Bechara

Lebanese, by way of mountains and mezze. I grew up with the cedars on the flag long before I ever stood under one, and it turns out the real thing is wider and stranger and much harder to photograph.

I walk toward water. That is most of it. If there is a waterfall at the end of a trail I will do the trail, in weather I should not do it in, and I will tell you afterwards that the weather was the best part. Sometimes this is even true.

The rest of the time I am eating. Dumplings mostly, and the long ongoing project of finding the good places in every Asian neighbourhood I end up in — which is a different skill from finding the famous ones, and more fun. And mezze, constantly, which is a meal that only works with people at the table and is therefore my favourite argument for having people.

There is an emergency bag of sour Skittles in my pack on every hike. Green ones first. I don't make the rules.

This is where I put the notes: where the water was running and when, which trail is worth the mud, what to order and what to skip, and the occasional ranking that I will defend at length and without being asked.