just steps from the rainbows, browns, and—as of last summer—native Lahontan cutthroat of the Truckee River. The department is little more than a series of temporary walls erected on the edge of the receiving…
THE DONNER PARTY MEMORIAL in Truckee, Calif., stands 22 feet tall, indicating the depth of the snow during the fateful winter of 1846-47. The snowstorms began in early November, trapping the Donners and other families near a frozen lake, deep in the high Sierra Nevada, until rescuers were able to reach them in March. Of…
John Jackson began snowboarding as a preteen on the powder-strewn spines of the Eastern Sierras, near his hometown in Crowley Lake, California. Soon after, he cast his first flies in that same backyard—in places with legendary names like Inyo, Sierra, Yosemite, and King’s. Fifteen years later and the basic ingredients haven’t changed, just the stakes.…