“I have run her rivers and guided people along her currents and through her rapids. I have climbed her demanding mountains and was almost taken by one. I’ll keep hiking to ruins, smelling the desert and alpine air, wading the creeks, and listening to the wolves howl until I check out.”—Win Blevins
Win’s four non-fiction books, Give Your Hearts to the Hawks, The Dictionary of the American West, The Roadside History Guide to Yellowstone, and his memoir, Learning to Soar, could only be born in the Rocky Mountains and westward.
Win was in love with the West. He felt all other skies were too milky, that all other land was too tame. Riding or hiking with him was pure pleasure. “See that piece of hill? That’s where the army gave the Lakota a routing out, and the army got it back in spades.” Hawks, buzzards too, seemed to find him.
He gave up hunting and fell deeply in love with the earth, and all its creatures, just the way it was. In peace. The following books were, for him, a love song to this place, this Hotel Earth. This wonder.