A Subsistence Christmas pt. 1
My Kenyan hosts have a homestead and coffee farm in Nyeri county, near the village of Mihuti. This particular region of Kenya is hilly and mountainous, the topography uneven and sporadic. The area is notably fertile and green, especially in the weeks following October-November’s rainy season that had precluded my stay here. Nyeri is predominately … Read more
A Subsistence Christmas pt. 2
As previously mentioned, most rural Kenyan households have no electricity or running water. Water is a scarce and precious resource in Kenya, particularly during the two annual dry seasons. Nearly every home I visited in Nyeri was equipped with a set of gigantic water catchment tanks, and possibly a few rain barrels as well. Residents … Read more
We’ll have our humble pie, then eat it, too.
Icy, dry, and windy describe the last couple months here in the Rockies. Without much terrain that isn’t blistered by moguls or glazed over by ice and wind-pack, we have opted to imagine back into existence our youth through riding parks. The video is so raw it could give you digital salmonella. But I’m putting … Read more
Snowshoeing Tanglewood Creek in the Mt. Evans Wilderness
The Deer Creek/Rosalie/Tanglewood trails have been a go-to for my wife and I anytime we need a quick wilderness tour and don’t have a lot of time to travel. The view from Tanglewood’s summit yields unique views of the southern Front Range and the undulating expanse of the Great Plains. The trail becomes faint in … Read more
Some Quotes on Preserving Language, Culture, and Place
“In our efforts to preserve endangered species, we overlook something equally important: To me, it is a sign of a deeply disturbed civilization where tree-huggers and whale-huggers, in their weirdness, are acceptable, while no one embraces the last spoken languages of our world.” -Werner Herzog from documentary film, Encounters at the End of the World “Ojibwemowin … Read more
Mt. Harvard: Less Gentry, More Dirtbag
We wanted our second ascent to be more challenging, but still within our expanding skill levels. We originally chose Mt. Columbia because it offered a vista that we imagined would be as eye-dazzling as Quandary’s, but which was twice as long a climb with a step up from cat. 1 (Quandary) to a cat. 2. … Read more
Quandary Peak: The Quandary of Stewardship, Recreation, and First Ascents
One of my greatest fears when Fall semester begins is the inexorable aggregation of fat around my midsection and the phlegmy hacking that comes from unused lungs. Much of this is due to the lack of an active community who pushes the members to physical limits all year round. Thankfully, I met a peer who … Read more
Nine-Eleven: Remembering Terrorism at Home and Abroad
Today is nine-eleven. Week-long tributes will air on national television as well as, according to my mom who lives in Australia, there, too. It’s not only a day to remember, but an entire week. What is it exactly that we’re rallied to remember? What emotions are dredged up once again, like dusty Christmas ornaments that … Read more
The Columbian Exchange and Protecting Our Ecological Heirlooms
In Charles C. Mann’s latest eco-historical book “1493″, he recounts how Christopher Columbus re-assembled pangea’s flora and fauna identity. Pangea was the connected conglomeration of the earth’s continents before they split. He did this through, what we can now deem, ecological globalization: The spreading and re-distributing of flora and fauna back to continents where they had … Read more
Desperate for Snow
Posted by sainteterre on January 22, 2012 · Leave a Comment
This video of smashed together clips documents some solo riding I did over the holiday break. The snow was scant and the resorts were chocked full of hyper tourists and anxious locals, so I drove out to Guanella Pass and found a tree that had released its roots after a gnarly windstorm. With about 6 … Read more
Category Prose, Review & Commentary · Tagged with GNAR GNAR, travel