The Cleanest Line

Choose Your Own Storytelling

The comments got me thinking. I’m talking about the comments on my last post, about adventure and youth. So many shifts, twists, turns, contradictions and evolutions that keep life interesting, and keep adventure and individuality alive.

How do these shifts interplay with our desire to share our stories? Several commenters – here and on the Facebook repostings – mentioned the climbing media. Indeed there’s likely some truth to the climbing media paying more attention to the more popular and quantifiable forms of climbing. People want it. Ratings and numbers have always had the ability to capture and categorize in ways more easily understood than any attempts to articulate adventure. That doesn’t mean that adventure climbing is dead. Maybe we just don’t hear about it as much.

Or maybe, like adventure itself, we just have to search harder for it. The stories are out there.

[An awesome adventure, but I can’t tell you where. Photo: Kelly Cordes]

Are Parks Protecting the Wildlife and Places They Were Created to Save?

As a former director with the International League of Conservation Photographers, Trevor Frost has been keeping a close eye on the world's imperiled places for years. Cleanest Line readers might recognize some of the stories Trevor has helped bring us, such as the Rios Libres series (dedicated to protecting Chile's free-flowing rivers) and, more recently, an initiative to protect the Sacred Headwaters region of western Canada. Today's post is an update on Frost's latest work - this time he's turning his attention to the world's "paper parks," those places that have been set aside - in theory - to protect the world's endangered landscapes and wildlife. Trevor offers this update on what's really going on:

Parks or protected areas remain our best tool for safeguarding wildlife and wild places and that is why more than 100,000 parks dot the globe protecting reefs and rainforests and mountain ranges. But while some of these parks are doing a great job, many, some would say a majority, are failing to protect the wildlife and wild spaces inside their borders. A closer look at the parks that are struggling often reveals there is little to no on-the-ground-protection for the parks in the form of park rangers, equipment, and even boundary signs to mark park borders.

[Rangers in Sumatra typically conduct their patrols on foot, but are known to take advantage of alternative transportation when available.  Photo: Rhett A. Butler, 2011, courtesy of Trevor Frost and mongabay.com]

Don't Wait for Good, Go Find It

There always something unpleasant in the news. Worse, this queue of sad stories is never-ending; the high notes don't last long before they're pushed off the front page to make way for the latest updates about unfolding unrest of some kind or another. That makes news like the kind we're sharing today that much sweeter. It's an update from patagonia friend and adventure photographer, Trevor Clark, about a cool new project he's working on. He's set aside paying work in hopes of capturing a story about some good being done in the world.

Trevor's project is unique for a number of reasons, but the one that got our attention was this: it's an assignment he's given himself, based on his belief in the power of positive stories.

Obviously, a photographer needs to sell their pictures to make money. The odds are of doing this are greatly increased when said photographer can go on-assignment for a publication. Trouble is, "[in the current economy] no magazine is going to pay to send me to Africa no matter how good the story is," says Trevor.

He went anyway. No money. No promises. Just the belief that a good story deserves to be told.

Prescott-area Film Festival to Benefit a Friend in Need

A close friend of Patagonia is currently facing a fight for his life. A Patagonia Climbing Ambassador, past NOLS instructor, and outdoor photographer, Bean Bowers grew a fast and large circle of friends through his combination of irrepresible energy and positive spirt. A backcountry skiing accident in December resulted in a broken femur, a serious injury that was quickly eclipsed by complications that arose during his recovery. It was then that a large brain tumor was discovered. The tumor has been removed, but Bean's fight has just begun. Bean has been diagnosed with renal cancer and friends are rallying to support him as he faces an incredibly difficult fight, and the staggering medical bills that go with it.

His alma mater, Prescott College, in conjunction with some of Bean's friends and colleagues, is helping to host a fundraiser Gear Swap and Film Festival to provide support in his fight for life.
 
March 8th, 2011 -  Afternoon and Evening in Crossroads Community Room
 
GEAR SWAP - 4-6 PM
BACKCOUNTRY FILM FESTIVAL - 7-9 PM
 
Bean's Prescott friends and loved ones are urging anyone who can to please come and join the rally to help one of their extended family members. There will be a raffle or silent auction of donated goods. To participate in the Used Gear Sale, contact John Farmer or David Lovejoy. Sellers are asked to contribute 10-20% of their earnings to the cause. The suggested donation for Backcountry Film Festival attendess is $10/person - give more at the door if you can. All proceeds will go directly to Bean.

Bean's climb to recovery is just beginning. As he said in a recent note to friends: "Just feed me the rope, I'll get it up there!"

Phosphate Mining: Sealing Southern Idaho's Fate?

Flipping through travel planners and vacation ads, southeast Idaho sounds much like the glorious west of old. A wild untarnished space, home to elk, moose, deer, and many other species of wildlife, with hundreds of miles of rivers and creeks, all bursting with wild native trout. It is. Or at least was.

Editor's note: Photographer, climber and family man Jeremiah Watt offers today's story for Cleanest Line readers. He writes about a corner of our country not often visited - and how the area's blessing of desolation is the very thing that has allowed it to become home to a mind-blowing number of Superfund sites.

Today, it is home to 17 Superfund sites, thanks to phosphate mining giants Simplot, Agrium, Monsanto and Rhodia. The phosphate here is primarily used as fertilizer and the herbicide RoundUp. Currently 16,987 acres have been mined with an additional 7,340 acres slated for development. In addition 15,000 acres have been leased and 50,000 acres are identified as containing economically viable phosphate reserves. In total 2,500 square miles – an area larger than Rhode Island - have the potential to be permanently scarred or destroyed from the effects of phosphate mining. Ninety-five percent of this land belongs to you and I.

[Sunrise on the Blackfoot River. Photo: © Jeremiah Watt]

Cordillera Blanca Expedition Seeks Mountaineers

Mountaineers take note: Put your skills to use helping monitor air pollution in the vertical environment of the high Andes. Read on for more details or visit the American Alpine Club's informational page. Hurry - the application deadline is midnight, February 19th.

In June and July 2011, the Deep South Section of The American Alpine Club is spearheading an environmental mountaineering expedition to Peru’s highest mountain range. The Cordillera Blanca contains the highest concentration of mountains higher than 6,000 meters (19,685 ft.) in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the highest mountains in the Tropics. The purpose of the expedition will be to work with local and national governments, NGOs, and academic environmental experts to develop and institute a mountain-air-pollution-impacts monitoring program.

Section mountaineers and other AAC mountaineering scientists will be spending 2-4 weeks in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca, where the group will team with local climbers. The team will collect valuable environmental samples from elevations too high and remote for most scientists to be able to visit. The data collected by members will assist local land managers and scientists to determine the environmental impacts of local and global air pollution and global climate-change impacts on the Andes Mountains. Volunteer mountaineers are needed to help complete this project.

The American Alpine Club's Executive Director, Phil Powers describes the role mountaineers will play in this research: "The high altitude ice on our planet holds extraordinary fresh water resources in places to which climbers have unique access. These are the water towers of our world. Climber scientists play a special role collecting data from locations that house key early indications of the effects of climate change but are very difficult to access."

The AAC's member mountaineers will work with local climbers from the Mountaineering School of Marcara, the region's eminent mountaineering institution. Key mountains near the continental divide of South America will have their environment sampled and documented for air pollution impacts. Mountaineers will scale the complete vertical aspect of these key mountains to obtain these samples and data. It is expected that snow and ice will be sampled from 4,500 to over 6,300 meters in 500-meter increments to obtain a vertical and horizontal profile of impacts on the range.

Get more details about the upcoming expedition in this interview with AAC Deep South Section Chair, Chadwick Hagan and expedition co-leader Frank Nederhand.

[All photos courtesy American Alpine Club's 2011 Expedition site.]

 

53 and Growing - Announcing the Opening of Our Latest Patagonia Stores

“Opening a store is like a marriage: you want it to be forever and you want everyone to be happy,” says Robert Cohen, Patagonia’s VP of global retail.

With the August opening of Patagonia Honolulu, and the December opening of Toronto and a second store in Santiago, Chile, we’ve tied the knot three times this year and are now up to 53 Patagonia-owned stores worldwide. It’s a veritable Big Love! (There also are a slew of single-brand Patagonia stores owned by Patagonia dealers everywhere from Antwerp to Burleigh Heads.) Three more Patagonia-owned stores are in the works this year in Kichijoji and Chiba, Japan, and San Sebastian, Spain.

“It’s unreal the way our store count is growing” Cohen said. “We realize there’s a limit to our growth. But 53 stores around the world isn’t that many. The number of places we aren’t is enormous.”

[The grand opening of our Honolulu store on December 12 was a Who's Who of the surf side of the company. There was food, live music and a silent auction benefiting our environmental partners on the islands. Photo: Morgan Maassen]

Picture Story: Imagine The Pasayten

Pacific Northwest climbers know John Scurlock for his stunning mountain images. His aerial photos have contributed to countless adventures, providing inspiration and aid to climbers looking to hone-in on details of remote peaks. John is a paramedic by trade, and a photographer and pilot by obsession (he’s working on a coffee table photo book, to be published by Wolverine Publishing in November). While his images usually lead to climbers daydreaming about future ascents, the other day, when John flew over Slate Peak on the southern edge of Washington’s Pasayten Wilderness, it brought him back 38 years. - Ed

Imagine The Pasayten

Thirty-seven years ago, at the age of 19, I was a backpacker northbound on the Pacific Crest Trail. In late August of 1973, atop Slate Peak, I finally reached the edge of the great and mysterious Pasayten Wilderness. Five weeks of solo travel seemed trivial now that I was about to step into this incredibly lonely, windswept jumble of peaks that lay in front of me. I was in awe, and felt as if I were the first, although of course I wasn't. Looking back on that day, I wonder what it takes to sustain those feelings as the years pass by, as life wears away at us, as we come to realize that there are always distant boundaries, as our romantic views of wild places fade with the responsibilities of adulthood.

Yet, for some reason that I can't explain, I still get that same sensation whenever I journey back up to Slate. I never guessed back then that I would someday have the enormous privilege of photographing some of the greatest peaks and ranges of the western US and Canada from the air. But through all those travels and adventures, that wonderful corner of the North Cascades is a constant pull. To stand at Slate, to climb Mt. Lago, to dip my hand in the sublime Dot Lake, to endure lightning at Horseshoe Basin, to be tent-bound in the Ashnola highland with a late fall storm whistling through the larches, the jingle of hobbled mules nearby in the snowy dark: these are my visions of the Pasayten and the North Cascades, and the sustaining heart of my own wilderness imagination.

--John Scurlock, originally written for The Wilderness Society

[Top - Pasayten Sunset: Slate Peak & Gold Ridge. Above, right - The fire lookout tower on Slate Peak. Photos: Scurlock Photo]

From the Trenches series - +1 Core for Winter Climbing

Like flocks of swirling swallows or shimmering schools of tropical fish, our customers swoop in with mysteriously synchronized concerns and questions on a regular basis, prompting the need for ready answers. Times like these, nothing would be more handy than magically beaming knowledge out into the ether. Kelly Cordes is our guest Trencher today, fielding a question that is at once simple - and surprisingly complex: How do you dress properly for ice climbing? - Ed
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Some people don’t like winter climbing because, surprise surprise, it’s cold. But it’s also beautiful – the stillness, the ever-changing medium, the winter light. Fun only in retrospect (Type II fun)? Not necessarily. The trick, or one of them, is to keep your body temperature just right. But you don’t want to inhibit mobility, since trying to climb while bundled-up like Ralphie from A Christmas Story isn’t much fun, either.

Here’s one simple pointer: wear an extra layer in your core, or torso. I call it my “+1 Core” layer. We’ve long known, courtesy of physiologists and backed by our own experiences, that when push comes to shove our bodies prioritize shunting warm blood away from our extremities and toward our more vital areas. By wearing an extra layer in your torso to keep key areas toasty, you get serious bang for your buck warmth-wise, while maintaining arm mobility. It’s a similar concept to that old saying from granny: if your toes are cold, put a hat on (surely the reason all shirtless bouldering bros wear a beanie). I, and many other climbers, believe that this whole “core warmth” thing helps me get away with wearing thinner, more dexterous gloves while winter climbing – nothing is worse than fumbling with gear in big gloves. Well, frozen fingers are worse, but that’s kind of my point, too. Like granny says.

[Tommy Caldwell misunderstands the vest concept. Photo: Kelly Cordes]

R.I.P., Shoe Tree

Back in 1986, Life magazine christened the 250 miles of US Highway 50 between Fallon and Ely, Nevada with the moniker “The Loneliest Road in America.” In a classic example of turning lemons into lemonade the Nevada Department of Tourism seized on the title and began a marketing campaign complete with loneliest road signs, survival guides and passports that could be stamped at various destinations along the route. Whether because of that marketing push, or simply the increased popularity of the American Southwest, Highway 50 isn’t nearly so lonely anymore. I count myself among its more frequent travelers.

To be sure, Highway 50 in central Nevada is still wonderfully desolate and real landmarks are few and far between. One of these was the Shoe Tree. As trees go it wasn’t all that spectacular; a lone cottonwood standing next to a perennially dry creek bed 110 miles east of Reno. What made the Shoe Tree special is that it was festooned with thousands of old shoes either hanging off the branches or just as likely, lying in a massive pile below the tree. As is often the case for such things, the origins of the Shoe Tree are apocryphal. All the stories are similar, starting with a couple, either recently or about to be married, and either traveling to - or maybe from - Reno, and an argument that ended or began with shoes being thrown into the tree, ostensibly so the bride wouldn't be able to run away.

[The Shoe Tree frames central Nevada's Desatoya Range on a chill winter day. Photo: Kirsten Mashinter.]