In 1968 Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins set out to surf, ski and climb their way to Patagonia. The wild places they found later motivated them to protect the environment. Inspired by this journey, Jeff Johnson and Woodshed Films set sail on a voyage to South America to climb a mythical peak called Corcovado with Chouinard and Tompkins.
(thx BTBN)
Posted: March 19th, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: none
Great photo, bad name, decent album.
MP3: New Riders Of The Purple Sage – I Don’t Know You
MP3: New Riders Of The Purple Sage – Whatcha Gonna Do
Posted: March 9th, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: 5
In the early 1940s, while working as a journalist at the Miami Herald, Marjory Stoneman Douglas was asked to contribute to the Rivers Of America Series by writing about the Miami River. She was unimpressed by the river, so asked if she could instead write about the Everglades. She researched the Everglades for five years at a time where little scientific knowledge existed about the area, and in 1947, the year that the Everglades was designated a national park, The Everglades: River Of Grass was published. The book’s first line is one of the most famous written about the good ol’ Glades:
There are no other Everglades in the world.
They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them: their vast glittering openness, wider than the enormous visible round of the horizon, the racing free saltness and sweetness of their massive winds, under the dazzling blue heights of space. They are unique also in the simplicity, the diversity, the related harmony of the forms of life they enclose. The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass.
Stoneman helped to educate the public and protect the park until she died in 1998. She 108 years old. What a pretty little bird.
Posted: March 8th, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: 3
It’s always a bittersweet moment getting back to your car after a few days in the woods/desert/prairie. You’ve accomplished something – even if it meant walking a few hundred yards, starting a fire, then drinking yourself to sleep – but you’ve also got to get back into a big piece of metal that will most definitely be either too hot or too cold for comfort. You take off your muddy clothes, put on less muddy ones, and drive a group of aching bones back to wherever it is you call home. But no matter how badly you wish you had one more day of eating apples and cinnamon oatmeal from an enamel bowl while watching the sun come up, you finally have a chance to play (BLAST) the song you’ve had in your head since the second you stepped on the trail.
Last week I carelessly asked how y’all prepare your coffee in the morning, and was surprised, shocked even, that so many people commented. I thought it’d be fun to do something like that again, because as I’m sure you must know by now, you are all much more interesting than I am and your answers show it. So hopefully you’ll take part in this one too and not make me feel like a fool when the comment section reads “0.”
What album do you put on when you get back to the car from a good hike?
Posted: March 3rd, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books, Uncategorized.
Comments: 31
“The Greatest Story Ever Told” on Bob Weir’s Ace is the same song as “Pump Song” on Mickey Hart’s Rolling Thunder. The sun is a shining, so have at it.
MP3: Mickey Hart (featuring Bob Weir) – Pump Song
MP3: Bob Weir – Greatest Story Ever Told
Posted: March 2nd, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: 1
In the late 1950s, after joining the Royal Marines, serving during World War II, and building roads in Kenya, Welsh-born Colin Fletcher moved to San Francisco. He began hiking in the hills, and two years later, when faced with the decision of whether or not to marry the woman he had been living with, decided to walk the length of California and do some thinking. Fletcher came back, married the girl, and wrote an account of his journey called The Thousand-Mile Summer.
The marriage, unfortunately, lasted less than a year, and in 1963, to mend his broken heart, Fletcher decided to walk the length of the Grand Canyon. In 1968, Fletcher published a book about the adventure, The Man Who Walked Through Time, and The Complete Walker, a backpacking guide that has now sold over 500,000 copies. Because of both books, many consider Fletcher to be the father of modern backpacking. Sadly, Fletcher died in 2007 from complications of head injuries he sustained when he was hit by an SUV near his California home in 2001.
If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of The Man Who Walked Through Time. It’s a quick and inspiring book that will certainly help fuel the I-CAN-NOT-WAIT-FOR-SPRING-fire.
Posted: March 1st, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: 3
Throughout the 1940s, Dan Gibson (above, left) made nature films, including Audobon Wildlife Theatre, where he learned how to record wildlife sound. He helped design pioneering audio equipment, including the “Dan Gibson Parabolic Microphone,” which he used to record LPs in the 1950s and 60s. In 1981, Gibson started the Solitudes series, which is now run by his sons (Gibson passed away in 2006). Solitudes is more like New Age music with whale calls now, BUT, f you ever find one of the old LPs at the thrift store, buy it. The covers, descriptions of the environments they’re recording in, and the actual recordings are just wonderful. From the first volume of Solitudes, By Canoe To Loon Lake:
“Our starting point is a waterfall at the end of a portage. We dip the paddle into the gently flowing river. We drift awhile. We are watched. The ruby-crowned kinglet notes our presence in its territory. The Kinglet is the first wildlife voice we hear. As we drift downwards a spruce lined shore one of nature’s friendliest sounds keeps us company, the spruce forest rings with the song of the white-throated sparrow. … Up ahead we can see the white waters of the rapids thrashing up above the surface level of the lake. The canoe is drawn forward. Our microphones are mounted on the on the gunwales, soon you are plunging into ever quickening rapids until they are thundering all around you as you surge through the channels … then come at last to the placid reaches of Loon Lake. A slight evening breeze drifts us out into the secluded lake where the gray tree frogs and the spring peeper frogs provide their evening background chorus to the haunting calls of the loon.”
In 1994, Dan was awarded The Order of Canada for his environmental works, and in 1997, Dan was awarded the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award at the Juno Awards.
Download By Canoe To Loon Lake and Storm On A Wilderness Lake at Closet Of Curiosities.
Posted: February 24th, 2010 under Camping, Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: none
If you haven’t seen this one, you should. (If you’re in New York, the MoMA is playing it this Friday afternoon along with a bunch of other old environmental documentaries throughout the month. Check the calendar here.) The Man Who Skied Down Everest is the 1975 Academy Award-winning documentary about Yuichiro Miura, a Japanese alpinist who skied down Mt. Everest in 1970. Miura skied 6,600 feet in 2 minutes and 20 seconds and fell 1,320 feet down the steep Lhotse face from the Yellow Band just below the South Col. He used a large parachute to slow his descent and came to a full stop just 250 feet from the edge of the crevasse. The movie’s narration comes from Miura’s personal diary and the awesome soundtrack from Nexus.
Eight died during the expedition’s ascent.
Watch: Yuichiro Miura skies down 6600 feet of Mount Everest in 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
Posted: February 10th, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: 2
David Bird Thomson was living in Denver at the end of the 70s when he decided to hop on his mule, buy some flour and head to the mountains, in search of a plot of a land to build his cabin. Sound familiar? Thomson’s account of his quest, In The Shining Mountains, is more tongue-in-cheek than Proenneke (his “mule” was his car and the “trail” was I-70) but the sentiment hits closer to home than One Man’s Wilderness or The Big Sky. Ed Abbey called Thomson ” the Thoreau of the 80’s,” a statement that I wouldn’t quite agree with, because Thomson’s book attacks the “enemies” and truthfully chronicles the trials and tribulations of a guy who wants to live like a mountain man in the modern age. Long story short, it’s hard. And if it’s that hard in the late 70s, 2010 can’t be much easier.
The more interesting story surrounding this book is that Thomson has been missing since July 1st, 1979, just around the time In The Shining Mountains came out. He was last seen in Minnetonka, MN wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and a yin yang necklace.
I hope he found his plot of land.
MP3: Michael Hurley and Betsy Nichols – River In The Rain (thx BTBN)
Posted: February 1st, 2010 under Music/Movies/Books.
Comments: 4
