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The Outdoor Magazine of the U

Wasatch Magazine

The Outdoor Magazine of the U

Wasatch Magazine

The Outdoor Magazine of the U

Wasatch Magazine

Maddie Melton

Maddie Melton, Writer

Maddie is a Master’s student in the Environmental Humanities. They grew up in Virginia but (literally) stumbled into their love of the outdoors in college in South Africa when a bad ankle injury took them out to the trails for rehabilitation. After graduating, they returned to the United States and have since thru-hiked the Pacific Crest, Colorado, and Arizona Trails. They are also a professional scuba diver and are becoming increasingly interested in trying to understand western landscapes and environmental issues from under the water. An avid reader and long-time nomad, they are most often found with a backpack, a book, and takeaway dumplings on a train going somewhere.

All content by Maddie Melton
A River Runs Through It: The Border in the Big Bend

A River Runs Through It: The Border in the Big Bend

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
May 15, 2023

Growing up, one of my family’s favorite puzzles was a map of the United States. Each piece was one of the fifty states that fit neatly inside the outline of the country’s political boundaries. Alaska...

Underwater Wasteland

Underwater Wasteland

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
March 27, 2023

It is the summer of 2021. I’m half asleep, nestled into the small bow of a speedboat with good friends, while the boat courses through water so turquoise, with corals underneath so bright and teeming...

Lessons from a Fatal Eccentric: Solo Travel in the Backcountry

Lessons from a Fatal Eccentric: Solo Travel in the Backcountry

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
February 6, 2023

“I travel in wild country a great deal, often alone, and my friends find this to be fatally eccentric, although they use the more polite term ‘stupid.’ They feel sorry for me because I miss the fun...

Where Were You When...On an Ordinary Evening in Meadow Hot Springs

Where Were You When…On an Ordinary Evening in Meadow Hot Springs

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
January 5, 2023

On November 19, I navigated my old Rav4 (Delilah) across the bumpy, half-frozen mud that led to Meadow Hot Springs in central Utah. Steam rose into the early winter air, framed by the ridgeline of the...

Caribbean Coastlines and Coral Death: What Procrastination and Privilege Mean for an Uncertain Climate Future

Caribbean Coastlines and Coral Death: What Procrastination and Privilege Mean for an Uncertain Climate Future

Maddie Melton, Writer
October 6, 2022

Darkness settled over Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. A light night-time breeze cut through the heat and humidity of the day and the moon cast a lovely glow over the neighborhood’s famous colonial architecture....

Stories Beyond the Summit: Why Multilingualism Matters in the Wilderness

Stories Beyond the Summit: Why Multilingualism Matters in the Wilderness

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
June 13, 2022

I’m with a group of high school students from the United States somewhere in the mountains of the northeast corner of Yunnan province in southwest China. We’ve set up camp in what appears to be a deep...

All the Rules I Made—then Broke—on the Pacific Crest Trail

All the Rules I Made—then Broke—on the Pacific Crest Trail

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
May 26, 2022

When I started my thru-hike on the Pacific Crest Trail at the Mexican border east of San Diego on May 2, 2018, I'd only been backpacking a couple of times before. I'd never hiked more than ten miles in...

Diving in the Desert

Diving in the Desert

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
May 19, 2022

In scuba diving, the most important rule is this: do not hold your breath. Why? Water pressure. Drop 10 meters below the surface and the pressure is twice that at sea level. Double pressure means half...

Thoreau Lurks Behind Cute Girls in Canyons: Wilderness as Sexual Currency on Tinder

Thoreau Lurks Behind Cute Girls in Canyons: Wilderness as Sexual Currency on Tinder

Maddie Melton, Staff Writer
May 2, 2022

“I have a soft spot for cute girls in canyons,” I write to my new match on Tinder. Her first photo in a series of eight shows her grinning between the narrow walls of a slot canyon. Of the rest, three...

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