Here’s a fun, simple graphic that celebrates the history of rock climbing. It came across my desk courtesy of the folks at  JustRopes.com. Ultimately the graphic is a marketing endeavor (journalists, insert skin-crawling shudder here) but it’s a cool one in my opinion so I’m happy to share it.

I think the secret to a good promotional media campaign is for a retailer or brand to offer something that is actually valuable/interesting/entertaining of its own accord and simply take some credit for creating it. This graphic doesn’t attempt to sneak in any sales pitches for JustRopes and I wouldn’t have posted it if it had. Besides the small logo in the very bottom right-hand corner and a slight focus on rope over other climbing gear, you wouldn’t even know the company was behind it. The graphic has the simple, informative feel of a poster that could be collecting wads of chewing gum on a junior high school wall somewhere near the gymnasium. Who knows, maybe a teacher will see it online and ask the company to provide a copy to put in their school. Maybe you active media-savvy types will print out a few high-resolution copies and hang it on your kids’ walls. If the graphic gets one kid interested in climbing—even if it’s through learning about ropes, which he or she may eventually want to buy from JustRopes.com— it would be a successful campaign. Nice approach, JustRopes.

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

The best video I’ve seen all morning. Here’s what the Youtube user who uploaded it has to say:

This is at the cafe inside the Memphis Zoo. The manager of the cafe told me that the alpha male monkey noticed me the second I walked in the door and started going crazy, because, as the alpha male, he feels threatened by tall males. So she told me to go stand by the window and turn my back on him and that he would “attack” me

Am I sick for thinking the best part is when the kid starts crying? Ha! This is the rise of the planet of the apes.

Eating snow is a fun past time if you’re under 10, but it’s not so much fun when you are doing it out of desperation deep in the backcountry. Staying hydrated is the key to outdoor performance and survival, so it’s important that you always have your bases covered and carry enough water to sustain yourself. It’s also important that the water you bring doesn’t turn into a useless block of ice. We’ve put together a variety of different hydration tools including hydration packs, insulated bottles and stoves to ensure that you always have water on hand. Check out ActiveJunky.com for more winter hydration tools.

Camelbak Snowangel Winter Hydration Pack

When you are ripping up the resort you want a slim pack that just holds the essentials. This 1.64L low-profile pack won’t add extra bulk, yet it holds 2L of water to be enjoyed at your convenience through a tube and bite valve. The water reservoir is also insulated to keep it from freezing and it has a women’s specific fit.

Get Cash Back on the CamelBak Snoangel Winter Hydration Pack

Platypus Insulator Hydration System

This hydration system fits easily into a pack and comes in 1.8, 2 or 3L sizes. It’s highly insulated with a tough Cordura exterior sleeve and a tube insulator that keeps water from freezing on the coldest days. The leak-free system seals with a side release bucket lid and it has a bite-valve for easy water access.

Get Cash Back on the Platypus Insulator Hydration System

Backcountry Access Stash BC Hydration Pack

This 35L hydration daypack can take you into the backcountry worry free. It has a reservoir bladder stored in an interior pouch that holds 3L of water warmed by your body heat. It also has a bite valve and a kink-resistant tube. Plus the pack can hold all your backcountry essentials like a shovel and probe in an external zippered pocket. It also has A-frame and diagonal ski mounting capabilities and a fleece-lined goggle pocket.

Get Cash Back on the Backcountry Access Stash BC Hydration Pack

Laken ISO Bottle

When you don’t want to take chances with your water, pick up a Laken ISO. This aluminum 0.7L bottle keeps water from freezing with its 7mm thick polyurethane insulation. It also has a wide mouth so it’s easy to clean and the BPA-free lining will keep you safe from toxins. Plus, the loop on the top makes it easy to attach to any pack.

Get Cash Back on the Laken ISO Bottle

MSR Reactor Stove

It’s hard to find liquid anywhere when the temperatures dive, but luckily the ground is usually covered with snow. The MSR Reactor ensures that you will get the hydration you need from melted snow as quickly as possible. MSR calls this stove the fastest and most fuel-efficient cooking system ever. The burner is enclosed by a heat exchanger that performs in the wind and the pressure regulator system keeps the stove running and hot while still conserving as much fuel as possible. It also comes with a 1.7L pot that doubles as storage for the stove and fuel when you’re packing up.

Get Cash Back on the MSR Reactor Stove

Camelbak SnoBlast Winter Hydration Pack

This 18.03L daypack has plenty of room to store essentials when you’re on the mountain. It holds 2L of water and features a bite valve, easy flow technology and insulation to keep it from freezing. The SnoBlast has a low profile design with center baffling, tri-zip gear access and room for all your essentials like goggles, a helmet and extra layers.

Get Cash Back on the SnoBlast Winter Hydration Pack

Stanley Classic Vacuum Bottle

This 16-ounce stainless steal bottle keeps liquids hot or cold for 15 hours with its vacuum insulation. It also has protective double wall construction for durability and a leak-proof stopper so you never loose precious liquid. Plus, the rustproof finish guarantees that your bottle will withstand the elements. In fact, Stanley is so sure about this that it has a lifetime warranty.

Get Cash Back on the Stanley Outdoor Vacuum Bottle

Check out 5 more must have winter hydration tools on ActiveJunky.com

Sunday was a bitter-sweet day for Washington State backcountry snow enthusiasts. On the bright side, a foot and a half of freshly fallen powder coated many of the popular mountains near Seattle. On the related, darker side, three skiers died in an avalanche outside Steven’s Pass and a snowboarder died in an avalanche in an out-of-bounds area at Alpental Valley at Snoqualmie Pass.

The well-equipped skiers were part of a group of 12 who were all buried to some extent in the avalanche outside Steven’s Pass. The three men who died were reportedly swept some 1,500 feet down a chute near Tunnel Creek Canyon. A fourth who was also swept down the chute and buried survived by inflating her avalanche air bag.

The snowboarder who died near Snoqualmie Pass was standing beneath a cliff when an avalanche consumed him.

Steven’s Pass had received 19 inches of snow over the past 24 hours before the incident Sunday. In a season where snow has been scant, the opportunity to carve fresh tracks in the backcountry has proven impossible to resist for many across the country. So far this season, there have been at least 17 avalanche deaths across the West.

Be careful out there.

[Via: King5.com]

‘A Story for Tomorrow‘ is a beautifully filmed and hypnotically narrated short film about a couple traveling through Chilean Patagonia. More than a travelogue, the short has the feel of a modern-day parable. It was both written and produced by Dan Riordan and Dana Saint of Gnarly Bay Productions, Inc while on the road in Chile.

For most of his life wildlife photographer Florian Schulz has fought to protect the diversity of animals species around the world. Working in the most remote region of the planet he’s tracked and documented the wild birds of Mexico, big game animals of the African continent as well as the migratory patterns of caribou in the Alaskan Arctic. And it’s in this frozen region known for its vast featureless landscapes where Florian has followed and photographed the great Polar Bears of the northern hemisphere.

Florian:

It’s really a land of extremes both in temperatures but also in the survival of animals in these harsh environments. And for me that is so intriguing, how the natural world is able cope and adapt to such extreme places. And I found it anything else but a barren wasteland.

With patient study after long months in the field Florian has come to a profound understanding of nature’s most delicate balance. By observing large animals musk ox, wolves, moose and grizzly bears he hopes to make those who see his photographs realize that all of these species have a direct relationship with each other, the land and in no small way the survival of humanity.

At the bi-annual breakfast meeting of the Conservation Alliance at the 2012 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Salt Lake City Utah Florian Schulz was the keynote speaker. Shortly after his presentation he shared with me how he first came to forge an intimate relationship with the harsh and forbidding environment of the Alaskan Arctic.

Florian:

I realized once I gave the land some time, once almost I got invited in I was starting to be able to see and document things that I would have never dreamt of seeing. But I have to be honest that you won’t go there and immediately just see everything. I mean it’s definitely important that you do spend the time and you don’t too big expectations because it’s a vast open place and wildlife sometimes is very dispersed.

JTP:

I think that’s actually one of the most compelling things about your work in that not unlike ice it takes a long time to develop. You have to slow it down. I’m interested in finding out how it is that you were able to slow yourself down enough to get a full appreciation for the minute changes that you wouldn’t necessarily see instantly just by being there. How did you find yourself even able to work in the solitude of that area?

Florian:

I think as a photographer you have it a little bit easier because if you are dreaming of exceptional images that kind of really occupies you. So if it’s a question of how do you get the patience? How do you go to a remote location year after year even though you haven’t been successful in finding the caribou for example? It is because you are envisioning these most spectacular images and that gives you so much excitement that you’re willing to go through the millions of mosquitoes, the freezing temperatures where you’re just really suffering. But that fascination with the images kind of let’s you endure all of that. But I don’t care enough about the suffering like that because you get rewarded with the view of an iceberg underneath the water or, you know, a view of thick bill murres diving as if they were penguins going down into the depths of the ocean. So yeah it’s rewarding. That’s why you can endure it.

JTP:

The work that you’re doing helped to establish a program called Freedom to Roam and the primary premise as I understand it is to create wildlife corridors through which animal species can successfully migrate for mating, for the gathering of food. How is it that you came to understand the necessity for the establishment and maintenance of wildlife corridors?

Florian:

If you think about Europe and how chopped up for example the last natural areas there are you very quickly realize that any large predators life wolves, grizzly bears or even things like lynx they get dramatically reduced. They go extinct and so on if these natural areas become small and smaller. When I did a lot of work in Yellowstone I realized that even a park like that, if it’s not really connected to other natural areas around it where for example grizzly bears can go beyond the park’s boarders to find food like white bark pine, or bison for example. In the winter time the snow doesn’t allow them to get to the food that they leave the park. If that doesn’t work any more the animals inside the park suffer. And over time the diversity in the park will go down. Yet at the same time within the Freedom to Roam project that I’ve been working on which is Yellowstone to Yukon, Baja to Beaufort and even in Mexico rainforest to reef you have to think beyond just the simple migration routes. You have to think that natural areas need to be connected because even plants migrate. Even insects migrate. So one has to realize that nature only does well if it’s embedded, if it’s a web of life, if it’s connected. And I almost call some of these corridors or connection routes almost as if they’re the roots. For example to a national park that gives the national park the vitality. And if it doesn’t have that embedded interconnectedness with the surrounding natural areas even the animals in a protected national park the diversity of animals will go down.

JTP:

That’s actually something you can see, you can observe. Through the course of your work I think what you’ve done is raise the awareness for even the necessity for such a thing. What do you think is most import for people who have the ability to help establish these corridors? What do they need to know to maintain the stability of these animal populations?

Florian:

I think that what everybody needs to know is that if we want to maintain beautiful large fauna around like big mammals whether it’s bison, elk, moose and grizzly bears wolves, any of these spectacular mega-fauna we need to think in the new way which is connectedness, interconnectedness, wildlife corridors. So I think the next most important step is that we establish a term. That’s why I’ve been promoting the term National Corridor. Because what I figure is for example with Yellowstone in 1872, the first national park was created. And it was the first time a term, national park. Now the idea has spread around the world and we have national parks everywhere. If we could do this for wildlife corridors and call them national corridors or national wildlife corridors and define it, how a corridor needs to look. And it could have certain land use happening there, but the most important thing is that the habitat gets protected. If we could establish national corridors as a term, define it then that idea could spread around the world. I think these are the two really important things.

JTP:

You travel with your wife Emil through some pretty dangerous areas and you had the opportunity to interact with quite a few different animal species. What was that relationship like in terms of working with your wife to both take the pictures and also study the animals in these areas.

Florian:

Because often I’m seriously out for months at a time it would be terrible if Emil my wife and I wouldn’t often go out together because I wouldn’t see her for several months. To be out there together as a team is really wonderful because you may see something beautiful out. You may discover a bird. You may have any observation of a behavior or an animal and you can share it with your partner. And just by sharing it, by wording it, the whole experience becomes more special, more beautiful. And you will be able to recall it later on too and recall this very beautiful experience you both shared together. Now of course sometimes people say, ‘how is it possible? You are sometimes together 24 hours a day for several months at a time. How come you are not hating each other or like screaming at each other all the time?’ But I think the passion for just being outdoors as well as for the wildlife connects us so well that we are so excited about observing the animals that the other issues that normally might come up are just not very big.

JTP:

Is there anything in particular that you’ve learned or any life lessons that you’ve come away with personally from your work both as a photographer and as a conservationist?

Florian:

I think that if you’re in conservation and if you look at the status of the planet right now often it can be really, really depressing. And at the same time we know that we humans are only a very unimportant thing in regards to life on earth if we think long term. That I now sometimes dare to relax a little bit and say you know what? We can’t manage or change everything. If we keep ruining this planet this way who we will hurt in the end is us as human beings. But I’ve now translated it into a more philosophical and ethical fight let’s say. Because I want to fight for keeping the diversity of life on this planet, but more because I find that we as humans should really understand that that is one of the greatest values and the greatest beauty of this planet. So even though if we keep destroying this earth the earth will recuperate if we think long-term in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. But right now I feel a responsibility, especially thinking of my child, that I want to do whatever I can to fight to maintain this beautiful diversity on this planet.

Florian Schulz produces a wide variety wildlife photography multi media. Check out his last video called Visions of the Arctic. You can learn more about his work online at Visions of the wild.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

Music this week by new contributing artist Kelly Carpenter

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia. Check their latest conservation and new media initiatives on their blog the cleanestline.com. Additional support is also provided by the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market. Discover new technologies, products and services for your next great adventure all under one big tent. Visit Outdoor Retailer.com.

From Erik: (Even the big names bail.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

From Damon: (He never had a chance.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

From Kat: (Almost perfect.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Who says it’s all work and no play while on expedition? Watch polar explorer Eric Larsen do his take on comedian Zach Galifianakis’s mock talk show, Between Two Ferns, while stationed at a remote ski way in Antarctica.

Produced while on a six-week sabbatical from her job as associate editor of National Parks Magazine, Marquis’ 9-minute movie poignantly explores the issue of racial diversity as it pertains to park visitation in general and Yosemite specifically. Making up a mere one percent of park visitors annually, African-Americans are woefully under represented in national parks. With the support of the National Park Conservation Association, Marquis hopes her film will help to show not only what people of color are missing, but will  also demonstrate their long-standing heritage as park stewards.

“It’s a priority of NPCA to begin engaging audiences and groups of people who are not currently engaged in our national parks,” she said in an interview. “We’re very focused on the National Park Service Centennial in 2016. And part of our vision for the future of the Park Service is to make sure that all Americans are enjoying these places that they own.”

Few visitors, black or white, are aware of the contributions made by African-Americans to the creation of Yosemite, Sequoia and Yellowstone National Parks during their inception in the early 1900s. Ranger Shelton Johnson, who appears in Marquis’ film, shares the story of the Buffalo Soldiers, black members of the U.S. Calvary who patrolled the parks at the turn of the 20th century and performed many of the same duties that Park Service employees do today. Despite this historical legacy, many African-Americans are simply unfamiliar with the privileges entitled to them as citizens, and need, as Johnson says, to be extended an invitation of welcome.

“You shouldn’t have to convince people to go to paradise,” he said as the film opens. “But if I could go to paradise without dying and see all that is there, sign me up! And Yosemite for many people is such a place.”

“The Way Home” provides some of that invitation. The film is free of controversial discussions that seek to find cause or assign blame. And though the question of race is often fraught with animosity, Marquis said she believes there is room to find common ground.

“I’m hoping that the film appeals to a part of us that’s human,” she said. “Yes, color is a big part of this story. But when it comes down to it these are real people, having real experiences on lands that mean a lot to many different people.”

In order to protect and preserve these lands, devotees of our national parks must ultimately come to recognize the importance of making wild places relevant and accessible to as many people as possible. Seemingly less obvious than many of the other rights people of color have fought to achieve, access to public lands can only be realized when its value is made clear and people of color demand it. As surely as we embrace our liberty as citizens, says Ranger Johnson, we must embrace our national parks. And here is where all Americans will witness a modern act of the civil rights movement.

“If Martin Luther King were alive today he would be first and foremost to say we as a people need to go to Yellowstone. We need to go to the Grand Canyon,” Johnson says in the film. “Because if this is America’s best idea and we played a role in its creation how dare we not choose that for ourselves.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Joy Trip Project  Adventure Media Review is supported in part by Patagonia.

More on Komen’s hypocrisy…oh, and the “Coal Cares” ad

From Mother Jones: WATCH: Airing the Komen Foundation’s Dirty Pink Laundry [Saunders Cartoon]
From the Organic Trade Association: Cotton and the Environment (some crazy stuff in here)
From BelleSouth: Why you should have boycotted Komen before this week
From Treehugger: World’s Largest Coal Company Gives Out Free Asthma Inhalers to Kids (Not.)

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

Stay warm and insulated this Winter. Here are 8 packable, lightweight and insulated options to keep out the cold so you can stay active. Check out ActiveJunky.com for more 8 more puffy picks.

Marmot Greenland Baffled Down Jacket – M

If you live for long winter climbs and like sipping in cold mountain air for breakfast, you’re going to want to make the Marmot Greenland Baffled Down Jacket your best friend. It has 800-fill high quality goose down which offers the maximum warmth for the minimum weight. It also features a baffled construction for the best control of the down, an attached hood with a drawcord hood muff for adjustability and an inside water bottle pocket warmed by your body’s heat.

Get Cash Back on the Marmot Greenland Baffled Down Jacket

Outdoor Research Virtuoso Down Jacket -W

When you are making camp after a long day in the backcountry, nothing will feel better than slipping on the Virtuoso down jacket and warming your hands on the fire. It has a high loft 650 down fill and a ripstop polyester shell with 30D Pertex to keep you dry and shiver-free. It also features a fully adjustable hood, a double separating front zipper with an internal stormflap and a brushed tricot lined collar. Plus, it has elastic cuffs and a dawcord hem to keep in the warmth.

Get Cash Back on the Outdoor Research Virtuoso Down Jacket

Columbia Hexaholic Down Jacket – M

Hexagons are used all over the natural world (like turtle shells and honeycombs) because they are very strong, so Columbia instituted hexagon strength in the quilting of their 700-fill down jacket to make it extra durable. The jacket also features their Omni-Heat technology, a system that reflects your own heat back towards you. It also includes underarm ventilation, an adjustable storm hood and extra-deep pockets for more protection. This jacket it perfect for exploring mountain towns on extra chilly days.

Get Cash Back on the Columbia Hexaholic Down Jacket

Patagonia Down Sweater Full-zip Hoody Jacket – W

Alpine climbing and mountaineering are not for the weak of body or spirit. They are hard enough as it is, so fight cold with this extra warm fullzip hoody jacket. It has an 800 goose down fill and a DWR coated recycled polyester shell. You can also stuff the jacket into one of its internal pockets for easy storage. Plus, the luscious colors like the deep chocolate are definitely crave-worthy.

Get Cash Back on the Patagonia Down Sweater Full-zip Hoody Jacket

MontBell Alpine Light Down Parka – M

This jacket is fit for the backcountry because it’s stuffed with 800-fill power goose down so it has a good warmth to weight ratio. It’s also highly lofted, which adds even more lightweight warmth. The result is a jacket that weighs less than a pound and packs down to a grapefruit-size ball. The 30-denier Ballistic Nylon shell will keep you warm in the face of icy drafts and the 2-way fixed adjustable hood and elastic sealed cuffs fend off chills. It also features two zippered hand warmer pockets and a micro-fleece lined collar.

Get Cash Back on the MontBell Alpine Light Down Parka

North Face Catalyst Down Jacket – W

This light jacket is the perfect mountaineering asset. Just right as a midlayer, it’s stuffed with 800-fill high quality goose down and packs down small. Its Pertex exterior fabric has a DWR coating for weather resistance and it’s harness and pack compatible. It also has elastic bound cuffs and a hem cinch-cord.

Get Cash Back on the North Face Catalyst Down Jacket

Rab Infinity Down Jacket – M

When the freezing wind is whipping and each step is a struggle, you can still focus on the summit when you are snuggled in this ultra-warm jacket. It is filled with luxurious 850-fill high-quality goose down and it has a Pertex outer shell to stop wind in its tracks. Other features are a down filled lycra edged hood that keeps your head snug and elastic cuffs to seal out the cold. Plus, it’s highly packable and no sweat to bring along, because believe us, when you need a jacket like this, you’ll really need it.

Get Cash Back on the Rab Infinity Down Jacket

Marmot Ama Dablam Down Jacket – W

Whether you are on an epic mountain trek, or just on belay after a winter climb, this 800-fill power goose down jacket will keep you protected from the cold. It’s extra light, has an adjustable down filled hood and can stuff inside one of its own pockets. It also has zippered hand warmer pockets and a feature that Marmot calls Angel-Wing Movement, which means that you have a full range of motion in the arms so that the jacket doesn’t ride up.

Get Cash Back on the Marmot Ama Dablam Down Jacket

Check out 8 more of our puffy picks on ActiveJunky.com

Few movies you’re better off watching from home. A new film created by Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to deprive big screen viewers a unique opportunity to interact online with a captivating central character.

Bear 71 follows the tragic life of a female grizzly radio tagged and monitored electronically from 2001 to 2009 in the Canadian Rockies’ Banff National Park. Through motion activated still and live action cameras the filmmakers successfully documented her interactions with other animals and human visitors to tell the story of wildlife management from the sympathetic perspective of the bear.

A 20-minute documentary Bear 71 takes viewers on a guided journey through her home range. Narrated in her own words the mother grizzly details the challenges she must face as she tries to evade both contact and harassment among the millions of humans that cross her path every year. Global positioning satellite telemetry creates a detailed map of her movements that allow park rangers to follow her wherever she goes. And viewers online can track the course of her existence right up to the moment of her sudden and most untimely death.

Unfortunately it’s the same technology used to create this film that ultimately derives its outcome. Human intervention made possible through machines and electronic gadgets drives Bear 71 and her cubs into an environment that runs contrary to a million years of evolution.

“It’s hard to say where the wired world ends and the wild one begins,” she mourns. “What’s the first rule of survival? Don’t do what comes naturally.”

Bear 71 is a graphic depiction of the glaring contrast between human civilization and the untamed wilderness. With state of the art social media and web-based interactivity the film’s video game-like quality might even serve as a subtle reminder of what we stand to loose should we fail to protect the natural world, the great open prairies of Canada. A virtual experience may one day be all that remains.

Despite the new first rule of survival a grizzly bear will always do what comes naturally. “The thing is you can take the grizzly out of the prairie, but you can’t take the prairie out of the grizzly,” said Bear 71. “If you take us by surprise we don’t look around for a tree to climb. We take what’s coming, head on.”

And in a direct confrontation with humanity, that’s a fight she simply will not win.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Joy Trip Project Adventure Media Review is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia

Jason Hobbs, like many of us, owns a pocket knife. But unlike you and me, Hobbs has within the week plunged his miniature blade into the muscular chest of an aggressive mountain lion. I guess when you turn around to see a gigantic cat dragging your six-year-old son by his face into the underbrush you have to use what you’ve got.

Here’s how it went down:

Hobbs and Kristi Harris took their son, River, on a family vacation to Big Bend National Park over the weekend. They’d hoped to go camping but opted out after bumping into another family on the trail who informed them that they were being harassed by an aggressive mountain lion. Instead, they decided to rent a room.

On a walkway, en route to their room near the main lodge, the mountain lion attacked. River was in front of his mother, with Hobbs in the lead. In a flash of fur and fangs the big cat sprinted around Harris and pounced on the child. Harris grabbed her son’s hand but the cat prevailed, pulling River to the ground and out of her grasp with a jerk of its powerful neck. It then clamped its fangs onto the boy’s face and began dragging him away.

At this point Hobbs pulled out his pocket knife and *insert heroic music here* jumped into the fray, plunging his blade into the animal’s chest, causing it to let go. The animal then fled the scene.

River survived the incident. He required 17 stitches to close the wounds on his face and will most likely be left with a hell of a manly scar to show for his troubles. When reporters asked him if the attack hurt, the six-year-old victim replied with a show of true Texas grit that would make his father proud:

“No, not that bad.”

[Via: MyFoxNewsAustin.com]

Cartoonist’s note: This image will soon be added to my Anti-Monsanto T-shirt store.

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

1. Shit Cyclists Say. Favorite line: “I’d totally be a Pro if I didn’t have to work.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. Shit Skiers Say. Favorite line: “Bro!!!!!!!”

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Shit Climbers Say. Favorite line: “This route is not my style.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Shit Mountain Bikers Say. Favorite line: “I’m so stoked.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

5. Shit Surfers Say. Favorite line: “Sometimes I just feel like a pelican out there.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, what did these guys miss? Share some of your favorite (or least favorite) lines with us.

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

For companies in the Outdoor Industry day-to-day operations that protect and preserve the environment naturally make good sense. So-called green business practices are meant to be sustainable, using a minimum amount energy and mostly renewable resources to create the products and services that drive our economy.

And for Andrew Winston it’s become abundantly clear that despite any political and social ideology that espouses the virtues of capitalism above all else green technology in commercial manufacturing and production is the best way to for businesses of every variety to assure their long-term profitability and prosperity. Having begun his career as a traditional business consultant Winston said he started taking a closer look into how business and the environment might work together.

Winston:

So I went back to school for an environmental management degree and decided that I wanted to marry business and the environment and figure out how to combine my business background and what was just an interest and passion about resource use, what the foundations of business really are, which is stuff and material and how we’re using too much of it. So it came from a place of practicality and profitability almost, even more than traditional quote tree hugging. That was just about business can’t survive like this. And that means our society can’t.

The author of two books Green to Gold and Green Recovery Andrew Winston was the keynote speaker at the biannual breakfast meeting of the Outdoor Industry Association at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Salt Lake City Utah. There he shared with an audience of true believers his view on the importance of sustainability in business and why in the long run really there is no alternative.

JTP:

One of the things I find fascinating about your conversation is that you talk about issues, especially issues that you describe as “TINA Issues” And that stands for “There Is No alternative”. What are a few examples of these TINA issues? And what do they mean when it comes to reducing sustainability costs?

Winston:

Tina I’m really using in the broadest since. In dealing with climate change, dealing with biodiversity loss, dealing with waste, there is no alternative. We don’t have a choice any more for a lot of reasons and the forces driving that include just increased resource cost and reduced resource availability as the number of people on the planet who are getting richer grows. There’s just not enough stuff. That’s sort of the obvious one. But there’s also transparency, the technology driven demand for knowing what’s in everything. And so this just opens up companies and they have to start talking about what they’re doing. And that means they actually have to start changing what they’re doing. You can’t be transparent about a process that they you don’t want to be a transparent about. So it means that you start changing products, what’s in it? Who made it? Where was it made? Were they paid a living wage? These things start being open to the world. So there is no choice. You can’t compete in a world where your customers, especially big business customers won’t put your products on the shelf if they don’t have the data, if they don’t know how it was made.

JTP:

And you refer to certain technologies that allow consumers to very quickly and easily determine how much of an impact these particular products have. But you also said that we’re a point right now where green will always be small because people aren’t prepared to pay for something that is just green. If that’s the case, at what point do we shift our thinking to such a way that we will go to a sustainable product as opposed to something that’s just green.

Winston:

Well, let me clarify that. What I said was the number people who pay more just for green with remain small. And that’s partly out of just ability to. Not everybody can afford to buy organic food or a more expensive car that has the hybrid or electric engine. So there has to be a more complete value story told by products and that might mean that we develop products that don’t have trade-offs, that don’t cost more. That’s what you see companies starting to do. What is becoming a vast majority of people is those that do want it all, those who are conflicted about it, that care about where their products came from and who made them and want for the same price and quality the greener more sustainable option. And so that is growing to nearly everybody. So that is another one of those TINA things. You can’t not play in this arena if you’re a company putting out a product or a service, because everybody is going to be looking for those dimensions. And it’s a tiebreaker in so many ways. And so I think the difference between green and sustainable is a semantic one in a lot of ways. You know I think sustainable encompasses probably a little more social issues, labor, than what people usually mean by green. By people use them pretty much interchangeably a lot of the time.

JTP:

And I think that some people in the business community shy away from green because it sounds like its expensive. It sounds like it’s irrelevant to their bottom-line. But you make the point that green is actually good business. Exactly how do we as business people determine that green makes good sense from a production standpoint and also from a retail sales standpoint?

Winston:

At its core, the most simplistic view green is about doing more with less. As one CEO said to me, without getting into climate change or taking a stand on it he said, “Isn’t better to produce less carbon than more?” It just costs less. Anything that isn’t used in a product, any thing that’s pollution is waste. That’s expense. This is really basic stuff in a lot of ways. Getting lean to save money and save it quickly, in things like…We’re discovering the inefficiencies in our system, in our buildings in our distribution are vast and we’re finding massive savings and very quick paybacks. And that’s just straight business value. That’s even including all the softer intangible value that does matter to the value of business, employee loyalty, customer loyalty, walking the talk, doing the right thing, these things that attract, especially the next generation, of workers and consumers and enable you to tell stories about where your products come from. So it’s good business because it’s getting incredibly expensive to not do this. I think that’s become very clear to companies. And again, going back to just resource prices, just the inputs. As I mentioned in my talk, Coca-Cola had spent $800 million more last year on corn for their products because the cost of everything is basically going up, fundamentally going up. So if you don’t figure out how to do things with far less stuff you’re just going to get priced out. It’s going to be too expensive for you to operate.

JTP:

You describe the importance of companies becoming lean, smart, creative and engaged. And through the course of all that you’re also recommending exercising just good business practices. It sounds to me like you’re pretty optimistic with some degree of recovery. Is that accurate in my assumption?

Winston:

Optimism is a tough one. I made that my New Year’s resolution this, was to be optimistic. I think you need to be optimistic in the longer run. I think the short run is harder. I mean we’re heading in the wrong direction on most metrics. But you don’t hear a large company in the world any more completely dismissing sustainability because again, they’re seeing their input prices rise. They’re hearing the questions from their customers, from their employees. There is no alternative, right? There’s no choice. The number of companies that I think see how deep the change needs to be or how fast things are going to change I think that number is still very small. So I’m optimistic in the long run yes, that we’re going to get this and we’re going to get it, right? And the world’s moving to a green technology. I mean the electrical grid will be mostly renewable based at some point. It’s a matter of how fast. You know? The economics on that will win out and it will be cheaper. Fundamentally it’s already getting cheaper in many areas to use solar or to use wind or do these kinds of things. So that’s going to be the cheaper option. It’s just a matter of is it fast enough to stave off some of the worst problems we may face.

JTP:

You started your conversation with the issues of politicizing the green economy and green issues. This is a question that just occurs to me but I’m curious to know if you can speak to this with regard to the production of fossil fuels and having fossil fuels be the core if not the basis of our entire economy. Is it possible to make a shift to a more green-based sustainable system and forgo our petroleum-based system in a quick and easy manner?

Winston:

Well like I said, we will get there. The economics are already starting to win out because again I’m fairly simplistic about economic on things like this. Renewable energy has zero variable cost. Meaning, once you’ve got it on your house, on your building, get the wind farm up, it doesn’t cost anything to get fuel. That’s not true of fossil fuels. You’ve got to dig it out, you have to mine it, you got to refine it. Over time, zero cost will win. There’s upfront costs. There’s technology. We have to bring down the cost as we get to scale. But that’s happening very, very quickly. The cost of solar is down two-thirds or so in the last four or five years. I mean it is coming down very quickly. The quick and easy part is where the political stuff comes in. The industries that are still fossil fuel-based, the industries that are producing those, they have a lot of power and they’re sitting on a lot of assets. There’s also two different questions here. There’s the electric grid and there’s mobile sources, you know cars. And those are two very different conversations. You know coal is the issue on the grid and oil is the issue on mobile sources. They have very different challenges and economic models and reasons for moving away from them at whatever pace. I think we’ll move away from coal fairly quickly. Natural gas is turning into a pretty viable and good solution as an interim fuel. And then we’ll get to mostly renewables on the grid. It’s going to take some time, but we’re going that way there are countries like Germany that have said, we’re going to be 100 percent renewable and they’re going there, fast.

JTP:

You said that the economics will win out. At the end of the day what can we most look forward to in this most successful paradigm?

Winston:

It’s an interesting question because what we often do or forget to do in sustainability discussions is paint the picture of a better world. It’s easy to get into the doom and gloom and say, “if we don’t do this” we’re going to have all these problems, quality of life is going to drop. But to remind people, every time we’ve cleaned the air, for example, that’s been kind of the clearest kind of set of regulations around the world for the last 40 years, people get healthier. There’re few dying of asthma and coughing. We sort of forget, we take for granted almost how much healthier we are when we clean the environment. When we produce things using methods that’s much cleaner, that there’s a healthier better life ahead of us that is longer lasting, that is easier to live, that is cheaper. This is the part that is harder to convince people of. It’s actually cheaper. I now have solar panels on my house. They will take a while to pay off, but they will pay off for many, many years and I will get energy for free. Every day that it’s sunny that’s cheaper. It’s a better an inexpensive way of living. We don’t often paint a picture of how much better our life will be in the future, in a cleaner more stable, not reliant upon fuel from a dangerous part of the world kind of way. That’s a better life

Andrew Winston is an international authority on sustainable business practices. You can learn more about his work and finding the gold in green online at AndrewWinston.com

Music this week by Jake Shimabukuro

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia. Check their latest conservation and new media initiatives on their blog the cleanestline.com. Additional support is also provided by the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market. Discover new technologies, products and services for your next great adventure all under one big tent. Visit Outdoor Retailer.com

Thanks for listening. But you know I want hear from you. So please drop me a note with your questions comments and criticism to info@joytripproject.com. Until next time take care.

From Obie: ( Well at least the second landing was soft.)

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From Roscoe: (Just a little more speed.)

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From P. Coltrane: (Even the best laid plans ….)

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Photo Via: Orin Zebest, Flikr

Are you a liberal-minded newshound who is sick of hearing from pollsters predicting which candidate-of-the-week will sweep the next key state in the Republican presidential primary race? Perhaps the results from the 2012 Colorado College State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll will make you a little more optimistic about the state of conservative thinking in this country.

The majority of the 2,400 voters polled in six western states (AZ, CO, NM, UT, WY, MT) identified as being politically conservative, with 38% claiming to be part of the Tea Party. Among other things, the poll results, which were released today, reveal that 92 percent of these voters who also consider themselves to be “sportsmen” believe that public lands are an “essential part” of the economies of their respective states. Nearly two-thirds of those polled also opposed allowing private companies to develop public lands when it would limit the public’s enjoyment of or access to these lands.

While it may not come as a surprise to discover that people who identify as sportsmen (primarily hunters and fishermen) would recognize the economic and societal value associated with access to public lands and conservation, it is interesting to note that when it comes to protecting the great outdoors, this mostly conservative-leaning segment tends to sound almost liberal in its beliefs.

Will the fight to protect America’s great outdoors be the bridge issue that links liberals and conservatives in 2012? Probably not. But it’s good to know that we can all at least agree on something.

Here are some factoids from the poll:

• 85% of sportsmen in the West say that “even with state budget problems, we should still find money to protect and maintain” their state’s “land, water and wildlife;” 81% say the same about state parks.

• 75% consider cuts to funding for state parks, protection of natural areas and water quality as a serious problem

• 75% say that we can protect land and water and have a strong economy at the same time.

• 92% agree that “Our national parks, forests, monuments, and wildlife areas are an essential part of their state’s economy.”

• By a 20 point margin, sportsmen are more likely to view environmental laws more as “important safeguards to protect private property owners, public health and taxpayers from toxic pollution and costly clean-ups” (56%) than to view them as “burdensome regulations that tie up industry in red tape, hurt them too much financially, and cost jobs” (36%).

• 75% consider cuts to funding for state parks, protection of natural areas and water quality as a serious problem.

• 68% say that their state should maintain protections for land, air and water in the state rather than reduce them in an effort to create jobs as quickly as possible.

• 62% say that environmental regulations have a positive impact on opportunities to hunt and fish in their state; a solid majority says the same about opportunities for outdoor recreation (56%).  Majorities of sportsmen also ascribe positive benefits to environmental regulations for the natural beauty of their state (78% positive impact), public safety (70% positive impact), their quality of life (69% positive impact), and public health (60% positive impact).

• 65% agree that “We should NOT allow private companies to develop our public lands when their doing so would limit the public’s enjoyment of – or access to – these lands.”

• 62% support the EPA “continuing to implement the Clean Air Act by updating the standards for air quality, including for smog, dust, and emissions from power plants, factories and cars,” with 43% strongly in support.  Just over one-third (36%) oppose this.

Mental Jive Turkey Helmet Cover

Animal? Human? We’re not sure but this little number tops our weird list. It features a lycra shell with “Fun Spun” non-pilling polyester fleece. It also will fit any size helmet and is compatible with all goggle straps and clips.

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686 Snaggletooth Baselayer

Is there anything better than having a little snaggletooth peering out of the stripes of your baselayer? We think not! Long underwear hasn’t been this exciting since…well, ever. This top by 686 is odor resistant (so you’ll just look like a monster, not smell like one) and moisture wicking for performance and style. But be warned, according to most other websites, the Snaggletooth Base Layer sells out very quickly so get your paws on one before they’re gone.

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Get Cash Back on the 686 Snaggletooth Baselayer Bottom

Volcom Factor V. Co-logical Jacket – W

This jacket gives off the kind of retro-cool vibe that only the extra confident can rock, because we’re not going to lie – it looks like something a female Napoleon Dynamite would wear. That being said, it keeps you dry and warm with Volcom’s V- Science recycled polyester. It also has a breathable liner to keep you from feeling like a wet puppy. Plus, it has all the right details like a suede chin guard, cuffs that wrap your thumb and a hood that provides good peripheral vision.

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Pirate Edition Beard Head

Now you can have that mustache you’ve been dreaming about growing since peach fuzz popped up on your face! Twirl-able, scruffy and unique this is the perfect accessory if you want to look downright crazy. We’re going to be honest, it probably won’t help you pick up the ladies, but if you’re going for weird the mustache balaclava will definitely help you along. We don’t sell them but you can pick the pirate edition from Beard Head.

Check out the Pirate Edition Beard Head

Icelantic Shaman Ski

It would seem counterintuitive to rock a ski that copies a turtle’s body shape, but Icelantic created the Shaman to mimic the diamond-shaped shovel and tapered design of a turtle. The 160mm tip is one of the biggest powder skis around and it has incredible floatation and stability. We predict that soon you’ll be making the little shelled reptile your spirit animal – hey, stranger things have happened.

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OneBallJay Mad Bunny Wax

If you can’t crush your obsession with rabbits you may want to talk to a shrink. In the meantime, you can indulge it and snag OneBallJay’s Mad Bunny Wax to give your board a good rub down. You can either apply it manually on or use it as a hot wax. Either way we have a feeling it’s going to make you really, really hoppy.

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Armada Rumble Mitten

Hi, yes, we just wanted to let you know that Ronald McDonald called and he wants his mittens back. All kidding aside, these babies will keep you unfailingly warm. This boxing style mitt has Thinsulate insulation and a microfleece liner that wicks moisture to banish cold. It also has a waterproof lining to keep you dry and comfortable. Bonus? If anyone makes fun of the aggressive color scheme you can just pop them in the face – you probably won’t feel a thing.

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If you are one of these mind-boggling Republicans, remember these toxins and carcinogens get into the mother and have an immediate and drastic effect on fetuses. If anything, protect the earth from harmful toxins for the fetuses. You won’t have to call yourselves “environmentalists”, call yourselves “Fetus Purifiers”, or something of the like…I’m sure you’re quite clever.

By the way, there are even Republicans environmentalists. You can join them (or him).

It’s never too late to stop cutting off your nose to ensure the major polluting industries that back your politician keep making insane profits (sharing none of the gains yet all of the “unforeseen” losses) while making us sick. I think that’s how the saying goes…

More on protecting the environment for fetuses (and the living)

From Medscape: Childhood Cancer and Environmental Toxins Are Both Increasing
From Discovery Health: Infant Development and Toxins
From Sierra Student Coalition: Tackling Childhood Asthma Not Coal Industry Priority After All
From NRDC: Benefits of Organic Food (or, “Why conventional farming is harmful”)

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

“Adding environmental education to The Lorax movie website is important because this is the message of the book and it should be honored. Dr. Seuss wanted people to be inspired by The Lorax to help the environment,” Mr. Well wrote in the petition. “Currently, the movie website, trailer, and story summary have no mention of helping our planet! This is a missed opportunity. There are big problems in our natural world and we need more and more people helping out.”

I for one can’t wait to see this film. A sucker for cartoons there’s nothing I love better than to have my favorites brought to life on the big screen. First published in 1971 “The Lorax” is a cautionary tale that illustrates what will happen when the interests of commerce are elevated above the protection of the natural world. The 4th-graders’ observation makes me wonder if there may indeed be a dilution of the story’s clear and profound environmental message. We must speak for the trees.

I recall in 1988 “The Lorax” was banned by the school district of Laytonville, California because it “criminalized the forestry industry”. Apparently members of that community feared local children were being manipulated into believing that their parents’ livelihood was derived through evil means. This bit of ACLU history is perhaps a precursor to the recent declarations by Republican activists that the latest Muppet Movie is in fact a piece of communist propaganda to demonize capitalism and the right to earn a buck.

If nothing else all of this hullabaloo demonstrates the absurdity of anything taken to extremes. Though Dr. Seuss advocated the preservation of trees in his book, it’s likely he would have favored a sustainable practice of planting and extraction, thoughtfully cultivating supply to meet reasonable demand. That’s just good business.

And while corporate zealots and eco-fascists might accuse each other of cause-celeb fanaticism, when it comes to entertaining and educating children it’s better to let them have their cartoons like this one that teach the consequences of our actions. “The Lorax” isn’t about assigning blame or imposing job-killing regulations to protect the environment. In the end the book demonstrates how through personal responsibility we can each work to set things right even when they go horribly wrong. And that’s a good lesson to be learned for 4^th graders and adults alike. ~ JEM

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The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia

From Jakob: (Maintenance fail.)

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From Sean: (Is pole dancing next the next extreme winter sport?)

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From Ziggy: (You should him see crash on the mountain, it’s even more epic.)

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Injuries are a fact of life for outdoor athletes. Breaks, bruises, sprains – you name it, come Monday morning there’s a fair chance that someone in our Active Junky office will come in ruffed up. When it happens to you, there is nothing to do but grin and bear it until you are ready to get back on the mountain. However, there is one thing that is very difficult – nay impossible – to fix with a splint: your brain. Wearing a helmet on the mountain is a must these days, but that doesn’t mean that you have to endure the bulky, heavy buckets that first came on the market. Helmets today are light, sleek, aerodynamic and will help you protect your most important asset while you shred that pow.

Giro Shiv Helmet

This helmet is popular among pro athletes for its simple, clean shape and excellent temperature regulation. It features vents that pull air in and push hot air out so your head never overheats. Plus, the Shiv’s impact absorbing foam liner is fused with the outer hard shell so it’s less bulky.

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R.E.D. Theory Helmet

If you refuse to don a brain bucket because of your oddly shaped head, this is the helmet for you. Its Air Band 270 + Fit System lets you pump up the inner padding so it molds to your head for the perfect fit. It also has a DryRide liner that wicks moisture and venting so that your head doesn’t feel like a steam room.

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Bern Carbon Watts Fiber Knit Helmet

This carbon fiber helmet is so light (12.2 ounces) that you won’t even remember it’s there. It also has vents in the back for excellent airflow and breathability, which coupled with its weight, make it a perfect asset in the backcountry. This four-season helmet also has a removable, warm knit liner you can ditch come summer.

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Smith Allure Helmet – W

This 11.5 ounce helmet, according to Smith, is the lightest helmet that passes regulation but doesn’t sacrifice protection in the process. It also has a climate control feature where you can choose the amount of airflow through the helmet, and its fleece tricot lining means that you never have to deal with brain freeze.

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Pro-Tec Riot Audio Force Helmet

This lightweight helmet is the newest from Pro-Tec and features an in-mold shell with an EPS impact liner made to take big punches. It also features a wind shield for a gapless fit between goggles and helmet and a one-piece washable liner. In case of emergency, it also has rescue reflectors that can aid in getting you help.

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Smith Variant Brim Helmet

This sleek helmet will make you forget about the bubble-headed monster buckets from days past. It has a high tech ventilation system (with 22 vents!) that helps circulate air and release heat so that your goggles don’t fog.  It also has a system that lets you customize the fit with the turn of a dial so you never have to deal with your helmet flopping around or digging into your head.

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Salomon Patrol Custom Air Helmet

Salomon fused a polycarbonate shell with an EPS cap directly in the mold so that the helmet is lighter and better prepared for impacts. It also features a ventilation system that lets you adjust the helmet to three different temperature settings. If you have hard-to-fit head, this is another helmet that lets you customize its shape with an air pump.

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[Via: AP]

[Photo Via: TaxBrackets.org]

More on why you too should say F U to GMOs:

From Grist: The next generation of GMOs could be especially dangerous
From Organic Consumers Association: Millions Against Monsanto
From PlanetSave: Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Maize Fields
From Cornucopia Institute: More on GMOs

By the way, my cartoon website (and any other website speaking truth to corporate power) may get shut down if the SOPA legislation passes. It’s internet censorship. It kills the freedom of speech and today is the day to take action.

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

When you’re skiing you want you eyes focused solely on the prize – shredding the nastiest lines, stomping moguls and feeling like you’re flying. However, when your vision is clouded by fog or muddled by flat light your chances of killing it on the mountain fall to zero. Plus, your sensitive little peepers are vulnerable to other dangers.  For example, we know that sun reflects off the snow with such intensity that it can fry your mug into bacon, so imagine what it does to exposed eyeballs!

To keep you safe and seeing clearly, we’ve put together a list of the best goggles on the market. They will all shield you from the sun, ward off fog and have a list of features so high-tech you’ll have to see out of them to believe.

The Smith I/OS

This sleek goggle comes with two performance mirror lenses – one for bright sun and one for low light so that you can get you fix no matter what the weather is. It also features a quick adjustment system for the perfect fit fast and an ultra wide silicone back strap so that it doesn’t budge. Plus, the dual layer face foam is moisture wicking to keep you dry and fog free.

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 The POC Lobes

This James Bond worthy goggle has a unique spherical lens that prevents optical distortion. Whether you’re fighting international criminals or just ripping up pow, the POC Lobe provides a huge range of vision so that you always know what’s going on. The polycarbonate and cellulose proportional lenses also banish fogging for good, even at high speeds.

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The Dragon Mace

If you’ve always felt akin to the Ninja turtles, you can rock the hell out of this radioactive goggle in Vice Mind Melt Green. It also has an extra wide anti-fog lens and triple layer face foam for a ring-free après. If you have a big head, you will appreciate the Dragon Mace’s larger fit.

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The Electric EG2

The Electric EG2 has an extra wide polycarbonate lens for an unencumbered view and an ergonomic design for a natural fit. It also features an anti-fog and anti-scratch coating to keep your vision clean no you matter how tangled you get in the trees and underbrush. The anti-reflective technology also protects you from harsh rays.

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The Scott Aura – Women’s

If your view is foggier than the Bay Area during the summer, you need to take immediate action and get this crystal clear goggle optimized for female faces. It has Scott’s NoFog lens treatment and an air control system that ventilates so that you never have to deal with cloudy vision. It also has a spherical double lens and hypoallergenic face foam.

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The Spy Bias

If you are a person with a slightly smaller noggin, you want to get your hands on the Spy Bias.  It has it all with a flexible polyurethane frame fitted with spherical dual lenses featuring anti-scratch and anti-fog protection. It also has a ventilation system to fight fog and face foam with moisture wicking fleece.

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The Anon Comrade

Anon’s Comrade is made to fit people more akin jolly-green giant than average human. It is ultra high tech with a spherical lens that mimics the curvature of the human eye for a crystal clear view in all directions. It also has venting around the entire perimeter for fog-free vision and a hard shell coating for scratch resistance.

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The Oakley Airbrake

In life it’s always good to have options. Oakley has embraced this sentiment wholeheartedly with their Airbrake, which features two lenses for different lights. They also have Switchlock technology that allows you to quickly and easily change them out. Plus the dual lenses filter out all UV and they have a thermal layer between them to banish fog.

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Bicycling while clutching a guitar or banjo can be an awkward experience. Your balance gets thrown off by the weight of the instrument while its awkward shape impedes navigation. So what’s a pedal-prone musician to do? One option that works well is to get a soft case that can be worn as a backpack. But for those looking for a more universal solution—one that will enable them to haul everything from amps to drums to boxes of fanfare on their bikes—there is a new product called Axrak.

Axrak is a multi-purpose bicycle rack originally designed to hall your ax. (Not the ax you used to build your cabin but the one you use to rock its foundation while huddled around its wood-burning stove.)

I discovered Axrak by way of Facebook thanks to the folks at FAR from EARTH Films, who made the videos imbedded in this post. The videos, which were posted this week, direct interested parties to the company’s website, axrak.com. Unfortunately, the site does not seem to be online just yet. Hopefully it will be up and running soon though because this looks like a cool product.

For now, folks interested in ordering Axrak should contact Harvey Swanson at Harvswans@gmail.com.

Another video of the Axrak in action:

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Apocalypse Later, Surf Now” is a dark, gritty short featuring a group of surfers that choose to ride waves as the world around them erupts in a futuristic battle. There is no dialogue, but massive and strange-looking machines (alien vehicles???) loom in the distance while cool jets blow each other out of the sky, giving the impression that a war over the fate of earth is happening just above a good break. It’s like Terminator meets Point Break meets Cloverfield—all squeezed into just over two minutes.

Leading fitness experts agree. The key to good health is a proper diet and plenty of exercise. Climbing guide Steve Richert knows this to be true better than most. A type-1 diabetic, he aims to demonstrate the power of an active lifestyle in not only managing his disease but to boost his athletic abilities to peak performance. With his wife Stefanie, co-founders of the non-profit Living Vertical, Steve is hitting the road for a full year to climb across North America in a diabetes awareness program he calls Project 365.

“My philosophy is diabetes is what you make of it,” Steve said in a recent interview. “It doesn’t have to be a disability and it doesn’t have to debilitate you.”

Climbing became a part of Steve’s life around the same time he was diagnosed with diabetes in 1999. Although he doesn’t recall the exact month the plan is to turn the date, his diagnosis day or “diaversary”, into a new milestone with special significance.

“I have a hard enough time managing a couple of birthdays and a wedding anniversary–but we have decided to begin Project 365 on January 16th 2012, on my 13th “diaversary”,” Steve wrote in his blog. “365 days later, upon successful completion of our project, I will celebrate!”

A blood sugar disorder, diabetes includes a range of symptoms that vary as the body’s insulin levels rise and fall.

“If your blood sugar gets too high it can cause you to become lethargic and less aware of your surroundings. It blunts your senses,” Steve said. “And if your blood sugar drops too low, that’s much more of an immediate danger where you can go unconscious or have seizures.

It’s basically a balancing act. Diabetics have to manually control their blood sugar through constant monitoring and periodic injections of insulin. Steve, 29, also diligently works at keeping his body in shape through climbing and he maintains a stable metabolism through a diet that emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and as little animal protein as possible.

“There are a lot of variables in managing this. There are a lot of ups and downs. And I have those to a point,” Steve said. “But it’s never been debilitating for me because I’m very strict about the diet.”

With his symptoms in check Steve has been able to press the boundaries of his climbing. For the past five years he’s worked as a climbing guide in the Shawangunk Mountains, also known as the Gunks, near his home in New York. He and Stefanie have traveled extensively to climb, sending routs in areas like Zion, Squamish, Devil’s Tower and Yosemite Valley. And over the next year they’ll drive across the U.S. to drop in on all the popular climbing spots they can while continuing to show that diabetes need not get in the way of an active life.

“I want to push myself,” Steve said. “Part of the goal is I want to see if I dedicate a year to living this lifestyle how much my climbing can improve.”

Currently climbing between 5.8 and 5.12 Steve said he hopes to put in at least a vertical mile every month, incorporating some kind of alpine skill every day.

“We’re going to be doing some mountaineering, some bouldering, some gym climbing. We’re going to be doing some aid climbing,” he said. “While there’re many activities that can be called climbing the basic challenges remain the same. And to overcome any challenge you have to figure out a way to make it yours. You have to normalize it. You have to make it part of your life. And once you do that it grows from there.”

Steve wants people to realize that whether they’re managing a disease like diabetes or setting a climbing goal the key to success is dedication. With a keen since of awareness for the critical details involved he believes it’s possible to accomplish just about anything given enough time, patience and persistence. Climbing is a metaphor that illustrates all life’s challenges. So over the next year he and Stefanie will put it to the test and see what they can accomplish on the upward path of living vertically. Their journey begins officially on January 16, 2012. Follow along on their blog http://www.livingvertical.org ~

Wenger Footwear Boar Heated Boot (M)

If your feet are constantly loosing circulation and turning a sickly blue when you spend more than a couple hours outside, you need a serious boot that will bring your poor feet back to life. This high-tech baby features a lithium battery powered heating unit that sends waves of heat beneath the ball of your foot for up to nine hours. It’s also constructed with waterproof full grain nubuck and has a tough leather outsole to keep wet snow outside your boot where it belongs.

Earn cash back on the Wenger Footwear Boar Heated Boot

Baffin Snogoose Winter Boot (W)

With a style reminiscent of moon boots, the Baffin Snogoose is designed for the seriously active snow go-er. It has a waterproof nylon upper and a light polyester lining that is both quick drying and removable, and like Columbia’s Omni Heat, it has an aluminum membrane that reflects heat back into the boot. It also has moisture wicking properties and is breathable for extra comfort while you’re in motion. Yet just because this boot is light and ready for action does not mean that it’s not warm – it’s rated to -40° F.

Earn Cash Back on the Baffin Snogoose Winter Boot

Sorel Caribou Boot (M)

Active Junkies have relied on Sorel to keep their feet warm and dry since 1962, and they still sport the reputation of the best snowboot money can buy. The Caribu Boot has fully sealed seems to keep out slush and snow, and a strong, soft and waterproof leather upper. It also features a 9mm felted wool inner boot that traps the heat your feet generate, and a rubber outsole with their AreoTrac bottom to keep you from slipping and sliding.

Earn Cash Back on the Sorel Caribou Boot

The North Face Shellista Lace Boot (W)

The women’s specific boot will keep you warm and looking smart. Not only is it designed with style in mind it has very warm (and eco-friendly) PermaLoft insulation that hugs the feet to stave off drafts, and a waterproof suede upper anatomically designed for the perfect fit. Plus the sturdy rubber compound outsole is sure to keep your feet dry and happy.

Earn Cash Back on the North Face Shellista Lace Boot

Salomon Tundra Boot (M)

When the tempertures plunge, there comes a point when it’s hard to tell how cold it really is, because below 10°F, it all feels the same – freezing. Luckily, Salomon has a boot that can keep your feet warm even if you find yourself in -40° degree weather. The boot is lined with Areogels insulation –an incredibly high-preforming material that has been proven to keep feet warm for 50% longer than other comparable products. Plus, the protective and grippy rubber outsole is designed to take on slippery conditions.

Earn Cash Back on the Salomon Tundra Boot

Asolo Mystic GTX Boot (W)

When the snowflakes start to fall and the wind howls, you’ll be glad that you have on the Asolo Mystic GTX boot. It’s the height of winter performance gear with a water-resistant polyester upper and a Gortex lining to guarantee that your feet stay dry. The boot is also insulated for warmth, and has an anatomical footbed that supports your feet no matter how far you choose to wander. Plus, the tough rubber outsole will make sure you don’t slip on you way there.

Earn Cash Back on the Asolo Mystic GTX Boot

The North Face McMurdo II (M)

It’s great to find a snowboot that keeps out winter, but when you find one that also cushions your feet like your favorite slippers, you know you’ve found a keeper. The North Face McMurdo II has a fleece lining for extra warmth and comfort, and Pirmaloft insulation to protect your feet from the cold. Plus the EVA molded footbed adds another level of comfort. Since your feet will stay oh-so toasty in these boots, they’ve also added an Agion antimicrobial footbed to prevent warm feet from turning into stinky feet.

Earn cash back on the North Face McMurdo II

Columbia Bugzip Omnitech Winter Boot (W)

This space-aged boot features Omni Heat technology, which means its lining is covered with small metallic dots that trap your body’s heat and reflect it back toward you. Columbia also knows that when you’re active you get sweaty, so it’s important for a boot to have some breathability. Their waterproof, yet breathable membrane locks out the cold stuff, but circulates air to keep feet dry at the same time. The boot is also has a faux fur lining for a soft, luxurious feel.

Earn Cash Back on the Columbia Bugzip Omnitech Winter Boot

Keen Alaska Boot (M)

In Alaska it’s cold –very, very cold. But like the brave people that live there, this boot knows how to fight winter weather and icy wet snow. The Keen Alaska boot has a full-grade leather upper stacked with their synthetic KEEN.WARM insulation. The tough rubber sole makes walking on ice safe again and prevents against slush attacks. The Thermal Heat Shield in the footbed takes the heat you generate and reflects it back into the boot so that your toes never go numb from the cold.

Earn Cash Back on the Keen Alaska Boot

Sorel Joan of Arctics (W)

Whether you’re tromping through the snowy wilderness or strutting through city streets, this beautiful classic will protect your from the elements. Active Junky testers loved the comfortable fit of these felt-lined boots, and the added warmth of the fur top. The herringbone heavy-duty rubber outsole fights slick ice, and the boot is unbelievably warm. Plus the felt lining is recycled, so these boots are a win-win for everyone.

Earn Cash Back on the Sorel Joan of Arctics

Photo Via: Alaskan Dude

When someone starts a Tumblr-blog dedicated to free porn, it’s bound to attract followers—even if the subject of said porn is cabins. Just. Plain. Cabins. (And awesome photos thereof.) Featuring over 20 pages of cool shots of shanties, lean-to’s, forts, tiny houses, barns and bone-fide cabins in iconic locations, the website Cabin Porn offers plenty that will help readers kill some time. Like the rustic dwellings it features, the site’s simplistic appeal is difficult to ignore—something the 13,000 people who have recommended it on Facebook would likely attest to. But going through the website this morning, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something about many of the featured dwellings also feels a little contrived, like rimmed glasses on a guy with 20/20 vision.

Cabins, like porn, come in different grades of dirtiness. First, there are the soft-core B-porn cabins, which you might see advertised on late-night television. These design-focused dwellings, which are often found near ski resorts, may cost as much as a house and offer the same amenities. You could take your grandma into one without feeling too uncomfortable. On the other end of the spectrum are the filthy ramshackle cabins that have been lurking in the human condition forever but are now only being made visible to the general prudish public because of the internet. These are the hardcore backcountry hovels where mountain men and monks and criminals and army veterans too disturbed by the lives they’ve taken go to live off the grid in total solitude; cave-like places that reek of sweat and freedom where bleeding animal carcasses hang on the walls and splintered bones and the shattered remains of vodka bottles carpet the floors—the kind of nasty nests you don’t come upon in the woods and enter without first looking over your shoulder to make sure no one is around to walk in on you. Cabin Porn features dwellings that for the most part fall somewhere between these two extremes, often in the realm of an entirely new form of outdoor obscenity—the hipster cabin.

I don’t know what first gave it away—the fact that Cabin Porn begins with a note about its creators communally caring for some land in upstate New York; the images of cabin dwellers wearing thick-rimmed glasses, Goodwill-style vests and overalls that look straight out of the box or that the editor is this guy, Zach Klein, who co-founded and designed Vimeo and is now a heavy-hitting financial investor. It sounds like Klein is doing the right thing with his money, spending time outside and investing in companies he digs. And everybody should be encouraged to build a cabin to better enjoy the experience of the outdoors. Still, for some reason that the desire to build cabins could infect the Brooklyn-style hipster set and become trendy is unsettling.

The dwellings featured on Cabin Porn are not all obnoxious by any means. The images show, for the most part, pretty cool-looking places that anyone in their right minds would be happy to have access to. And the folks who built the hipster-style ones probably look just like you and me once you pull them out of their skinny jeans. Yet that thread—of well-financed yet purposely “rustic” cabins being celebrated by trendsters using professional-grade photography equipment—runs thick through the website, documenting the beginning of what seems to be an emerging fad that has the potential to become even more disturbing than Two Girls, One Cup.

With Cabin Porn, as with any other website that offers cheap thrills, just be careful what you click, otherwise you might stumble upon an image of something that would have been better left in the backcountry of the internet.

From Jimmy: I suppose this is hardcore.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From Cliff: Well in all fairness he did stick the landing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From Kurt: Well she almost got her hand in front of her ….

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our pasture session was just the latest in a string of skiing adventures shaped by the especially thin-cover conditions prevailing in Northeast US, and in many parts of the lower 48, this season. And while the snowpack has been thin and the deep powder might be in short supply, it continues to be a great season – a season that has forced us to be more creative than usual, to scramble when even a few snow flakes started to fly, and to slow down and simply enjoy what we’ve got.

Here are some highlights of the season to share:

It finally got cold enough to snow in late October, and thanks in part to our edgeless, go anywhere, ski anything Marquette Skis, we were enjoying our first sweet turns of the season on little more than a heavy frost…

A few days later, just before Halloween, the giant storm that knocked out power to thousands of homes across southern New England had us sliding shin deep into some of our favorite runs near Mount Killington, VT…

The Halloween snow didn’t last long, however, and before long, we were back to typical early November conditions…

Thanksgiving delivered, however, with nearly a foot of snow that was dense enough to allow us to slide into some of our favorite tree lines for the first time this season…

But even the Thanksgiving snow didn’t last, and before long, we were making sacrificial turns for the snow gods, in the rain….in December….

Word on the street over the holidays was that Lake Champlain was still ice free and warmer than usual, and right after Christmas, the lake-induced Champlain Powder machine turned on. And it dumped…

Our local mountains were treated to a solid foot of fluff from that first blast of Champlain Pow, just enough to allow Vermont’s Mad River Glen to open for the busy New Year’s weekend. And although a cycle of warm air, light rain and then cold turned our powder to crust on New Year’s Day, mountain snow showers over the last week have been covering up that crust, with conditions improving by the day…

Some higher elevations areas have picked up more than a foot of fresh snow in the last week, and although the snowpack is still very thin and riddled with stumps, hidden branches and stray rocks, we’ve been sliding very carefully into some very tasty zones…

Still, especially at lower elevations, there’s only so much snow to go around. But with just enough snow to tempt us into ripping our neighborhood pastures, we’ve been skiing locally. At times, we don’t even start the cars…

Still, as much as we’ve learned to love the thin-cover season upon us right now, a few feet of fresh snow would make this season even sweeter. Snow is in the forecast for the Northeast and many parts of the country right now… Think snow.

Brian and Emily
EmberPhoto.com
AdventureSkier.com

###

With environmental-cartoon topics ranging from Michelle Bachmann to Tim DeChristopher, Breastfeeding to Big Coal, it was an interesting year in environmental cartoons.

Follow this link and spend a few minutes looking over what were my eleven most-viewed cartoons of 2011.

Happy New Year!
Joe Mohr (aka “Mean Joe green”)

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

This cartoon was inspired by the Washington Post article, “Energy industry shapes lessons in public schools“

Big Coal may be molding our youth with pro-coal propaganda, but worry not, Big Coal also offers a “green” video to teachers called “The Greening of Planet Earth,” which says that “our world is deficient in carbon dioxide, and a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is very beneficial.”

Doubling the CO2 is good for you. By you they mean their bottom line. Afterall, to Big Coal “you” are either a means to drive profit or block profit. They’re doing what they can to make sure our children do not grow up and do the latter. Of course, they’re also making sure our children grow up with an increased risk of asthma, premature death, and mercury-related illness.

Fortunately, the EPA just set new rules to limit mercury and other toxic emissions. As David Roberts of Grist states, “It will save tens of thousands of lives every year and prevent birth defects, learning disabilities, and respiratory diseases. It will make America a more decent, just, and humane place to live.”

David, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, must not have gone to a Coalementary School. However, these folks did!

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

Part surfing documentary and part environmental journalism, Tipping Barrels: Journey Into the Great Bear is a 20-minute short that’s worth the watch. Surfers and brothers Arran and Reid Jackson venture through Central and North Coast, B.C., wherein lies one of the unspoiled rainforests in the world—a home to wolves, grizzlies, and yes, spirit bears. The area is, unfortunately, at risk thanks to the Northern Gateway pipeline that will run from Alberta to the West Coast, delivering crude oil for Asian markets. It would likely destroy the rainforest habitat for the bear populations.

Oh, and the surfing footage is pretty cool, too.

[Via: Peanut Butter Coast]

More on the U.S. public opinion on Climate Change

From Grist: The frog and the polar bear: The real reasons Americans aren’t buying climate change
From PlanetSave: UN Climate Negotiators Wrestle for an ‘Ideal’ Plan that Will Completely Screw Us
From Ecopolitology: Republican Presidential Candidates on Climate Change
Another cartoon: Wrong and Wrongerer: How Both Sides of the Aisle Address Climate Change

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

Patagonia Sur’s revenue comes from membership-based eco-tourism, limited and ecologically appropriate development in highly-prized locations, ecologically friendly aquaculture and agriculture, carbon sequestration and the sale of carbon offsets.

For more details on this partnership, visit here.

[Photo via: Patagonia Sur]

This compelling video tells a succinct version of the dirty coal story.

For more info visit powerpastcoal.org

More on Fox News and their passionately misinformed legion of followers

From ThinkProgress: Fox News Viewers are the Most Misinformed: A Seventh Study Arrives to Prove It — and Vindicate Jon Stewart!
From HuffingtonPost: Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don’t Watch Any News: Study
From PlanetSave: Fox News Boss Ordered Staff to Make Climate Change Seem Doubtful
From my cartoon archive: “Mean Joe green’s” Fox News cartoons

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

Both the county and city mayors of Salt Lake City, along with the US Forest Service, have recently voiced their opposition to a proposed Utah ski lift, which would link two Salt Lake City area ski resorts, The Canyons and Solitude.

Management from the two resorts met this past fall to propose a gondola that would open thousands of backcountry acres and reduce Salt Lake area traffic between Park City and the famed Cottonwood Canyons within city limits. These officials argue that the linkage would exponentially reduce Salt Lake area traffic.

But, according to Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, there is more at risk than red lights and crowded city streets.

“Ignoring the importance of our sensitive watershed areas is unacceptable and sets a perilous precedent for the future of this resource for the entire Salt Lake Valley,” Becker said.

It seems long term issues like groundwater and ecological stability are not at the forefront of developers’ minds. Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Coroon went on to say, “I will not support measures which compromise our environment, watersheds, or protected wilderness.”

It’s good to see state government officials speaking out against environmental destruction.

Even though the resorts claim that the lift would keep Utah’s Wasatch wilderness pristine and intact, never dropping riders in the backcountry, the US Forest Service has said otherwise. Though the lift wouldn’t drop skiers into the backcountry, the construction process alone will “mar the alpine backcountry.”

[Via: Deseret News]

[Photo via: Flickr]

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

The LABOR OF LOVE series stands for the small businesses and designers who are still creating and constructing products in America instead of opting for oversees manufacturing like many competitors. The video above features Lauren Junker, creator of Totally Tubular Designs, who gets her kicks from foraging through trash to find used bike tubes, colorful tires and vinyl—materials that she will later sew into bags, wallets and jewelry. Her unique designs stand out from the typical designer bags you’ll find on the shelves of most department stores and serve as a reminder that we can all make small contributions to the environment through our purchasing decisions.

The Vancouver Sun conducted a lengthy investigation and found that the negative environmental impacts were much greater than just the havoc of the pine beetle. From small predators to forest plants, biodiversity has been compromised. The risk of flooding has been increased, which in turn increases erosion and sedimentation affecting roads, bridges and aquatic life. The expansion logging roads has also increased pressure on animals from hunters.

The pine beetle has thrived because of warmer winters which have increased it’s survival rate.

[Via: The Vancouver Sun]

[Photo Via: Flickr]

The number of surfing fanatics throughout the world is growing–so much so that if all of us surfers stood shoulder to shoulder we would stretch the length of the United States eight times. That’s a lot of surfers, and the more surfers, the more toxin-filled boards, wetsuits and miscellaneous surfing products these surfers need. With a goal of bringing attention to the environmental impact of surfing, Envirosurfer developed a detailed visual to explain the toxicity of surfing. The infographic shares the environmental impact of everything you count on to enjoy incredible waves. It shows quick surfing facts, major product concerns and earth-friendly alternatives for keeping your surfing days free from toxins. Check out this link to find out how you can surf sustainably and responsibly.

[Via: Envirosurfer]

Judge Royce C. Lambeth ruled last Monday that Alaska’s Cook Inlet beluga whales were properly listed as endangered and said the National Marine Fisheries Service correctly followed the Endangered Species Act. The state’s lawsuit was rejected on grounds that a decade long ban on subsistence hunting of the whales had not revived the dwindling population.

“When the best available science predicts that a recently enacted ban on subsistence hunting will reverse the abrupt depletion of a species, a decade without any noticeable recovery in the species population should raise a concern that the true cause of its decline has not been fully addressed,” Lambeth wrote.

The whale’s population diminished during the 1980s and early ’90s and nose-dived between 1994 and 1998 when Alaska Natives caught almost half the remaining 650 whales in those four years.

Previously Alaska was unsuccessful in suing to overturn the listing of polar bears as a threatened species. Currently the state has filed suit to overturn restrictions on commercial mackerel and cod fishing in the western Aleutian Islands to protect endangered Steller sea lions.

[Via: The Statesman Journal]

[Photo Via: Flckr]

The first wolf trapping season in the lower 48 since the species’ reintroduction into the Rocky Mountain states opened last week in northern Idaho. The season, running from November 15 to March 31, will allow previously protected wolves to be caught and killed with metal foothold traps. Ranchers and cattlemen cite wild wolves for several livestock deaths this year alone.

Animal rights groups fear that, along with the legalization of wolf hunting in Idaho, which began on August 31st and has yielded 138 wolves to date, and the removal of the wolf from the endangered species list in May, trapping would cause slow and painful deaths and shrink even further the region’s young and delicate wolf population. And trapping might even contribute to the problem. Ranchers have been given a green light to shoot any wolves reported to be “molesting” livestock or pets.

According to the Idaho Departement of Fish and Game (IDFG), molesting refers to “the actions of a wolf that are annoying, disturbing or persecuting, especially with hostile intent or injurious effect, or chasing, driving, flushing, worrying, following after or on the trail of, or stalking or lying in wait for, livestock or domestic animals.”

It seems that many exceptions are being made for ranchers defending private properties and herds. According to wolf advocate Derek Goldman of the Western Wolf Coalition, “Livestock loss to wolves represents less than one percent of livestock loss.” But opponents like Ron Gillette, president of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition, claim that advocates like Goldman have, ”Elevated these wolves to a doglike status.”

Obviously the parties are split—even polarized.

“Wolves are a hot topic and there’s lot of controversy,” Pat Carney, Idaho Trappers Association president, says. “We wanted to make sure anybody who was going to be handling wolves with traps or snares, that they were knowledgeable and doing it correctly.”

And that’s what the IDFG did: required a class for all trappers seeking wolf permits. Which, of course is a good thing. The class, according to an anonymous attendee, covered “law, history, ethics, equipment, sets and avoidance of non target animals and more ethics.”  The trapper went on to say that the IDFG are “on top off the situation and should be commended.”

But the question remains: when does hunting become a threat to one of the only Endangered Species Act success stories in our nation’s history? After all, at the beginning of the last century, wolves had been nearly annihilated from US soil. And now with a wolf population of nearly 1,000 (still only a fraction of what it once was), Idaho aims to bring the numbers back down to around 150 animals or 15 breeding pairs. And it seems the state has full governmental support. Even Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter claims he would “bid for the first ticket to shoot a wolf myself.”  And Ron Gillette goes on to say, ”We don’t care if they shoot ‘em, we don’t care if they poison ‘em, we don’t care what they do. But get ‘em out.”

[Via: KVAL]

[Photo via: Flickr]

Wouldn’t it be grand if every turkey Americans ate this past Thursday died like this one? Check out this amazing video about how some of our most responsible farmers give thanks to the turkeys they raise and eat. Gobble, gobble.

WARNING: This video does contain some graphic content.

Courtney Mattison is a scientist, artist, environmentalist and student. In order to better understand ocean life and the organisms in her studies she started a project that would visually represent the Earth’s oceans. She decided to create a 15-foot tall, 11-foot wide, and 1500 pound sculpture that would reflect not only the beauty of ocean life but also the threats climate change places on marine organisms, specifically coral reef. The exhibit is now on display at the AAAS Gallery in Washington D.C. The video above explains Mattison’s significant project and her efforts to promote conservation.

[Via: AAAS]

More on unsustainable fishing practices and Tuna

From Greenpeace: The Tuna Industry’s Got a Dirty Little Secret
From PlanetSave: Annual Quota of Bluefin Tuna Caught in 1 Week
GreenPeace again: The harsh reality of longline fishing
From SeafoodWatch: Seafood Watch Pocket Guide

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

Here’s a number for you: 1.06 trillion dollars.

That’s the minimum amount in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) outdoor recreation, conservation and historic preservation activities mean to the economy according to a recent study by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. This type of number is rarely mentioned by politicians who advocate the loosening of environmental regulations for the benefit of economic growth.

Other selected, but intriguing numbers from the report: 9.4 million jobs provided; $107 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues; $325 billion sales per year in outdoor recreation gear and trips, greater than pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing ($162 billion), legal services ($253 billion), and power generation and supply ($283 billion); 9.9 million acres of wetlands lost in the U.S. since the 1950s has resulted in an economic loss of more than $81 billion in all wetlands-related ecosystem services; $1 million invested in residential historic rehabilitation generates approximately 36 jobs, $1.24 million in income and nearly $200,000 in state and local taxes.

The full report can be read here.

[Photo Via: Flickr]

A scheduled wolf hunt in northeastern Oregon will remain on hold. At least for awhile. In September, the Imnaha wolfpack found itself under the close watch of local ranchers and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Two wolves in particular, including the pack’s alpha male, have been cited for numerous livestock deaths over the past several months in Oregon’s Wallowa County. If the hunt goes through, only two wolves would remain: the alpha female and a pup born just last spring.

The temporary reconsideration is costing conservation groups. The ODFW required monetary deposits from advocates to repay ranchers if other animals die as a result of the renegade wolves. And this money, at least now, is only postponing the hunt while officials rule whether or not the hunt is legal. But it seems the financial sacrifice is worthy of the cause, keeping heated debates between activists and rancher groups like The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association in the forefront of state environmental politics.

Steve Pedery, conservation director for Oregon Wild, says, “Under the wolf plan, shooting endangered wolves was supposed to be the last resort, not the first option whenever a cow goes missing.”

[Via: OPB]

[Photo via: Flickr]

In an effort to grow black rhino populations as part of the WWF Black Rhino Range Expansion Project, the seventh of these critically endangered species was recently translocated 1,500 kilometers from the Eastern Cape to a new location in the Limpopo Province. Though it’s difficult to believe, carrying the rhinos upside-down underneath a helicopter is apparently the best way to transport them.

[Via: Matador Network]

A couple weeks ago, we told you about the Great Salmon Run, an event that took place to raise awareness for the Snake River salmon. Want to learn more about salmon recovery? If you’re in Portland, Ore. stop by the Lewis & Clark State College Student Union Building Solarium on Thursday, November 17th (that’s tomorrow) from 12:00 to 1:30pm.

The four panelists—Bert Bowler of Snake River Salmon Solutions, Sam Mace of Save Our Wild Salmon, James Holt of the Nez Perce Tribe and Dustin Aherin, a local business owner from Lewiston—will each have 15 minutes to talk about their viewpoints on the socio-economic and ecological benefits of decommissioning the four Lower Snake River Dams, and restoring wild salmon and steelhead runs throughout the Clearwater and lower Snake River Basins. If you have questions there will be time for that, too.

The panel is sponsored by Friend of the Clearwater and the college.

Learn more at:

www.wildsalmon.org.

www.salmonriversolutions.org.

[Photo via: Flickr]

Close to one billion people in our world do not have access to clean water—that’s about one in every eight people. Water.org confirms, “The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.” As communities throughout the world fight water-borne illness and struggle to fund improved sanitation systems, the water crisis is more about accessibility to clean water than scarcity of water—a problem organizations have been trying to solve in developing nations for years.

Enter Pedal Fresh—a group that’s using the Portland bike community and creative solutions in order to implement sanitation systems and bring access to clean water to people that need it. The group’s project aims to serve rural Thailand with a gravity fed water filtration system that will ensure potable water for an entire school community. It’s an ambitious project that needs a lot of funding.

So how do they plan to raise all that money? With a calendar of Portland’s hottest and silliest biking boys, of course. This calendar features a biker clad in boots and what appears to be a dress swinging on a tire swing, as well as a fully-clothed stud perched on a goal post, bike in hand, and let’s not forget the practically naked dude in bed, his bike resting against the mattress. A copy of the 2012 The Bike Boys of Portland Calendar can be yours for only 15 bucks but if you want to experience all the excitement, head over to the calendar release party tonight from 7–9pm at Crank PDX. A calendar filled with hot biking boys for you and clean water for a community in Thailand—not a bad deal.

For more information about Pedal Fresh, check out their website. To buy a calendar or set of postcards, click here.

Beginning this August Ron Garan, Satoshi Furukawa and the crew members aboard NASA’s International Space Station shot this sequence of photos from 350 kilometers above the Earth. The result is a glimpse into the amazing views of night skies and city lights the crew is rewarded as they pass over the planet.

In 2008, the province of Buenos Aires banned the used of plastic bags. In 2004, the province of Mendoza prohibited the use of non-biodegradable bags. In 2005, the province of Chubut, in Patagonia, prohibited the use of polyethylene bags. The same happened in the Patagonian tourist towns of El Bolson in Chubut, (2006) and El Calafate in Santa Cruz (2007).

Yet, as of today, only the town of Calafate is known to have enforced the law. Grocery stores in Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Chubut and all over Argentina still use plastic bags in monumental numbers. But there is no other place where “breaking the law” is more evident than in “pristine” Patagonia. In an area known as “the land of the wind” the prevailing westerlies blow across the Andean peaks,  over the vast empty steppes. The winds carry plastic bags from open garbage fields, from every pueblo, and every town, to the Atlantic ocean. From these palaces of our consumption, and for kilometers around, plastic reigns. Trees and bushes transformed into polyethylene sculptures, product of an oil era. And for the ocean and its inhabitants, god knowns how many of these eternal deadly ghosts have soiled its beaches and waters.

Click here to get an up-close look at the panorama above.

Disclaimer - GRAPHIC and DISTURBING images (see the full entry here )

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” Henry David Thoreau

It seems that lately, I have been writing more about the tragedies I am witnessing than the beauties of exploring this incredible planet. Unless you find yourself secluded in the middle of nowhere – but again, our pollution and destruction has no limits – you are bound to witness and feel the “savage” nature humans possess. “Shot for a fish”  the story of a seal killed by a fisherman was written when I went to Uruguay. “Refuge”, the story of a jaguar left with no teeth, was written when I went to Misiones. “W.H. Hudson”, the story on how disconnected farm people have become, was written earlier on this trip. And now, I am left with no choice but to conclude Patagonia 2011 with another tragic story.

According to Wikipedia, the word “savage” or “barbarian is: “a term used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization viewed as inferior. In idiomatic or figurative usage, a “savage” may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person.”

I actually believe we have gotten it totally wrong. The definition should rather be the following: “savage” or “barbarian” is known to be associated with an industrialized and modern society, also called civilized, where its inhabitants suffer from existential egoism. The unsustainable behavior is characterized by a deep lack of respect and care for the environment and a desire to radically exterminate anything that seems to be a threat to its existence. These threats are, in general, unfounded and come from a lack of inner security. The inhabitants are usually insecure with the idea of other species sharing what they believe to be their land. Extreme greed is often referred to as a form of savage nature.” 

The quest to explicitly exterminate animals is a modern invention. What we—us, humans—did to the buffalo, to the wolf, and so to many others, and keep doing, like to the shark is nothing less than savage. Killing is nothing new, but the scale and purpose of eradication is. Even worse is the sense of righteousness that the perpetrators are taking.

In Argentina, and more precisely in Patagonia, sheep farming is big business. It is not what it used to be, the golden days are long gone, but it is still the biggest industry in  the area. Since 1889, almost every square meter of steppe has been turned into pasture for sheep and therefore, fenced. And worse, every single animal that is not a sheep is seen as a nuisance and consequently needs to be exterminated. Guanacos, the wild ancestor of the llama, used to roam South America in huge numbers—estimated at around 50 million in the 1500s. But with the arrival of the Europeans and the beginning of sheep farming, their numbers were reduced to near extinction until they were put on the CITES list. Today, although their population is bouncing back—1 million more or less–it is a far cry from what it used to be. Still, since they eat twice as much grass than the sheep, for the estancias, Guanacos are simply “stealing” the food from their land. Even if hunting them is now prohibited, with little or no enforcement, they still kill them every week or so. And here is where the atrocity begins. Because their hunt is illegal, the dead animals are left in the field to rot. Nothing is done with their precious fur, nothing is done with their skin, nothing is done with their cholesterol-free delicious meat. The only utility a shot guanaco has is to spread death. Estancias use their carcasses to kill the others, especially the pumas and foxes. By cutting their guts open and pouring powerful poison over them, they create nothing else than a “Fountain of Death.” It is common to find around a dead guanaco: skunks, foxes, armadillos, and birds of pre,  and most likely pumas dead in their lair. Anything that eats meat or scavenges is at risk. And they themselves continue to contaminate the chain. Since the poison doesn’t disappear, it is passed over from one carcass to another. For each dead animal, dozens of others have had to die.

Pumas and foxes are the axis of evil of sheep farming. By taking out the guanacos, the farmers gave these predators no choice but to go after the woolly easy-to-catch mammal. Even though their predation is insignificant in numbers—it is the same for the wolf and the shark, the retribution applied was and is still of catastrophic proportion. During a previous trip, I learned of one estancia that killed 140 pumas in 7 years. Today, even though it is prohibited by law since 1996, the fox and the puma continue to be hunted and trapped. The consensus is simple, no predators will be allowed to live on a sheep farm. None, whatsoever. So every time they see tracks or a kill made by one of them, they send the dogs after them and eradicate the menace.

So who is savage? The Cherokee who feared that the unjust killing of a wolf would bring about the vengeance of its pack mates, and that the weapon used for the deed would be useless in the future unless exorcized by a medicine man? The Kwakiutl, who when killing a wolf, would lay out the animal on a blanket and have portions of its flesh eaten by the perpetrators, and who would express regret at the act before burying it? The Ahtna who would take the dead wolf to a hut, where it would be propped in a sitting position with a banquet made by a shaman set before it? The Eskimos who, when killing a wolf, would walk around their houses four times, expressing repent and abstaining from sexual relations with their wives for four days?

Or us, the pinnacle of evolution, God’s creature, the center of the universe, the planet’s savior? 

“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” -Albert Einstein

This land has been many things to many people. For Magellan and Drake, it was the land of giants. For FitzRoy, it was the beginning of the end. For Darwin, it was a trip that would change his life. For Jeremy Button, it was his home, then his curse. For St-Exupery, Patagonia was his muse. And for Chatwin and Theroux, it became their salvation. For me, this vast land, this million kilometer square of mountains, rivers, canyons, steppes, ocean coasts, and unbelievable skies, Patagonia is where my story began.

For more than 10 years, I tried to follow a path that was unfortunately, doomed from the beginning. You see, back in my childhood days, I would either spend my days on the shore of the St-Lawrence River, meticulously examining each and every tide pool or roaming the forest in search of small and bizarre critters. I was always down on my knees, my head in the water, or digging under a tree or a rock. On my 16th birthday, I received two of my most cherished childhood gifts, two photos, framed, from the famous photographer Talbot—“Flight”, the iconic photo of two dolphins jumping in front of a cargo ship, and “Megaptera”, the amazing tail of  a humpback whale. Back then, if you would have asked me what I wanted to do when I grow up, my answer was, and had been the same for a very long time: “I want to sail around the world and study whales!” In fact, the first time I applied for university was in Marine Biology at the University of British Columbia. On a funny note, I used to watch Miami Vice in the late 80’s and envy Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) because he lived in a marina, on his Endeavor sailboat.

Then, like so many young dreamers, I was told to “wise up” and get serious with my life. Listening to the senior council, I put aside those “infantile” ideas of traveling the world’s oceans looking for swimming mammals and enrolled in business and marketing! I still regard that day as the day that I sold my soul. I spent the next 15 years pushing my way into a world that never seemed quite right for me. Every time I felt the weight of the system bringing me down, I would leave everything behind and escape for months on end, disappearing somewhere, closer to nature. Closer to what deep down I was longing for. One time, I spent a summer at Isla Guadalupe in Mexican waters, diving with white sharks.

The last and final straw came in New York in 2008. After a disastrous short-lived marriage, I finally did what I should have done a long time ago. I was 34-years-old and had wasted enough of my precious life. It was time to set the clock back, rewind the tape and press play again. I sold everything, geared up with camping equipment and picked a destination—a far one, far, far away! Although initially I wanted to land in the Falklands, with my budget, Patagonia was more of a realistic choice. So in January 2009, I arrived at the Valdes Peninsula, in the Chubut Province, located in northern Patagonia. There, for the first time in over 20 years, I felt alive. And then the most bizarre thing happened. I remember standing on the beach, facing out, it was a particular windy day and no one could be seen anywhere. I started to feel choked and out of air. So I took a real deep breath, like none I had ever taken before. I felt the air travelling down to my lungs as if it was the first time I was breathing. I felt my lungs opening up, as if it was for the first time. And this sudden feeling of awareness, as if I was unexpectedly waking up after decades of hibernation.

Since then, I have been back every year to this “lugar salvaje”. And as it turns out, precisely every 14 months! Don’t ask me why, I don’t know, it is only a coincidence. I think so!  Anyhow, this year, I went back with my partner, photographer Jasmine Rossi. Her own story with Patagonia is also quite something. Working in the financial world of London, she developed a chronic tendinitis and reluctantly took a year off. Fluent in spanish, she decided to visit South America. As she says: “I wanted to get as far away as possible from the intrusions of what we call ‘civilization,’ so I canoed through jungle rivers and rode along Andean trails from Venezuela to Chile…”  Two years later, Jasmine published the first ever in-depth book on the wildlife of the Valdes Peninsula, The Wild Shores of Patagonia.

Jasmine needed to photograph certain winter landscapes for the re-edition of her book The Spirit of Patagonia. So after persuading Volkswagen to lend us their new Amarok, we drove south for another 6 weeks of adventure. Overall the trip was a success. We got the shots we were after. But the disappointing part was, and it is always the case on most of my trips, to see man’s impact on nature.

“I had become incapable of reflection; my mind had suddenly transformed itself from  a thinking machine  into a machine for some unknown purpose. To think was like setting in motion a noisy engine in my brain; and there was something there which bade me still, and I was forced to obey. My state was one of suspense and watchfulness: yet I had no expectation of meeting with an adventure, and felt as free from apprehension as I feel now when sitting in a room in London… I was powerless to wonder at or speculate about it; the state seemed familiar rather than strange, and although accompanied by a strong feeling of elation, I did not know it—did not know that something had come between me and my intellect – until I lost it and returned to my former self—to thinking, and the old insipid existence.”  W.H. Hudson, famous naturalist

I have always loved the life on a ranch. I have always felt connected to Life, and its cycle. You wake up in the morning and from the moment you open you eyes, you follow Nature’s rhythm, until you retire at night, having participated once again in a ritual several thousands of years old. You learn to understand the value of what the Earth gives you. The relationship between you, the animals, the plants, the insects, and the land could not be stronger – everyone and everything is interconnected, intertwined in a deep network of independencies. You need the land and the land needs you. You need the animals and the animals need you. It is a symphony orchestrated by nature, and I, am only one of the participants. Everything I need is given to me through a complex yet simple and delicate ecosystem. The bees, the cattle, the horses, the pigs, the chickens, the flies, the trees, the sheep, the wind, the sun, the frost, the pond, the fish, the river, the frogs, the birds, the rabbits, the wolves, the ducks and me, we all play a role and our survival is tied to one another. It is a ritual that I have always felt honored and proud of taking part in.

Unfortunately, in our industrialized society, ranching and farming have become anything but “connected to the Land”. Independently if you are a gaucho (cowboy), a rancher, or an owner, the fact that one spends his or her days working the land has no indication whatsoever of his or her relationship to Nature. A fact that even surprised me when meeting several wildlife photographers, filmmakers, scientists, and biologists – it is not because one works in or with nature that necessarily he or she is close or connected to it. The last week has only reinforced this reality.

What we used to see as a privilege—believing it was a gift from the universe to allow us to harvest the earth, we now see as a given and a due. The land is a resource to be exploited and so are the animals. And if one species is an obstacle, or a burden to our means, then we eliminate it. The more you can yield out of an acre, the better. No matter the consequences, we bully ourselves through life, thinking that it is our destiny to plow the Earth as if it was our personal galley.

Not only have we transformed our fertile lands into monoculture deserts, but we also have turned our society into a monoculture landscape. We live in a world where individuals are asked to grow up specializing in one particular thing and forget about general knowledge. As early as thirteen years old, a teen is asked what he or she wants to focus on, undermining the idea to acquire a broad foundation before deciding what to become. Every time I think of this issue, I think back of Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps one of the finest politicians in the world, in the last 200 years. A naturalist, a hunter, a rancher, a military man, a scientist, a writer, an explorer and a politician, he was solid in geography and well-read in history, strong in biology, French, and German, but interestingly enough, deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. What can be said of today’s political or business elite, bred to excel in one thing only.

I have never been afraid of death or killing. I have always understood the dynamics of life and the ramifications of its complexity. The idea that death is bad is only a modern invention. Nature not only does not value one over the other, but each is a necessity to the universal equilibrium. The death or destruction of one, is the birth and proliferation of another. When working on a farm, or a ranch, death is just part of life.  In fact, the farmed animals have evolved into trading the assurance of their survival for the price of their death. For me, to respect and honor the food on my plate, I need to understand and fully participate in what it takes to get there. I completely understand when hunters and fishermen claim to be more in touch with nature that the city dwellers. I have had on my hands the blood of fish, game and farm animals, and each time I have felt more connected to Earth than going to the supermarket. Every time I have honored the moment, the animal and thanked the universe for its grace. It was obviously with great enthusiasm that I agreed to tag along to lasso a cow that had a broken leg and needed to be put down. It was my understanding that I was going to participate in a dignified ritual. Here I was, in an estancia (ranch) surrounded by mountains and lakes, where cattle still roam free and horses are the main means of transportation. I wanted to respect what the cow had lived for. I wanted to be there and honor her death and the legacy she would leave behind. Instead, what I witnessed, was a brutal and perverted act of barbary. From the kill to the skinning, everything was done with disdain. I found myself sad, not for her death, but for us, humans and how, even in the most remote places imaginable, where one would expect the deepest communion with nature, we have become disconnected.

And then I was reminded of the passage on W.H.Hudson in Chris Moss’s Patagonia: A Cultural History, when he went to London, leaving Patagonia behind:

“He was outraged at the way industry and its processes had usurped nature in his ancestral homeland, and would later describe his adopted England a glorified poultry farm … Somehow, while swatting away troublesome thoughts, the idler had reached a firm conclusion, that the biblically sanctioned notion of a natural world created for man to conquer and dispose of at will was simply unsustainable. To Hudson, the natural world, the environment, was sacred and not there solely be exploited. He contrasted nature’s richness with the artificial pleasures that most men valued – newspapers, finances, current affairs, city life—and which he despised. He viewed nature as a way  out of the tiresome, very English town-and-country dichotomy, and as a means to finding health as well as moral well-being.”

See more photos here: W.H. Hudson on Kontain

Movie Star Siile

RK is the Head Technician at Sherpa Adventure Gear; which means he’s the main authority on garment construction, pattern making, as well as overseeing the quality control for production. He has an uncanny knowledge for proper garment fit and construction that can only be the product of decades of experience and study. It’s really been a joy to work with him, and he embodies much of the sense of pride in workmanship and humble attitude that we’ve come to appreciate with working in Kathmandu. Not to mention that he has the looks of a Bollywood movie star. We interrupted his busy day in the sample room to joke around and ask a few questions (we told him it would only appear in US Weekly and Teen People, not to worry).

Learning from the Master

5 questions with RK: Garment Guru

CP: Favorite Food?

RK:  Dal Bhat

CP: Typical. Favorite Music?

RK: Classic Indi or Classic Nepali Music.

CP: I’ll bet you’re a good dancer.

RK: Scared smile (Joke lost in translation)

CP: Ok, serious now. How long have you been working in garment manufacturing?

RK: 29 years. But doing everything. Tailor, sampleman, supervisor, now head technician (garment guru).

CP: What’s your favorite part about working on TREW Gear?

RK: Lots of technical processes… it brings a lot of challenges and learning.

CP: Which TREW Jkt would you wear?

RK: Hmmm. (lots of thinking) Cosmic. Because the pockets are nice. Simple, clean. PowFunk has too much colors, crazy.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 ”TREW Gear, an apparel company based in Hood River, OR, is in its first
year of manufacturing technical jackets and pants in Nepal. Product Manager,
Chris Pew, and Photographer, Lance Koudele, are in location in Kathmandu
sharing thoughts and photos from their unique journey. All photos taken by Lance Koudele.”

Namaste

Going into our third season of manufacturing backcountry ski/snowboard apparel, we’re producing our full line of technical jackets and pants in Kathmandu, Nepal. Our trip is as much about working with the staff here on our Fall production and product development, as it is about understanding the context and culture of the Nepali people.  In our short experience in running an outerwear brand–three years of manufacturing in three different countries—we’ve found that the quality and consistency of our garments has as much to do with the people and a shared understanding as it does to do with the latest technologies and training tools.

Sharing a Laugh in the Sampling Department or Tsedo Making Fun of Me Again in Nepali

A baseline of technology and training is necessary, yes. Our category of outerwear is “technical apparel,” which I think in a broad sense refers to any garment produced with certain technologies that cater directly to the end-use. In our case, seam-sealing, 3-layer laminate fabrics, welded construction, are all key technologies that keep the end-user, backcountry skier or snowboarder bro, dry and protected. With the right machines and trained staff and sewers, any great facility can create successful and consistent technical outerwear; but with a shared understanding and vision comes a higher standard of quality, workmanship, and accountability that is the goal of any growing apparel brand (bigger brands too, but it’s generally easier to achieve this harmony when you own the factory, fabric mill, and the competitor’s too).

In Nepal, at this small factory producing technical mountaineering and outdoor gear for its own brand Sherpa Adventure Gear (www.sherpaadventuregear.com product plug! Check it out yo!), we’re excited to develop this understanding, study their own methods of production and development, and learn from their deep roots in the Kathmandu Valley and the Sherpa people of the Himalayas.

Ram Kamur, a Master Tailor and Head Technician at SAG, Inspecting a Garment

Nepal has a rich history in manufacturing apparel, and, in fact, not just the hippie hoodies that you can find in incense shops. There are many skilled tailors in the valley, and Kathmandu at times in the 80’s and 90’s was home to some 600 factories producing ready-to-wear lifestyle garments for the likes of Old Navy, The Gap, and (insert generic cargo short brand here). I think political instability, Maoist rebel-inspired labor unions, and inconsistent power supplies (to name a few hurdles) disturbed the manufacturing base here; and the big operations chasing the cheapest, most reliable labor and infrastructure support went elsewhere.

Stock Thread Colors

Tashi Sherpa, President and Founder of Sherpa Adventure Gear, and his staff (most are family too) seem to be singularly focused on bringing industry and jobs to the valley; as well as grounding his brand with the heritage of the Sherpa people (portions of his sales benefit education and Sherpa communities).  We find ourselves very fortunate to work with these skilled manufacturers and genuine people.

Right now I’m just excited to get out of my basement office in Portland or our garage headquarters in Hood River and onto the factory floor. There’s nothing that I’ve experienced in my life as exciting as watching in person hundreds of jackets and pants – the objects of months of work and years of dreaming–come alive; and I think there’s no better place, that I’ve been, to be a part of this crazy process than Kathmandu, Nepal.

Street Snap: Continuing an Ancient Craft in Bhaktapur, "Old Khatmandu"

TREW Gear, an apparel company based in Hood River, OR, is in its first year of manufacturing technical jackets and pants in Nepal. Product Manager, Chris Pew, and Photographer, Lance Koudele, are in location in Kathmandu sharing thoughts and photos from their unique journey. All photos taken by Lance Koudele. || www.trewgear.com ||

The Gore-Tex TransRockies Run is a fully supported, six-day stage race that takes participants (in teams of two) 120-miles through Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Runners start at the town of Buena Vista and run singletrack and dirt roads through Leadville and Vail to the finish line at Beaver Creek. In the evenings between stages, runners stay in a tent city, but it’s not as primitive as it sounds. Hot showers are available at each stop, food was provided by the amazing Gourmet Cowboy company (grilled Portobello? yes, please!), and sports massage and a medic tent are all available to keep participants healthy and running.

Tent city in Leadville. Photo by Billy Brown

When I first committed to running, I thought it was a 6-man relay. No problem. When I finally committed, I thought it was a two-man relay. Daunting, but doable. By the time the flight was booked, I found out that my partner and I would have to run the whole dang thing.

After a frantic summer of mountain running to get ready, I showed up in Buena Vista and met my partner. As we packed our bags, I mentally prepared myself to be intimidated for the next six days by 400 uber-athletes and speedy genetic freaks. Turns out, there was none of the alpha posturing and prison yard stare downs that I was anticipating. There was a wide range of fitness levels and speeds, and everyone involved was excited to be there, from the runners to the staff, whose job it was to disassemble the tent city and starting line and reassemble them at the finish line of each day’s stage.

It quickly became obvious why everyone seemed so excited about being there. The race is full of memories that will run in the “Best Of” section when my life flashes before my eyes: icing down my cramping muscles in a nearby river after running stage one; seeing 200 moonlit tents on the first night; looking back down at the valley after summiting Mt. Hope; high-fiving my partner after we sprinted through the finish line on stage three; staring up at the vertigo-inducing array of stars at Camp Hale; chowing down on fish tacos and margaritas at Mangos in Red Cliff… and I only made it through the first three stages.

The improvised ice bath at Stage 1. Photo by Kevin Fonger

Despite all of the natural beauty that I ran through, TransRockies Run wasn’t just about running through the mountains. Once I started talking to the runners around me, it turned out that the mountain running was just the icing on the cake.

After the first day or two, groups of people who run similar speed start to congeal into small herds and you can’t help but start talking with the people running next to you. As it turns out, people who voluntarily choose to run across a mountain range are nothing if not interesting.

Runners head up the switchbacks to the summit of Mt. Hope. Photo by Billy Brown

From Jeff, the lawyer who retired to open a beer pub, to Kelly, the girl who had a metal plate put in her hand the three days before the race to the Alabama housewife who decided to pack a host of creature comforts that made number 38 the most notorious duffel bag among the bag handlers, there was no lack of personality in the crowd. No lack of encouragment, either. You couldn’t pass someone or be passed without hearing “good job” or “keep it up,” no matter how winded everyone was.

While each person was a very distinct individual, they all seemed to coalesce into a whole. Everyone involved seemed to share the same two goals – to finish the race and have a great time.

Everyone had a great time, at least.  After pulling my hamstring on stage 2, I chugged through the 24-mile third stage and had to drop out, joining quite a few a growing number of wounded runners. Others were banged and bruised, but pulled through to the end. Every day people would cross the finish line covered in dirt, knees bleeding from a downhill running mishap. Ryan Bak was more stubborn than most – he broke his big toe and had to get stitches in his hip after a fall on day four. He and his partner Max King still ended up finishing second in the Men’s Open Division.

Ryan Bak after crossing the Stage 6 finish line. Note the end of the left shoe is removed to accommodate his swollen toe. Photo by Billy Brown

Many runners crossed the finish line bruised, battered, or bleeding, and everyone was exhausted. And almost every single runner was grinning.

At breakfast on the last day, many runners had their cell phones out on the tables, swapping contact information, looking new friends up on Facebook, and promising a place to stay whenever someone was in their neck of the woods.

I came away from the race with couches to sleep on in five more states than I had in the beginning of the week. I saw a girl named Robin puke on stage one, then watched as her boyfriend Adam proposed to her five days later after they crossed the finish line together. I fought muscle cramps and high altitudes; I pulled a hamstring and spent a week sleeping in fitful two-hour bursts.

I’m already training for next year.

Photo by Chris Hunter/TransRockies Run

The Adventure Racing Season for us this year has been quite a huge feat. This summer we teamed up with GearJunkie to create Team YogaSlackers/GearJunkie. Our mission is to test the crap out of all our gear, go fast, take chances and have as much fun as humanly possible.  So far we have done all of the above… plus a little more.

After our first 7 day race in British Columbia called Raid the North Extreme…

Click here to view the embedded video.

my digestion system decided to take a strike. About a week after the race, I was nauseas, and couldn’t eat anything but rice and yogurt without getting doubled over pains in my stomach. This lasted into the start of the next big race: Expedition Idaho. On the start line, I was still having cramps, but I thought if I just pushed through, maybe by day three I would go numb and just not feel anything. Three hours into the race, I still couldn’t keep anything down without crazy knife stabbing pain—so I bid a sad farewell to my team and headed into the doctors to see what was wrong with me. The guys pressed on for the next six days, while I tried everything from eating kitchari (an Indian dish) for three straight days to drinking aloe and apple cider vinegar. In the end, I think my system just needed a rest! The guys did amazing, and ended up with a fourth place finish! Here is an awesome video from the race:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I am now back on board and ready for our next and last expedition race before Nationals—Gold Rush Mother Lode. This one takes place in the Yosemite area and is sure to be an amazing, beautiful suffer fest.

For 2011, our team has been doing awesome even with me having to drop out of Idaho. We have been placing in the top 5 in all of our races so far, and for taking on all the Expedition Races within two weeks of each other… that is pretty good! Most importantly though, we have been learning so much about racing technique and ways to recover after the race.  Our newest decompression method after a long race is long lining…  check out our longest walk yet!

Click here to view the embedded video.

One unofficial job of a ridgerunner is playing messenger. It is a sometimes stressful (wait… who was I supposed to tell that to again?), sometimes rewarding task.

Recall a recent encounter of the adorable variety:

One morning I pass an elderly gentleman who thru-hiked way back when and is now doing a section hike with one of his old thru-hiking buddies. We stop to chat, and I find out that they both spent the night at the last shelter but his friend had yet to begin packing up to leave by the time he was heading out.

“When you see Farmer, can you tell him Klipspringer says ‘mush’?” he asks me.

A couple miles down the trail I pass another hiker of about the same age. “Are you Farmer?” I ask him.

“Yes…” he replies.

“Klipspringer says MUSH!” I tell him. To which he throws his head back and lets out a giant laugh.

“I haven’t heard that in years!” he says with a smile. And he starts hiking a little faster to catch up with his old friend.

[Photo Via: Compass Points Media]

The Mami 'taote' (doctor) and her pet shark, Tamaro.

When the Lau family caught wind of my ciguateric state, they quickly reported the news to ‘Mami’, their Tahitian grandmother who was rich with knowledge of traditional Tahitian medicine or ‘raaou’.

Twice the first day, and once for the following three days, ‘Mami’ prepared the local remedy for me to drink. Despite its unappealing pea-green color and potent taste, I sucked down each glass, willing to try anything that would take away that terrible muscular pain. She explained that unlike the Western ciguatera remedies, I would be able to eat fish in a few weeks rather than a few months.

… When finally I felt well enough to make my way over to thank the Mami, and find out what exactly I had been drinking…

The ciguatera 'raaou' ingredients...

She explained that the remedy called for three ‘free-standing’, above-ground pandanus roots and the bottom half of a large, mature coconut. As the pandanus plant grows taller, it pushes new roots out from its trunk, which grow down in the direction of the ground. These roots, before they reach the ground, are those that are cut from the trunk to prepare the ‘raaou’, at about a forearm’s length each. She then took one large mature coconut, and after shucking the husk and splitting it in two, using only the bottom half (the part without the three holes) to grate and press into coconut milk. Next she skinned the roots and pounded them flat with a hammer, and finally twisted each one until its brownish-green sap dripped down into the coconut milk.

I was fascinated by the process. I’d spoken with a French doctor in Tahiti who told me to take calcium tablets, but if I had none, I should eat a lot of cheese. But he’d obviously never had ciguatera, because the Mami was horrified when she found out I had been eating lots of cheese, as the animal protein in cheese exacerbated ciguatera symptoms. The Lau’s couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting better quicker… alas, it could have been the cheese!

It’s part of coming from western civilization to naturally think that we have all the answers; that modern science always knows better. This situation was a good reminder to respect local knowledge, especially that of the elders who lived here before there were planes and French hospitals. It seemed both tragic and scary, that in maybe just one more generation, traditional Tahitian medicine might virtually disappear. There seemed to be a scarce few locals interested in learning from the elders. And unfortunately, modern science doesn’t seem to help–often turning up its nose to local knowledge, when with respectful collaboration of information everyone would win…

But change is inevitable, the world is getting smaller and smaller, and more and more homogenized. But with a little attention and respect for the past, hopefully we can carry some of the best of the old ways forward.

Jim Holm (far left), founder of The Clean Oceans Project, at the Plastic-to-Oil demonstration in San Diego.

“Nothing but intense love for what you want will enable you to surmount the obstacles in your path…” –Joe Vitale

My few weeks in California went by faster than ever… The memorial was fantastic and I left Santa Barbara feeling even more inspired than ever by the man who had helped me with the tools I needed to fulfill my dreams…

With the help of Patrick at North Sails in San Diego, and the generosity of Steve Waterloo and others of the Cal 40 fleet, I’d managed to track down a few used headsails. I would be heading back to Swell with plenty of Dacron to keep her gliding over the high seas a while longer…

What could be better than making turning plastic into a resource, and at the same time cleaning up shorelines and our oceans!?

The day before my flight, I was graced by the serendipity that Jim Holm, founder of The Clean Oceans Project, would be in San Diego to demonstrate the Blest Plastic to Oil machine! This was a Japanese technology I had seen on YouTube earlier in the year. I8 had instantly sent out a fleet of emails, hoping to arrange to carry the ‘desktop unit’ of the machine aboard Swell. I envisioned sailing around collecting plastic all over the pacific and turning it into usable diesel or gasoline for my voyage and for the locals. After ample research, it was clear that the desktop unit was not super practical for Swell due to its weight and efficiency. With another solar panel or two and some muscular crew, I could probably do it… but space is so limited! Not discouraged, I had kept in touch with Jim Holm over the last few months, in hopes of finding an alternative way of introducing this technology to the Pacific islands, where limited if any recycling facilities exist, and plastic litters every shoreline from the most populated to the most remote.

… So I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to meet Jim and see this technology in person… In a back corner of the Driscoll Boatyard on Shelter Island, Jim and his fellow demonstrators stuffed the machine full of random plastic trash while explaining the incineration process, the products, by-products, and limitations of this incredible machine.

Jim’s positivity and determination was almost palpable. He exuded motivation to clean up the sea with this technology and explained his eventual dream to get a large machine put aboard a ship that was capable of extracting the plastic from the ‘North Pacific Garbage Patch’. He was doing all the touring and raising awareness of the technology out of his own pocket, but I was certain that his unyielding enthusiasm with such powerful science behind it, would eventually lead him to the right people, and the necessary funding to make his dream of cleaning up our oceans come true.

Love is the secret ingredient to alchemy, even if in this case, it’s turning plastic into combustibles! … Be encouraged, Jim! Thank you for having the passion, courage, creativity, and energy to affront our plastic mess!

It’s more than halfway through the season and I’ve begun to notice a pattern: the amount of red-headed male thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail… is disproportionately high.

I find freckles cute and sunburns endearing, thus in everyday life I have found myself wondering, “Where are all the red-headed boys?” They’re not at the gas station or the grocery store, the library or the corner cafe.

And then I started work on the Appalachian Trail and I realized—it’s because they’re all out hiking.

As a ridgerunner, I keep track of the number of thru-hikers, overnight hikers, and day hikers I pass on the trail. But recently I’ve added a new sub-category beneath thru-hikers: red-headed males.

At least one in four men that I meet on the trail has red hair, while the national average for red-heads (male and female) falls somewhere between two and six percent.

What could explain this disparate percentage? “I think it’s our fiery passion for life,” says Sniffer, an undeniably ginger thru-hiker from Maine. Um, okay. But I have another theory.

Almost all of the men hiking from Georgia to Maine have beards. This makes sense, as there are few opportunities to shave on the trail. Almost all of these beards are noticeably more vibrant than their accompanying head-hair.

In this way, borderline auburns become distinct red-heads and strawberry-blondes become just plain strawberry. It is almost as if the red hue of the beard reflects itself across the rest of their head, and their persona.

If this theory proves correct… if all the men in the “real world” decided to grow beards, the world would be a noticeably rosier place.

… I decided I’d hang out with the kids from then on. Although they still looked at me googly-eyed from time to time, they usually just wanted candy. As school was out for ‘winter break’, we held geography and eco-talks aboard Swell, rewarding good answers with “bonbon Californie” (Californian candy) as they liked to call it.

After nearly a week at the quay, the surf was fading, and I readied Swell to make the crossing to the check out the rumored haul-out yard.

“But you can’t go today,” Tumata pleaded. He was one of my favorites. Bright, polite, and soft-spoken. “There’s a party at school tonight.” Later when his mom came by to round up he and his cousins, she explained that, yes, there was a fundraiser for the school.

So when I heard the singing commence, I wandered the 100 yards down to the school and peered in the gates. Some of the kids recognized me, pulling me inside, where I sat on a bench among them, watching the families and friends all take their turn on the stage. I didn’t quite understand the format–it seemed a bit like karaoke night–as different groups and even a few solos went up and took their turn singing or playing ukulele for the crowd. No need for a screen with the words floating by, everyone knew the words to the local songs. I imagined it to be a bit like their version of ‘American idol’… a chance to show-off their talents for the other townspeople. It was all in fine humor, too, and the microphone refused to work from time to time. Laughter and cheers filled the still night air.

Then an official-looking woman took the microphone, and speaking in Tahitian, pulled a prize off of the raffle table, shuffled her hand into the ticket stubs, and called out a few numbers.

“Huit, quatre, zero!”

A young woman raced up to claim her prize. So it was a raffle! Of course!

Once the singing got going again, I wandered toward the back, finding a woman at table with loads of home-baked cakes and a sign saying: Gateau (cake) 300F, Coco Glace (cold coconuts) 200F, Ticket Tombola (raffle ticket) 500F.

“Bonne soir, madame. Cinq tickets tombola et un coco glace, sil vous plait.” I said. (Good evening, madame, five raffle tickets and a cold coconut, please.)

She looked at me apologetically. There were no more raffle tickets. “C’est bonne (it’s ok),” I said, passing her the equivalent of the raffle tickets anyway. “Pour l’ecole (for the school).”

At first she didn’t understand. She turned to her friend uncertain of what to do. It was the equivalent of 30 or so dollars. She was shocked. She handed me the ice-cold coconut and insisted I take a piece of cake, too, thanking me profusely.

It was the least I could do, really. I’d wished I could give more, but with no ATM machine for a few hundred miles around, my cash was limited.

I stayed to watch a few more singing numbers, and then snuck out the back, waving goodbye to Tumata and the little group of scholars. The next morning, I woke up to find a stock of bananas and papayas on my deck, as precious as gold in a place with hardly any arable soil!

You never know when a little can mean a whole lot…

The wind was 15-20 knots hard on the nose as I beat my way 10 miles across the atoll. Sure enough, at a few miles out, I spotted masts sticking up through the coconut trees!?!

“It’s true! There really is a haul-out yard out here in the middle of nowhere!?!” I cheered into the wind. A smiling young man met me in a dinghy to guide Swell between the numerous coral heads to one of four mooring balls.

“Welcome,” he said. “Come ashore and check it out when you feel like it.”

Later that day, I went ashore to find the loveliest place imaginable to haul a boat. The ground was covered with round coral stones, the lagoon was sparkling turquoise, the coconut trees rustled in the breeze, and five or six boats were propped up across the wide expanse of land they’d cleared for storing boats.

Alfred Lau and his family ran this outback enterprise, a courageous endeavor I had to admit. But for the wandering sailor like me, the downside of lacking an easy place to purchase parts and materials seemed to be well outweighed by the upsides of having a lovely working environment, virtually zero possibility of theft, and a casual, family-run operation. Plus, they carried the bare necessities–antifouling paint, brushes and rollers, tape and the likes. It was a three-generational family effort: Grandpa, father and wife, and son and daughter, Asam, Alfred and Pauline, Tony and Nancy, respectively, although grandpa stuck mostly to his own affairs–tending to his 200 egg-laying hens or splitting coconuts with his enormous hatchet to dry and sell as ‘copra’ to the large coconut oil refinery in Papeete. Despite knowing little about sailboats, I was largely impressed with their operation…

Alfred invited me for dinner that evening, and every evening up to my departure, for that matter, and it was clear that this haul-out experience would be bit different than my last…

“For Tahitians and Poumotu,” Alfred spoke seriously over dinner one night, “Our family land is the ‘pito’ (the Tahitian word for ‘belly-button’). Without your land and you are lost. The land is you and you are the land.” He picked up some of the rocks underfoot, and raised them to his lips as he spoke. He told that he had left the island to work in the city in Papeete as a young man. Some years later, his grandmother had threatened to give the island to someone who would use it, rather than see the land go unused. So he had decided to come back and start a pearl farm. But now, with the flooded pearl market, and the current state of the economy, they’d drawn on the advice of a French sailor and bought a hydraulic trailer to haul-out boats…

As I let the night breeze push the dinghy back towards Swell after dinner, I looked up at the wide Tuamotu sky and pondered that my ‘pito’ must be made of saltwater and wind and stars and fiberglass… ?

Over the next few days, I prepared Swell for my departure and then the three Lau generations hauled her out few days later, propping her up amongst the palms. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I would have peace of mind to leave Swell alone when I hopped the next plane back to California for Barry’s memorial…

The two major trail towns in Connecticut are Kent and Salisbury, and they can only be described as quintessentially “New England” (white picket fences, Volvos in the driveway, etc.).

Unfortunately, as a smelly backpacker among the showered and powdered upper-middle class, I feel like I’m trespassing even when I step into the frozen food section of the grocery store.

To combat my poorly-groomed persona, I try to be as friendly as possible. Smiles, waves, door-holding, etc. And it works. I’ve talked to a bunch of people about my job (general reply: “I’m so jealous”), and possibly even convinced a few to become AMC members.

Problem: Coffee Shop Guy is apparently immune to my charm.

The Roast in Salisbury in my favorite resting place (good coffee and shady outdoor seating), and I thought it would be cool to get to know the people who worked there, perhaps develop a “will you be wanting your usual blueberry muffin today?” type relationship. So early on in the summer I introduced myself to the guy behind the counter…

“Hi, I’m Rachel.” [SMILE] “I’m working on a nearby section of the Appalachian Trail this summer and I love coffee, so I’ll be stopping in often… I hope I don’t smell too bad.” (Okay, so a little awkward. But full of good intentions.)

Coffee Shop Guy’s response? “Oh. Hi.” After an awkward pause and an “okay… see you around then” (on my part, not his) I returned defeatedly to my spot outside. We haven’t talked since.

I evaded the second lunch with Jacques the following day when a customs boat circled outside the quay around midday…

They launched their tender, and a group of uniformed men came speeding toward the quay. The captain scrambled out of the dinghy, then stormed over to Swell.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a fuss in French. “This dock is for cargo ships and official French vessels ONLY!”

“I’m so sorry, sir.” I replied. “The villagers told me that the next ship wouldn’t be in until Thursday. And in fact, I think we can both fit here…”

“Where is your husband?” he demanded. “You’ll have to move this boat right now!”

“I don’t have one.” I replied.

“You’re alone?!”

“Yes, sir.”

He went quiet for a moment, his face morphing from anger to surprise. His brow then softened entirely.

“Yes, I believe you’re right.” He chirped accommodatingly. “We can both fit if we move you forward…” He and the other officials handled the lines while I drove Swell up against the outgoing current, and shortly after, the battleship-looking customs boat came alongside the quay behind Swell.

The captain shook my hand before walking back to his ship. “You’re welcome to join us for dinner tonight,” he said, squeezing my hand for an uncomfortably long pause while looking me deeply in the eyes…

I smiled bleakly, and thanked him for the invitation… What was it this week? Where was Marine Man when I needed him!?

When the door to the propeller plane closed, I was alone again… but not for long. I sat under the shaded airport waiting area for less than a minute before an old man teetered over to greet me. I was used to being approached by the locals here; it was just part of being a new face in a town of less 200 inhabitants.

The old man hardly breached four feet. In fact, some of the nine year-old girls that were dotting on me to my right were about his size. He looked to be in his mid-seventies or so and of Asian rather than Tahitian descent. Wisps of his long gray hair fluttered at his shoulders while he took my hand in his.

“I Jacques, whas you name?” He asked.
“Leeeez,” I replied, (the easiest French pronunciation).
“Oh, Leeees! Is very prity name. I Chinese doctor. I live here 14 years. You like here?” He almost trembled with excitement as he spoke.
“Oui, c’est fantastique.”
“Oh, tu parle Frances! (Oh you speak French!)”
“Oui”
“Ok, tu vien a ma maison, mangeeeeer? (You come to my house to eeeeeeeeeat?)”
“Ummmm, ok?” … I replied, despite knowing that what I really needed was a nap it appeared as though I would crush his very soul if I refused, though, and Chinese medicine had always interested me. And I didn’t feel much like cooking… so why not?
“Ok, you come 12 o’clock… Okaaaaaaaay?” And proceeded to describe where to find his house. There were only three roads, and everybody knew everybody… so I knew it wouldn’t be tough…

A few hours later, I located his house, across from the Protestant church, and lifted the cord off the nail that held his gate closed.

“Jacques?” I called, pushing my way inside.
“Ouuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Vien. Vien! (Yeesssssssss, Come. Come!)”

He led me through the barren sideyard and pushed past a red curtain and into his home. He led me into the living room where there was a bed and a chair and one of those cats with one paw in the air sitting on a shelf, along with an enormous sea turtle shell and a red-tasseled Chinese calendar. I couldn’t put my finger on the smell that tinged the air—something between iodine and oyster sauce. I tried to take small breaths as he led me past the bare plywood division into the dark kitchen area, where he pulled out a small plastic chair for me and then promptly kissed me on both cheeks, with more saliva than I appreciated. I figured he was just overly excited to have company. His words leapt like musical notes as he served me some powdered juice in an empty yogurt container. Scanning the clutter that he’d pushed to the other end of the table, I noticed various packs of pills, liquid viles, and a revolting morsel of used cotton–brown and twisted—jutting out from the teeth of those medical scissors with the little grippy teeth at the end. My already wavering appetite promptly hit the deck.

I tried to shrug it off, and asked him to tell me how he wound up out here in the outer islands. He had left China with his parents to live in France at only four years old and was now 74. He’d come to French Polynesia during the era of nuclear bomb testing, where he’d been a doctor on the one of the main atoll testing sites. I didn’t quite catch what had happened between then and now, but I decided not to pry, and changed the subject to medicine. It soon became clear that he was not a doctor of Chinese medicine; he was schooled as a doctor in France, but was of Chinese descent. Ok, I guess in another sense he was still a ‘Chinese doctor’… but his other responses to my questions didn’t seem to be adding up either… He talked of his houses in both Papeete and France, “big land, biiiiiiiiiiig house!” He said. Looking around I wondered why he chose to stay there, but that wasn’t my business…

I managed to stomach a polite majority of my plate of rice and steamed, despite the horrid spout of used cotton lingering in my peripherals all the while. I told him my need of a safe place to leave Swell while I went back to California for Barry’s memorial, and his eyes lit up.
“Ma cherieeeeeeeeee go to Californieeeeeeeeeeeeee?”
“Yes, I must leave in less than two weeks,” I explained.
“Oh, don’t worry. I help ma cheriiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee!”

Following a helping of cake that he’d baked himself, he kissed my cheeks again and insisted that we go talk to his friends about a safe place to leave Swell. The truth was that I had already made a thorough scan of the village area. There was no secure spot. With the fetch of 10 miles across the atoll, the wind waves made anchoring near town inarguably too dangerous, and Swell drew too much water to fit inside the tiny marina. The quay to which Swell was currently tied had to be vacated at the arrival of the weekly cargo ships. I mentioned the new boatyard across the way, but he insisted it was much too expensive…

“I pay, ma cherieeeeeeeeee.” Him pay? What? This was getting weird…?

Following lunch, Jacques led me proudly around the village, introducing me as his ‘cherie’ (darling or ‘sweetheart’) in a long drawl of excitement. “Voila ma cheriiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeee!” He’d say to those we passed. Oh dear, this was getting a bit uncomfortable. I realized that he thought I was now his girlfriend!! I did find it remarkable that in the last year or so, it seemed that men of any age found it appropriate to pick up on me, but Jacques could have been my grandfather!

Finally, I made my escape suffering through two more wet cheek kisses, as long as I agreed to come for lunch the following day!

“Ok, I see you 12 o’clock toooomorrow, cheeerriiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee?!!”

R.I.P., boots.

 Sweet watch tan?

Trunk chaos.

Poor nutrition.

So many paperbacks.

 Thru-hiker’s digitz.

And laundromat parties.

While the break was enjoyable, Dave and I both were more than happy to start paddling again. We left Southend on a windy day. Yes, that wind happened to be a headwind. Since we departed late in the day, we only made it eight miles to the Whitesand Dam. Here we marveled at how well-kept the portage trail was. It is actually designed to haul fishing boats across. There were even boat trailers and an ATV to aid in hauling boats across. This is a popular fishing spot too. We saw two parties catching walleye below the dam.

On Saturday, we got to know the Reindeer River. We launched below the dam and immediately enjoyed the scenery. The river was lined by high hills and bare rock was visible here and there. The area must have burned a few years ago. The landscape was mostly the bright green of aspen and birch, dotted with a darker green of the spruces and jack pine that had survived the fire. We have spotted pelicans frequently, along with the usual loons, ducks and gulls.

Above the first rapids, Devil’s Rapids, we saw the biggest beaver dam either of us had ever seen. After stopping for a picture, we paddled through the rapids with no problem, wondering why it had such an intimidating name. The river wound through a marshy area. As the river turned, our headwind eventually became a tailwind. We actually sailed for a while.

As we were enjoying our tailwind, we came across another party of canoeists. Six people were heading upstream to Southend. They were just launching after a lunch break and told us about abundant blueberries. We couldn’t resist taking a short break to pick our first hand full of blueberries of the season.

Sunday was another good day on the river. The wind stayed mellow all day and the sun baked us as we paddled. We had one portage, the Steephill Portage. Although there is a wooden ramp for hauling bigger boats across, I doubt that it has been used in a while. The trail was good, but alder and aspen saplings were growing between the logs of the ramp.

By the time we finished paddling on Sunday, we reached the halfway point between Southend and Pelican Narrows. How strange to not have another month between towns. I suppose we’ll get used to the shorter week-long gaps in between towns.

Dinosaurs. One of the many typical dangers of the road.

Perhaps it’s because I know we won’t be riding any more after today. Perhaps it’s because it’s about 60 degrees and drizzling, but our ride is easy, quiet, calming and disaster-free. We don’t even see any road kill. We’re both feeling strong and despite the fog, which makes me nervous, I’m certain the cars and trucks can see us because we’re both sporting our ridiculously vibrant neon Pearl Izumi jackets. They’re so bright they nearly glow in the dark and–I kid you not–can be spotted from about half a mile away.

Today, I’m grateful for being mentally clear and able to think about what I want to. About what I’m doing with my life and what I want to be doing with it. The best part about that is I’m able to fully appreciate that on the smallest scale, I’m doing precisely what I want right now. I’m pedaling along the Oregon Coast with the man who taught me most of what I know. I’m strong, I’m healthy, I’m happy. And I’m quietly reveling in the beauty of living three days of life that is structured so simply. We wake up early, fuel the body with good food, use that energy to power through a few hours of movement, fuel again, power again and then relax with conversation, slow walking, literature and fire-making. In today’s society–where boredom is tantamount to illness and people seek out entertainment and distraction at all costs–I’m grateful for this opportunity to unplug and get back to my hunter-gatherer roots.

We weave in and out of the mountains. One minute we’re whizzing past the beach, the next we’re pedaling up a steep hill and find ourselves amid mountainous thicket. Since I’m less zombie-like and more alert today, I can finally appreciate how significant sleep is to a person’s daily functioning–something I take for granted normally. I tell my dad this and he reminds me that he knows it all too well.

At about 6 p.m., after about six miles of thinking we’re “almost there,” we do, finally, reach Brookings–the final stop. My dad is smiling more than I’ve seen him do over the course of the last year. Contrastingly, I’ve got a raging fire burning my buns, which makes me feel again, like a child–this time with diaper rash–but aside from the saddle sores, I’m in good shape and smiling, too. We find the only busy spot in town, a pizza shop called Zola’s in the port portion of Brookings and order a gigantic veggie pizza, a salad and, in our slightly dehydrated state, just one beer to share. That beer–Great White–is so good it makes me smile. And after 60 miles of riding, it also makes my muscles tingle and relax.

Mesmerized by the flames of the fire.

Bellies full of pizza at about 8 p.m., we head to the closest camp spot we can find, an RV camp about a mile away. It’s no forested campground but it’s got an entire lawn prepped for tents and, most importantly, free hot showers. We settle into camp, clean up and enjoy the beauty of the river that runs through town and next to our spot for the night. Again, we make a fire and relax by it. We’ve used our energy reserves for the day and showered off all the resulting sweat, which leaves us with a sense of calmness and peaceful joy.

The next morning we try out MoJoes Coffee, waiting for and then thoroughly enjoying a couple of hot scones minutes after they’re taken out of the oven. We have nowhere to go until 11:50, when we’ll catch the Coastal Express back to North Bend, so we spend three leisurely hours relaxing in the sun outside of the cafe. While doing so, we encounter 11 small dogs (mostly dachshunds and Chihuahuas) and a woman walking them all at once down the sidewalk. Her apparent eccentricity, she tells us, has kept her alive in times of deep depression. In the same way we pedaled on in the face of adversity during our short but intense trip, she walks on–dogs in tow–in the face of lifelong struggles. We humans are lovely, strange creatures.

One woman. Eleven small dogs.

Later we catch the bus and enjoy the view of the route we just rode from the other side of the highway, inside the assumed safety of the bus. Our bikes rest safely in the back of it and we comment on all of the hills we climbed up and down along the way. They look much easier from this vantage point than they felt.

In an anticlimactic finish, the bus cruises into the parking lot of the Mill Casino nearly three hours later and, here we are, finished. We slowly attach our bikes to the roof rack and, that’s it. But it’s here I notice that it’s not the action of finishing the trip that means much, if anything. Because while there’s little significance in driving away after having ridden 130 miles, there’s big meaning in the way the Padre and I both feel. We’re tired, of course, but we’re also invigorated emotionally. We’re proud, too because this trip has a lot more meaning for both of us than most people, friends and family included, realize. We’ve overcome a lot in the past two years and somehow I now see that this trip is a microcosm of our lives.

We’ve gone through moments of pure excitement and joy, as well as hellish times of doubt. We’ve encountered death and learned to move forward in the face of it. We’ve hit bumps in the road, unexpected and undeniably rough twists and turns. We’ve had to move forward with makeshift solutions. We have worked hard and become stronger. And, most amazingly, we’ve been there for each other throughout it all. Now that’s what life—and a bike trip—is all about.

An anticlimactic--but contemplative--drive home.

Post-Seven Devils Road.

About half a mile out we encounter a 45-degree hill that stretches up for another half mile. I huff, puff and blow up the hill at a slow clip in an effort to motivate myself and shake the nerves. Uncharacteristically, my dad decides to walk it. We make our way out of the city and quickly begin to wend our way along Seven Devils Road. Its hills may not strike 45-degree angles but they’re as hellish as the name suggests. I hate hills, but I enjoy this because we’re off of Highway 101 and up in the mountains. There are no cars, at all, and all I can hear is the whooshing cadence of my breath and the chirping of birds. We’re high above the water and it’s so peaceful here that I can’t stop smiling. After two hours and immediately following a good downhill stretch, we see the sign for Bullards Beach State Park and cruise in. It’s still light out and–first’s first–we made it! I’m ecstatic, tired and sweaty. Peanut butter-filled pretzels never tasted so good.

I’ve only been camping a handful of times (yes, this is absurd and ridiculous and yes, I do intend to change that statistic over the rest of my life). But because my dad and I are two organized, slightly neurotic peas in a pod, we’ve practiced setting up the MSR Mutha Hubba tent at home while watching the company’s awesome instructional video… so here, we appear to be pros. We whip out our teeny tiny (1.9 ounce) Snow Peak stove and boil water for some good ‘ol freeze-dried mac ‘n cheese and chicken salad. Eating with the company of our interested neighbors–a teacher and principal couple from San Diego–we discuss cycling, life choices and education. I’m intrigued by their passion and motivation as educators and bike riders. Unlike most of us cycling the Oregon Coast Bike Route, they battled headwinds from Brookings north to here and–also unlike most of us in the hiker biker campsite–are doing the roundtrip ride back.

As I quickly learn, a camper’s bedtime is about 9:30 p.m. I’m tired but my mind is rushing with ideas and excitement. Cannery Row slows my brain for a bit but when I try to go to sleep–I can’t. Six hours of tossing and turning and two hours of sleep later, it’s time to get up and ride 40 miles. This should be interesting, I surmise.

For this trip, home sweet home.

In contrast to the night prior, today I can’t think. I’m too tired. We pack everything up into our panniers and ride into the Old Town portion of Bandon for bagels and coffee. Soon after, we’re off for 40 miles of Highway 101. I’m feeling a dangerous combination of totally brain dead and nervous but there’s not a thing to do but pedal. My dad, despite not having slept well for six months and one night, thanks to the crescendo of me shifting in my sleeping bag, is surprisingly excited and eager to go.

We pedal strongly for about 15 miles before I hear my dad yell the expletive reserved only for the bad or the ugly. He stops and I see that his pedal’s Power Strap is dangling off. Once screw came off somewhere down the road and he’s left with a lame pedal. We’re standing three feet shy of the white line that separates us from Highway 101 and its continual stream of cars, SUVs, gravel trucks and what I see as my potential nemesis on this trip: log trucks. My dad gets his tools out and fashions a feasible fix for the strap that’ll do until we get into town. As he picks up a wrench on the rocky ground we both see the bones of some supposed road kill.

About two miles down the road, I start to feel a little queasy; I’m starving, hot, tired and terrified because the traffic is non-stop. It’s about at this point that my dad sees road kill number ten or eleven to our right and shouts, “This is like the highway of death!” I can tell he’s smiling as he jokes but I’m not laughing.

Th