As a fully functioning adult living in a world as a ‘normal’ person (of course, that could be debated) I never had the opportunity to spend any time with the developmentally disabled population until the creation of Search for Adventure (SFA). About 6 years ago, Horny Toad (Nau’s sister company) and Search, Inc. got together to create SFA. The big idea here is that people without disabilities regularly have experiences that shape them outside of home, work or family – the developmentally disabled are often dependent on the government for benefits and services – rarely do they get the chance to experience the world beyond their day to day regiment. The primary goal of SFA is to give access to life experiences based on what they want to do instead of on what others have thought they should or shouldn’t, could or couldn’t do.

I have learned first hand that these trips empower people with developmental disabilities. They are able to see the world outside of the daily routine; not just survive but thrive, learn and experience. In 2004, one of the first trips was to the Powderhorn Dude Ranch in Colorado. One of my favorite quotes from this first trip is from Ed.  Ed is a horse enthusiast and budding cowboy. He got off the plane, took in the scenery and asked, “Is this heaven?”. If I could share the twinkle in his eyes or the excitement in his voice… you would understand.

This program has been so successful that we would like to offer additional experiences to more people. In our dream state we conjured up the idea of the “Adventuremobile” – essentially, a modified van. This vehicle would allow more accessible and economical trips to the most severely and profoundly disabled individuals. Here’s the cool part – you can help us reach our goal with the simple click of a button. (Seriously, it is that easy.) SFA has applied for a grant and the one with the most votes wins. You can learn more and, of course, we welcome your vote.

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Dearest, darling Univega,

Oh how I heart thee. Heart. As in LOVE. Love with all my heart.

Will you be my summer fling? I need you to be my summer fling.

You rocked me the moment we met. Do you remember that day? Almost three weeks ago? In the back of that garage, behind the house of a man called Duane. I took you for a test ride…too many gears, not a great saddle, sticky tacky rubbery grips…but Oh! the potential.

I knew you had it in you. The steel mixte frame, in a cool metallic blue. Just enough wabi-sabi scrapes and dings to know you’ve lived a full life so far. And you were made in Japan! My sources tell me that it’s better that you were made in Japan.

And now. Oh the transformation. Who could possibly say cosmetic surgery is an extravagance when it can yield such glistening perfection? Gone are the gears; with your 42:18 ratio you now ride like a song. Au revoir black squishy saddle, the Brooks props me up with a firm resolve. And your touch…the caress of your new cork grips against the heel of my hand gives me goosebumps. Truly! Even when it rains.

Yes, Univega. This is our time. Me. And you. This might just be the summer of our lives. Nevermind the eye rolling and mock-vomiting of my friends, they’ll get used to my unfettered expression of our love. Nevermind the evil eye of the Bianchi, who now sits neglected in the corner. She’ll get used to it. We can do this as a team! A team of three! Haven’t you ever seen Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona?

I am in love. May this fluttery feeling in my heart never die. May the smile on my face as we ride through the city never fade, not even when the bugs get stuck in my teeth. Not even when my skirt flips up immodestly. Not even, Univega, when this summer nears its end, and I may need to tuck you away – temporarily! – for the Bianchi, who has fenders.

Love. LOVE, Univega. As in heart. You have my heart.

Let us ride.

xxooxxoo

The outdoor industry is collectively mourning a terrible loss with the recent deaths of climbers Jonny Copp and Wade Johnson. They and fellow climber Micah Dash (who is, as of this writing, still missing) were attempting a new route on Mt. Edgar’s Minya Konka massif, in China’s Western Sichuan Province, when an apparent avalanche swept across their path.

I only knew Micah and Wade distantly, and send love, strength and condolences to their families and friends, as have hundreds of people from all over the world, whose support continues to stream in at an impressive volume via Facebook and the Adventure Film Festival blog. (Facebook, I am learning, can have some real heart, when used toward the good of a thing.)

Jonny was an early member of Nau’s community of Influencers, those artists, athletes, and activists who unabashedly rock our world through their authentic pursuit of their passions in outdoor sport, design, and environmental and social activism.

We established the Influencers early on, knowing we would need a community of peers not only to review our products each season, but also to keep us real; to remind us, when wandering astray, of our priorities, which are, simply put, to move, be moved, and move others.

Through his work as a climber, photographer, filmmaker, and Director of the Adventure Film Festival in Boulder, Jonny was, in his never tiring, slightly goofy, and always humble way, an Influencer to a tee.

As the photo editor at Nau, I first met Jonny through his eyes. I was immediately drawn to his photographs and films, not only for the way they captured the breathtaking rarity of the people and places he knew, but also for their clarity and honesty. There wasn’t a lot of clutter, just clean lines, clear faces, and a direct route from me, the viewer, to the essence of whatever he was trying to convey, whether it was to get me outside, to show me someone’s spirit, or to make me laugh my ass off. His view to the world was rare, curious, courageous, real, fresh, funny, and inspiring.

As was Jonny himself. During Nau 1.0, we met or spoke every few months, and I always looked forward to those meetings. I was impressed (given his lifestyle) with his ability to sit still, to look me in the eye, hear what I had to say, offer constructive feedback, and to tell tales of his mindblowing adventures without ever spinning off into a space of self-congratulatory bravado.

We tossed around how, then when, we could fold his work into our ever-evolving efforts at Nau. Things never lined up, not for lack of trying, but only because Jonny was always about to leave, or already gone, off to his next best thing.

There never seems to be enough time. This can be an annoying thing, but occasionally a good thing, too. Jonny made the most of this – not wasting a single moment of his very full, but far too short, life. Thinking about my own experience of this man, I am also reminded that sometimes a blip in time is all it takes to reveal a powerful force. I did not need to know him for years to recognize how profound Jonny’s impact on our world would be.

I will miss his bright eyes, his crushing hug, and his ear-to-ear smile, but I will not miss his inspiration, because that will stay right here, in his lasting work and in my mind, a little nudge from Jonny here and there, keeping me motivated, keeping me real.

Love to you, Jonny Copp.

Love to the crew at Sender Films, too, who, along with everyone at Adventure Film Festival, are still working around the clock to find Micah and bring these guys home.

Learn how you can help here.

(photos gently borrowed from coppworks.com and adventurefilm.org, and I am hoping that in this case it’s ok…)

There’s this band called MGMT (pronounced Management) and most of their music sounds like a debaucherous 3AM party soundtrack, but I was listening to their song “Kids” the other day and I heard these lyrics:

“Control yourself,
Take only what you need from it.
A family of trees falling,
To be haunted.

…

The water is warm,
But it’s sending me shivers…

…

Decisions are made and not bought
But I thought this wouldn’t hurt a lot
I guess not…”

My interpretation is that these guys are talking about sustainability, global warming and considering the consequences of our actions, so that there will be something left for the “kids” in the future. I could be wrong. Whatever the meaning is, it’s a pretty good jam for a Friday.

It’s kind of a given that the people working at Nau have a passion for the outdoors: skiers, bikers, surfers, climbers and paddlers abound in our ranks, and when our team clocks out at the end of the day, many run (literally) from town to do something fresh and physical. But it came as a happy surprise to me that so many of the people I work with have separate creative lives outside the office. Among my immediate coworkers I have found authors, illustrators, photographers, painters, filmmakers and dancers.

Six months ago, when Eugenie invited me to a performance she was part of called “Endless Ocean Endless Sky” (playing in Austin, TX this weekend), I didn’t quite know what to expect. Choreographed and produced by Tahni Holt, the website for the Portland production was mysterious and poetic. The story, it seemed, was a collection of vignettes 100 “moments” long. Since only ten audience members are allowed in the performance at a time, I made sure to reserve a spot early. Read More »

Photographers observe, explore, and comment on the world around them with their lenses. The best of this breed of artist create images that are approachable, clever, aesthetically pleasing, refraining from trying to bash you over the head with their work’s meaning. Like the saying goes, “Walk softly but carry a big shtick.”

As both a photographer and appreciator of this art form, I’m constantly amazed by people’s brilliance and insight, especially when their work deals with environmental issues in subtle and clever ways.

Below are a few of the artists that have influenced my own personal work; the last two images, a landscape by my boyfriend Kevin Malella and another by yours truly, are our own variations on this theme, presenting both the sublime and the surreal in respect to our changing environment. The interpretation is up to you…

Photographs (L-R):
1. Dionisio Gonzales – Heliopolis 1
2. Alan Cohen – Construction No. 108-03
3. Edward Burtynsky – Nickel Tailings No. 31 (Sudbury, Ontario 1996)
4. David Maisel – Mining Project 3
5. Edward Burtynsky – Uranium Tailings No. 12
6. David Maisel – Lake Project 20
7. Kevin Malella – Mutated Towers
8. Simone Bogode – River Project No. 3

A few years ago I had the good fortune of paddling the Mountain River located in the Mackenzie River Valley in the Northwest Territories. That adventure inspired a trip that is currently in planning. I depart on June 27th for a two-week paddling trip on the Snake River in the Yukon. Those trips and others like them, combined with the fact that I’m Canadian, have engendered a life-long interest in wilderness preservation.

That’s why I read with interest the Canadian government’s announcement about the creation of a new national park. It’s called Naats’ihch’oh, which in the Dene language refers to Mount Wilson, a major landmark in the area and means “pointed like a porcupine quill.” The plan is to convert 25.5 million acres of northern boreal forest into a new national park and wildlife protection areas. For those who are counting, that’s about 11.5 times the size of Yellowstone Park.

The boreal forest comprises a band of trees about 1600 miles wide that spans across much of Canada ” just below the arctic tundra ” and continues in northern Scotland, Scandinavia and Russia. Large numbers of migratory birds and waterfowl make their summer home in the boreal. It’s also an important habitat for grizzly bears, dall sheep and woodland caribou and its trees are believed to play an important role in offsetting the rise of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also excellent news, given the accelerating industrial activities such as the Mackenzie Gas project (including a proposed pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley) and unprecedented uranium exploration east of Great Slave Lake.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the idea of inspiration. Where it comes from, when it arrives, how it is born. Like many, my earliest and most powerful source of inspiration was the outdoors. Recently I’ve been reflecting on the literal source of these feelings: the first place I discovered them.

This weekend I visited my family in San Diego, where I grew up, and went for a run on the cliff trails at Torrey Pines State Reserve. It’s a place I have spent countless hours in since I was a child, exploring and discovering the quiet wonder of the earth. While I think of it as a profound spot, it was not until this trip that I realized how important it was in my development of a relationship to the outdoors. Read More »

I killed a bird on the way home from the beach. There was no way of avoiding it. It crossed in front of my car quickly, emerging from the snowy bushes on the left shoulder and flying madly toward the other side of the road. I didn’t have time to react”to do so anyway would have put my family’s life in danger on the icy mountain pass.

I heard the small thud and looked in my rearview to see feathers flying and a black dot in the lane behind us.

I felt bad.

When I told my wife what had happened, it spawned a conversation about the cost of doing the things we love. We talked about the gas used to get to the ocean and my petroleum-laced wetsuit and toxic surfboard. Was the negative impact I had on the environment worth the positive impact the environment had on my life through surfing? Read More »

The Big Apple welcomed Nau with open arms last month, and I’d like to thank everyone for all of the excellent recommendations. While I didn’t spend much time getting to know the greener side of New York, I did spend some time getting to know New Yorkers. On our last night in town a server told us that New Yorkers who visit Portland are never the same. Here are a few things I learned while visiting New York:

1. Shoes. It’s all about the Shoes.
2. If your eyes are open, art is everywhere.
3. Don’t miss a beat or blink an eye when the wildest thing happens right in front of you. Take it in and keep moving.
4. “Lanes” are relative.
5. Eating anything less than amazing food, regardless of the time or your budget, is totally unacceptable.
6. While politeness has its place, being direct is so much more efficient.
7. Women’s clothes look just as good on Men
8. There is a reason why the restaurants name is “Peep”.
9. Respect moving vehicles. They do not, and will not, stop or slow down if you step in front of one.
10. Always look your best because when you least expect it, you could bump into an old college crush. It’s a big city, but a small world.