Anchorage Daily News

CRAIG MEDRED

Screw-ups make us smarter -- hopefully

So my memory was wrong, as old friend Chuck Kleeschulte, now an aide to the U.S. Senate Natural Resources Committee, reminded me over the phone from the nation's capital. He hadn't done the splits between the rail of the sailboat and the dock before splashing into the waters of Taku Harbor all those long years ago.

CRAIG MEDRED

The worst part of loving a dog is when the end is in sight

It has been 16 years since Bailey arrived in our house. It has been five or six, plus one knee surgery, since she last prowled the marshes she so loved.

CRAIG MEDRED

Putting moose calves down may be kindest option

Across the broad sweep of tens of millions of acres of wilderness to the north of this city, moose calves are dying by the thousands.

Police intercept pickup carrying moose calves

Orphaned moose calves wait at zoo while their fate is debated

Photos: Extracting the moose from the truck

CRAIG MEDRED

Boost urban salmon runs, attract bears -- it's natural

The municipality has decided to give the Rover's Run Trail back to the bears. They've closed the narrow, wooded path along Campbell Creek, arguing it's too dangerous for walking or biking. Why, then, just this trail?

CRAIG MEDRED

High-tech gear doesn't prevent mental lapses

The last time the world heard from Gerald Myers, he offered these words in the form of a text message: "OK, Moving up."

CRAIG MEDRED

Scooping human poop not an option

Do the homeless defecate in the woods? Admittedly, this is not a pleasant question to ponder. Most of the thousands of runners, strollers, bikers and dog walkers who daily pass the homeless camps hidden in the city's greenbelts and parks would probably prefer to avoid even contemplating the issue.

CRAIG MEDRED

Fisheries need to share burden

Why is it so many seem to have forgotten the deal made 24 years ago when commercial fishermen were allowed to resume the killing of Susitna River king salmon?

CRAIG MEDRED

Time to enjoy the changing seasons

Life began anew last week. You could feel it in the sun that baked the graywacke and shale of the surrounding Chugach and Kenai mountains.

CRAIG MEDRED

Palmer boys who harassed moose getting convicted online without a trial

Even those who've never surfed the Web can't have missed hearing about the extra security added at Colony Middle School in Palmer last week after a nameless, faceless, virtual mob launched a jihad on students there.

CRAIG MEDRED

To live with bears, we may need to kill some bears

If you are coming to Anchorage this summer, be afraid -- beary, beary afraid.

Avalanche tragedy can serve as lesson

Yancy Flair lived fast and happy until his death beneath an avalanche in Johnson Pass on the Kenai Peninsula March 28.

CRAIG MEDRED

Arctic-to-Indian trek is spring escape

On Sunday we completed what has become something of an annual spring pilgrimage from Arctic Valley through the Ship Creek drainage to Indian Pass and out the Indian Creek Trail to the edge of that Turnagain Arm community.

CRAIG MEDRED

Medred plan for predators doesn't cost Palin a dime

Gov. Palin, please stop wasting my money. One thousand, five-hundred dollars per carcass is too much to pay to kill wolves in order to try to boost the size of the Fortymile caribou herd.

CRAIG MEDRED

Helmet use will not save us from the bozos on skis

The only given in life is that we will die. There is no way around it, though the tragic death of actress Natasha Richardson seems to have fueled the do-gooder passions of those who somehow believe otherwise.

CRAIG MEDRED

PETA should be barking about Iraq's dead dogs

The dogs of Iraq are dying. As the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race moves toward its end in Nome with a well-meaning few fretting, as they always do, over whether dogs born to run really want to run 1,000 miles, the dogs of Iraq are dying by the thousands.

CRAIG MEDRED

Taming fear is the key in the wild

Along the high, exposed ridges of the Alaska mountains, fear lives, and in the roiling, brown rapids of the thundering glacial rivers, and out in a wilderness so vast and desolate it can feast on the mind of a citified modern man.

CRAIG MEDRED

Good sense saved boater's life

Despite what is being said in Florida these days, it is no miracle Nick Schuyler survived a boating accident that claimed the lives of three of his friends -- two of them NFL players.

Safety advice: Snowmachines and ice

CRAIG MEDRED

Not all top mushers have a shot at winning the race

In all likelihood, the winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race this year will be one of four men former champions. Why? Because they all know how to win. But maybe more importantly, because all the other top contenders know only how to lose.

CRAIG MEDRED

Clues hint at hypothermia in teenager's sudden death

From the Talkeetna Mountain slopes just above the Independence Mine State Historic Park, the lights that brighten the Hatcher Pass lodge at night looks so close you could almost reach out and touch them. It was within sight of these lights and the comfort they promise that 18-year-old snowboarder Royce Morgan from Wasilla died Wednesday.

Snowboarder dies in Hatcher Pass

CRAIG MEDRED

The loneliness of the long-distance winter race

The hardest race to run is the one waged in your mind, and it is for this reason the Iditarod Trail Invitational is the hardest race in the world.

CRAIG MEDRED

Sorry, but science doesn't take sides

With some regularity now, especially when it comes to environmental issues, we have politicians and interest groups engaged in heated arguments about who has God -- er, science -- on their side.