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“Okay, so the premise is a little off-kilter – teaming up exhausting adventure sports with craft beer. These well-written columns are fast-paced, fun and really will get you off and exploring natural areas, with a cold brew as your reward.”
James Murren is an award-winning independent writer, with numerous pieces having appeared in outdoor sports and recreation media outlets, adventure and travel magazines, newspapers, practitioners’ journals and newsletters, including:
L.A. Times, The Surfer’s Journal, Adventure Sports Journal, Mountain Flyer, Roads & Kingdoms, Backpacker Magazine, Cranked (UK), Snowshoe Magazine, Sub-Saharan Magazine, San Diego Union-Tribune, Spoke Magazine (NZ), Dirt Rag Magazine, Bike Magazine, Bicyclist Magazine, Strung Magazine, Bicycle Times, Switchback, and XXC Mag.
Currently, he is a columnist for Adventure Sports Journal (“Earn Your Beer“). Earn Your Beer is about pushing yourself in the mountains, deserts, oceans, rivers, wherever and then sitting back and enjoying a beer when relaxing at camp or home. Additionally, he is on the editorial team for Snowshoe Magazine.
I’ve a new project for 2021. Check it out here: MTBeer
Several articles and writing samples are available under Portfolio in the menu bar up top, where you can also enter the Blog for current postings.
Murren has published three books. Go Here, Go There: Travel and Workis a collection of words and photos depicting such experiences in ten countries around West Africa, Central and South America, North America, and Eurasia. The other two books are based on his work and travels in Honduras and Ethiopia. You can buy the books online via the link in the sidebar, or at the following locations: The Reader’s Cafe in Hanover, PA and Verbatim Books in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego, CA.
Member: Society of American Travel Writers and North American Travel Journalists Association
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- Earn Your Beer #132: Digital Detox - 02/15/2024
- Earn Your Beer #131: Mendocino Redwoods - 12/14/2023
- Earn Your Beer: Issue #130 - 08/28/2023
Digital Detox: Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Earn Your Beer // The Earning
At the end of every fall semester, going on many years now, I go on a solo desert digital detox weekend. Forty-eight hours of no connection with devices is my way to tune in and tune out. The agreement, though, is that I carry my SPOT device so in the case of an emergency, I can switch it on. I’ve never had to do that on desert digital detox weekend. Also, a note sits on the countertop providing the details of my whereabouts. It is there for my bride if she would need to find me. I don’t deviate from the note. Earn Your Beer
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in California, with over 500 miles of dirt roads. Its sand, dirt, and sometimes rock desert roads are perfect for bikepacking on fat tires. Getting away from the crowds is easy; simply go further. Out there, in the folds and slots of canyons, live Peninsular bighorn sheep. I sit for hours scanning the mountain lion-colored jumbles of rocks the sizes of Volkswagen Beetles and bungalow houses looking for them. I’ve yet to see any as they rest or navigate their homeland. Binoculars and a book by my side are a source of entertainment.
In the late afternoon, as it’s turning into evening, ridgelines seem to slowly emerge in 3-D, like the stereogram art that was popular in the 1980s. Staring then at the posters of colored dots and wavy lines, slowly and surely, the images popped off the paper and floated in front of the poster. I know of no other way to describe the Borrego light and shadows on those desert ridgelines at dusk out there by Sheep Canyon. Is it magic? Go and see for yourself, and I’ll bet you’ll believe me when I say that we need not try to imagine a better place than here. No better time than now. It, the unimaginable-trying-to-be-imagined, already exists.
It’s a cold winter’s desert. Wrapped in fleece and tucked into my down bag, I lay with my head outside the tent door. Up there, satellites cross the constellations. The Milky Way’s creamy softness hangs like a soft pillow of heavenly peace. I think of wonder and love, thankful in the mindfulness that I’m experiencing. Grateful not in knowing of this wonder and love, but rather, I am grateful in having felt it and feeling it in the here/now.
How often do we go on adventures and leave loved ones behind? They are our rocks. I am thankful for mine.
Before long, sleep settles into my being, and my eyelids begin to close. I don’t fight it, at all. Rested bones and spirit happen. Later, I awake and snuggle deeper into my bag. And then later, the pale light of morning arrives and gives way to the brighter sunshine of morning. I revel in the heat of the sun’s rays. I sit like a lizard, sipping on a cup of coffee, content to the world.
Earn Your Beer // The Beer
It’s a digital detox, not a beer one! For outings on the trail, carrying extra weight is a bit counterintuitive. Nevertheless, sitting back and sipping on a can of imperial stout or a barleywine as the sun fades away and the night sky softly sparkles with emerging starlight, is an okay way for me to enjoy the light show. Societe’s The Butcher is a doozy of an imperial stout, with all the hallmarks of a roasted/campfire winter warmer, so to speak. societebrewing.com
On the barleywine end of things, one I’ve taken out on the trail over the years is Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot Barleywine-Style Ale. It’s a classic, though it’s not a true barleywine. Who cares?! As the desert air chills and a coyote song sings out, the sweet molasses bread rises and mashes into the bitter pine resin, a smashing success of deliciousness on the tongue. sierranevada.com
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