BRUSH and BOG

20/05/2024

None of this is funny. Whose fault is that?!

"``A `beautiful bog' or a `pleasant mire' are almost a contradiction in terms. Mountains are sublime; swamps are slimy''" --Holmes Rolston III

``It is in vain to dream of wilderness distant from ourselves, there is none such. It is the bog in our brain and bowels, the primitive vigor of Nature in us that inspires that dream.'' --Henry David Thoreau

"Representing a substantial part of the Earth's land surface, about 6%, wetlands occur practically everywhere, on every continent (except Antarctica), in every zone and biome, in all shapes and sizes. Two wetland areas are in excess of 1 million km2, seven are in the order of 100 000 to 400 000 km2, other wetland areas are smaller. Despite their massive scale, wetlands have usually remained marginal or liminal in social discourse. This is reflected in the fact that in only one century humans have reduced the global wetland area by 50%"

25/11/2023

From Brush and Bog: The World's First and Only Bushwhacking Magazine!

This is an Open Call for Crowdsourced Photos and Media From Places Named After Brush, Bog, or Bush.

If you visit a place named for Brush, Bog, or Bush, please take funny photos, ideally with a sign or clear landmark, and send them to [email protected].

The United States is a very brushy place--at least in name--as you can see from these maps. And the rest of the world has some too.

Some people try to reach the highest point of every U.S. state. But that's super lame. Or even of every continent. Snooze. A real challenge is to traverse the brushiest pocket of every place named Brush in the world! https://geotargit.com/called.php?qcity=Brush&part=beginning

Brush and Bog took the first step by visiting Brush, Colorado a few years ago. https://adventuresinbrush.weebly.com/
And by making these photo and review contributions to Google Maps. https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/115644750150806155600/reviews/@38.3465051,-109.209075,4z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m3!8m2!3m1!1e1?entry=ttu

There are a few Bogs too, but only pay attention to the ones named for real bogs, not all those silly bogawhatevers in Central Asia and thereabouts that are surely highly bog deficient. And don't even get me started on Antarctica! https://geotargit.com/called.php?qcity=Bog&part=beginning

And what about bush?! Ah!! Life's quest initiated. https://geotargit.com/called.php?qcity=bush&part=beginning

(Also STILL welcome are photos, media, writings, or anything creative about bushwhacking).

05/11/2022

Bogland by Seamus Heaney

We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening--
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encroaching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclop's eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.
They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter

Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,

Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,

Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.

27/07/2022

MMMMM, bog butter! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-brief-history-of-bog-butter-180959384/

Turf cutters in Ireland regularly find chunks of butter deep in the nation's peat bogs. What is the stuff doing there?

10/04/2022

Bushwhacking Iceland

19/10/2021

In case you want to learn stuff...like an idiot! What, you didn't know?!

17/08/2021

From the Archives: never before released short video of bog shoes in action.

01/09/2020

https://vimeo.com/233572086

View the full article here: https://tjtriage.com/fun-scale-blog/2017/9/6/type-ii-fun-at-leviathan-lake-bushwhacking-in-colorados-san-jauns

20/07/2020

A fun little take on bushwhacking.
http://www.tailsfromthefield.net/?comic=42-bushwhacking-moves

Visit the post for more.

29/05/2020

Dear Lenny Pepperbottom, please make an episode about bushwhacking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnMWt9s8TPY

Nature is neat, that's why Neature Walk exists. How neat is that? Pretty neat. - BUY NEAT T-SHIRTS & MORE @ http://www.vicscrappyvideos.com

24/04/2020

At a time like this, don't ya long for endless fields of tussocks in which to make tussock angels?

27/01/2020

“Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o’-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable.”
--Henry David Thoreau

18/12/2019

The brush lives!

17/11/2019

PRESENTING "Jams to Whack By": The Ultimate Bushwhacking Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb7R6i6HxpFYYtV-xyJgImGuFGijd1tfW

(It's actually more of a spooky swamp mix)

The perfect mix for a Halloween Swamp Party or Bushwhacking!

10/10/2019

A wild adventure through the mighty metropolis of Brush!, Colorado.

https://adventuresinbrush.weebly.com/

21/08/2019

Memories

16/07/2019

The more you know...

01/04/2019

"Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, nor in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps."

"I can fancy that it would be a luxury to stand up to one's chin in some retired swamp a whole summer day, scenting the wild honeysuckle and bilberry blows, and lulled by the minelstry of gnats and mosquitoes!"

-H.D. Thoreau

01/02/2019

ANNOUNCING THE ULTIMATE BRUSH CHALLENGE!

Brush and Bog is proud to partner with The Ultimate Brush Challenge, whose sole mission is:

"To recognize and reward travel through landscapes threatening peerless physical suffering from their vegetative or soil-related features."

In other words, test your bushwhacking skills and get rewarded (by recognition and a small patch) when you complete certain designated routes pioneered by founding members.

See https://www.komoot.com/user/706502259287 for routes. Stay tuned as more routes will be posted soon!

27/01/2019

A semi-pro bushwhacker tries his hand at ice climbing. Easy!

23/09/2018

02/08/2018

Official brewery of Brush and Bog: http://www.devilsclubbrewing.com/

12/06/2018

“You can walk on the path, or you can walk through the hedge." -Andy Goldworthy

They said it couldn't be done. They said it wouldn't last. But it has, and it's bigger than ever.

No better proof could be offered than the recent adoption of bushwhacking by avant garde Scottish land artist Andy Goldsworthy. His well-publicized admiration of brushes and bogs (we at Brush and Bog assume this is a misprint) is no doubt the primary inspiration for his artistic growth.

He stars in the recent film Leaning Into the Wind, which we highly recommend. This preview (https://vimeo.com/229174726) includes some snippets of his bushwhacking scenes at 00:00-00:24, 00:45-00:53, and 1:29-1:36.

Bushwhacking has taken the art world by storm and finally achieved chic status.
The question that must now be asked is whether it will be able to maintain its outsider status? Or will its success be its own undoing?

14/05/2018

"I love nature, I just don't want to get any of it on me."
--Woody Allen

"Do not jump into your automobile next June and rush out to the canyon country hoping to see some of that which I have attempted to evoke in these pages. In the first place you can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you’ll see something, maybe. Probably not."
--Edward Abbey

11/03/2018

https://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-enviroment/bushwhacking-guideline-low-impact-ze0z1803zphe

Follow these helpful tips to reduce your personal impact on the earth during your next outdoor adventure.