Roland Cheek's
Tales of the WEST that WAS
and the WEST that IS
What About Roland Cheek?
For starters, few individuals can match Roland's outdoors credentials
Consider the man's incredible insider's knowlede of the place God made for himself ... and for the lucky people with whom He deigns to share the land and its features and creatures.
Roland Cheek bucked blizzards and avalanches by day, and below-zero nights while searching out remote basins and distant mountain valleys for the promised Valhallas he thought were there. But to reach those promised paradsises also meant rafting perilous whitewater rivers, fighting through wildfires, enduring deluges and lightning storms, and raging tempests.
On the other hand, there've been bull elk bugling in a meadow at break of day, "rocking chair" bucks cresting distant ridgelines, and rainbow trout as large as a big man's forearm, erupting from the placid waters of an alpine lake with a fly dangling from the lip.
And there've been grizzly bears!
Oh yes, there've been grizzly bears -- charging from alder thickets with their teeth bared and ears back, or digging tubers in a marsh with breezes rippling silvertipped guard hairs along hump and rump.
Roland has had them stare at him with something akin to disdain, or charge to within 10-feet, teeth clacking and head swinging low to the ground.
He's been scared spitless and thanked God for the privilege of walking the same paths of these most powerful of the world's great carnivores.
Roland has matched wit and grit and stamina and sweat with the best of a beautiful land, and the worst of a savage land. He won some and lost some, exactly the way it should be--and always is--during a life of real adventure.
And he shared--and shares--what he learned via several decades of experiences through a syndicated newspaper column, popular nationwide radio program, hundreds of magazine articles, and a "baker's dozen" books of high adventure, belly-slapping comedy, and secrets gleaned from a life lived amid some of the wildest and most beautiful lands in all America.
What Of His Western Adventure Series?
It's a legitimate question. After all, where does a guy get off claiming to write about the Old West from the disadvantage of dwelling in the 21st Century? Roland Cheek can hardly claim to have been in a gunfight at the O.K. Corral or punched dogies down the streets of Abilene.
But he has straddled rawboned ponies over a few trails amid some of the wildest mountains in America--say upwards of 35 thousand miles of those trails! And he's spent over 5 decades wandering the wild country throughout the West.
At last, after crafting six prior non-fiction books, hundreds of magazine articles, and thousands of newspaper columns and radio scripts about his adventures, Roland at last turned his talents to Western novels, tales from the heart and dripping with a realism that is based on equal parts historical record and the plethora of his own experiences.
In Review
Roland's books have all made it across oceans, usually as Christmas gifts or in care packages sent from friends or loved ones in the U.S. But recently those titles passed another milestone when one was reviewed on Suomalainen.com
Suomalainen.com is a language web reviewer from (presumedly) Finland (someone help us out on this one).
Whatever. The review marks another ripple on the pool of Roland's writing.
He's still in love with the same woman he married over 50 years ago
Professional Success
A dozen or so books seems a likely indicator of some degree of success. And that's not to mention his two decades as a syndicated newspaper columnist, or the seven years as a daily radio outdoors show host.
Roland has it all! Right?
Well, no. Not unless you're reading his books. When that happens, he'll know we're connected.
