Writer

Molly Absolon

Molly is a graduate of Yale University and U. C. Berkeley. She has attended writers’ conferences at Bread Loaf in Vermont, Centrum in Washington and in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She served as a communications manager for the Wyoming Outdoor Council and the National Outdoor Leadership School, where she worked as an instructor for more than 15 years. She has written 10 books on outdoor skills and is currently at work on an 11th on winter camping. She is a copyeditor and part-time columnist at the Jackson Hole News&Guide, serves on the Victor (Idaho) City Council and tries to spend as much time in the outdoors as possible


Articles

Road failure in Wyoming reveals a housing crisis

By Molly Absolon

I live in Victor, Idaho—one of Jackson, Wyoming’s, bedroom communities. Every day, roughly 3,400 Idaho residents drive over Teton Pass…

Photo courtesy Wyoming Dept. of Transportation

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We need to know avalanches inside and out

By Molly Absolon

There’s a fine line between learning from the mistakes of others and shaming people for their ignorance. Twelve people have…

Image by Will Turner, via Unsplash

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Backcountry heroes always try to bring us back

By Molly Absolon

When I was leading groups into the Wyoming wilderness in the 1990s, once we left a trailhead we were on…

The Tetons in Wyoming, a great place to get lost, photo by Mike

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Backcountry adventurers know they’re taking chances

By Molly Absolon

Six people have died in avalanches in the United States since the snow started to fly this fall. Every year,…

Five backcountry skiers cross a avalanche path while hiking outside of Jackson Hole Resort, Wyoming.

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Living with grizzlies as neighbors

By Molly Absolon

When I was working with a Kenyan outdoor instructor in Wyoming’s Wind River Range a couple of decades ago, he…

Grizzly bear seen near B Bar Ranch outside Gardiner, Montana, photo credit: Hank Perry www.naturalrealmpictures.com

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Can we live with electric mountain bikes on trails? 

By Molly Absolon

The first time I saw an electric bike — better known as an e-bike — I was struggling up a…

Mountain biker Celeste Young takes a break along the Big Hole Crest Trail in Idaho. 2022 image. Photo courtesy Molly Absolon

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How do you you-know-what in the woods

By Molly Absolon

Poop talk makes everybody fidget and giggle uncomfortably. We like our poop to disappear. We want shiny white porcelain toilets…

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This grizzly family comes with paparazzi

By Molly Absolon

My neighbor is famous. She has 50,000 followers on Facebook and a recent post on her page there had 4,200…

Mother grizzly 399 and her four cubs

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A close encounter with wolves and fear

By Molly Absolon

This summer, three of us were hiking in Alaska’s western Brooks Range when we encountered a pack of eight wolves….

Image by Milo Weiler, via Unsplash

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You can explore the West and escape the crowds

By Molly Absolon

Here’s the dilemma: You want to explore the West’s huge treasure of public land, but you don’t want to be…

Lake Serene Washington, Photo by Jamie Coupaud, courtesy of Unsplash

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Dying for powder

By Molly Absolon

“I don’t know anyone who’s stood at the top of a slope and thought, ‘Well, this could kill me, but it’s going to be epic powder skiing!’”

Photograph by Jan Kronies, courtesy of Unsplash

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