Blogs

here are some images, moving and otherwise, to tell the story of our beautiful trip to bali. 

i'm currently filming a short documentary about berkeley artist gerhard nicholson. view a rough trailer here.

i recently returned from spending two and a half months in yosemite leading ten students through a 40 day leadership and literacy course. being in the mountains was divine, and the students were pretty stellar as well.

:)

check out the above "landscapes" on flickr, or visit the rest of the galleries. (mountains, rivers, etc.)

10 students from around california - dos palos, atwater, livingston, oakland, san jose, and los olivos - gave it their all this summer. we spent 40 days in yosemite, backpacking, rock climbing, swimming, studying english, and learning about ourselves. it was a privilege to be involved, and to get to know these exceptional teenagers.

(props to elena for eyeballing this granite california atop the huge pile of rocks known as buena vista peak)

:)

In my short tenure at International Rivers, I've come to expect dams in every corner of every country around the globe. Still, I was shocked by the ubiquitous nature of these concrete beasts as we flew above China. On the three-hour flight south from Beijing to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, I counted over 70 dams.

greetings friends of sagehen creek and extreme sportspeople,

i have just returned from what appears to be, (until declared otherwise), the successful first descent of the wild and scenic sagehen creek, 12 miles north of truckee california. previously thought unrunnable, this unique river has finally been tamed.

today i found myself, for the thousandth time, eyeballing the creek as it flowed behind my non-ramshackle cabin in the heart of the field station. but today was different, for you see, out of the other eye i noticed that i had my kayak right here in town, atop my crappy car. it seemed destiny was taunting me...it was now or never, or later...i went for it.

i put in at ARC headquarters, leo's lounge, much to the disbelief of at least one local scientist. the first 1/8 mile was treacherous...one fallen log after another, making it in fact impossible to even put in. i walked this section, making sure to memorize the lines for any future high-water descents. finally as i arrived just upstream of upper camp, i was able to set sail, so to speak, and commence the on-water portion of my journey.

a few must-make eddies and log-portages later the first major obstacle of the day came into view, "fish-house falls". a post-modern concrete and steel monster spanning the width of the entire river, i had but three choices. left, middle, or center. surprisingly, there was a small crowd of locals partying atop the structure, and it was only my will to impress that kept me in my boat for this one. i opted for the left channel, and, ducking under the steel latticework, hit the middle of the flume at breakneck speed and made the 18 inch drop into a frothing 4 inch wave which nearly stopped me dead in my tracks. the crowd went bananas.

i continued on around the bend, negotiating the 3 foot wide riverbed using a variety of techniques, including grass-pulling, log-limbo, and sheer determination. soon i came upon a horizon line, with a fine mist of foam arising from beyond. this was "the fesus freefall". just upstream of the fesus freefall was the gauging station, where i read the level to be an astonishing 2.60, a flow that had always been considered both too high and too low to be runnable. making a mental note of the level, i took a few furious strokes to get up some speed and launched myself over the 22 inch cataract. i made it, and let out a holler of joy to wake the sleeping scientists just a few hundred yards away.

i arrived on the scuba-diving pirate island of utila, honduras, on a friday night with a taller-than-me, drum-playing, dreaded and tattoed swede, after an hour and a half nearly-capsizing-the-whole-time boat ride through 15 foot seas, to discover motorcycles, four-wheelers, bicycles and golf carts speeding back and forth along the one pedestrian street, weaving their way between tourists and pirate-speaking locals who wandered to and fro below the sounds of reggae blasted from homemade balcony speakers. then i spent two days patrolling the streets in a haze of indecisive stress, trying to decide between twelve seemingly equal yet highly competitive dive shops, only to choose one which a day later i deemed too much of a coolness-oriented twenty year old hangout and switched to another one to take my diving course. now i am instructed, one on one, by a chain-smoking, speedo-clad german named ralf, who is quite nice and a great teacher. we have gone diving twice, and i have somehow survived with fifty feet of water over my head for halves of hours, drifting along the sides of coral walls with my ears gradually approaching one another due to pressure, without succumbing to the suicidal urge to laugh at the incredibleness and ridiculousness of being that far underwater, thereby dislodging my breathing apparatus from my mouth. i have yet to gain an exemplary degree of "control" or "comfort" with this bizarre sport, but i do have two more days and four more journeys beneath the sea in which to figure the shit out.*

*(two days later) i figured it out.

i think i´m felling in love with xela (it happened last week).
after just one day i was all into this fine guatemalan city...it´s native and mountainous around the edges, plain central american chaos throughout the thick outer core, with a creamy european filling in the center. everywhere you look there´s something beautiful or interesting...and not so touristy either. the lighting in this city looks like it was laid out by a hollywood lighting designer. women roam the streets in beautiful skirts and colorful clothes, looking more beautiful than ...
there are alot of foreigners here, but they´re all studying spanish, so the locals know they ain´t looking to spend a ton of money. it´s real, if not slightly upscale, guatemala.

um, chiapas.
san cristobal is quaint by all accounts, including mine...