Black Lives Matter

#BlackLivesMatter, Black In National Parks Week, Black Lives Matter, Commentary, Diversity / 23.08.2022

More than a year ago I received a disappointing message via email. I had recently published an article in National Geographic Travel about an experience I shared guiding a group of Black and Latino outdoor leaders from Detroit and Grand Rapids Michigan on their first ice climbing trip. Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic, with the support of grant funding from the National Society and Patagonia, I put together a modest expedition to visit the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore along the frozen cliffs of Lake Superior. The purpose of this project...

1 Like
#BlackLivesMatter, Adventure Activism, Alaska, American Rivers, Black Lives Matter, Climate Change, Commentary, Destinations, Diversity, Environmental Journalism, Environmental Protection, Fly Fishing, National Parks, On Assignment / 22.07.2022

This week in Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park, I landed a two and half-foot Northern Pike, the biggest fish I’ve caught in my life. As a small group of anglers, all of African descent, our team on the BlackWaters Expedition was delivered by floatplane to a narrow beach on the banks of the Kobuk River. Led by Chad Brown, founder of the environmental engagement nonprofit Love Is King, this adventure into the least visited of all the national parks aimed to reimagine the face of Arctic...

2 Likes
Black Lives Matter, Books, National Geographic, National Parks, Outdoors For All, PBS / 08.07.2022

Thank you SO much for continuing to follow along on The Joy Trip Project. After 14 seasons of production, I am very grateful for the support and encouragement of readers, viewers and listeners like you. It’s hard to believe that the summer of 2022 is more than half-way through. You’d think that after trek toEverest BaseCamp back in April I’d have enough adventuring for the year. But this weekend I’m heading back to Alaska for a new film project in the Gates of the Arctic National Park. The film...

2 Likes
Black Lives Matter, Diversity, Everest, Full Circle Everest / 25.05.2022

Early this month the Joy Trip Project Reported that seven members of the Full Circle Everest Team successfully summited the highest mountain in the world. On Thursday, May 12, the group including Manoah Ainuu, Eddie Taylor, Rosemary Saal, Demond “Dom” Mullins, Thomas Moore, James “KG” Kagambi, and Evan Green made it to the top of Mount Everest and in doing so their achievement stands to redefine the cultural landscape of outdoor recreation and the environmental conservation movement of decades to come. The team, led by outdoor educator Philip...

0 Likes
#BlackLivesMatter, Adventure Activism, Black Lives Matter, Climbing, Destinations, Diversity, Essays, Everest, Expedition News, Full Circle Everest, Outdoors For All / 11.04.2022

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” ~ Mark TwainThe walk from Phadking to Namche is a six-mile climb up a narrow trail of steep stone steps along a dusty path. Much of my training at 920 feet of above sea level in Wisconsin over the past year had done little to prepare...

2 Likes
#BlackLivesMatter, Black In National Parks Week, Black Lives Matter, Diversity, National Geographic, National Parks, Podcast, Public Land, Unhidden / 09.03.2022

A few weeks before his 80th birthday, I had the rare pleasure to speak by phone to the 15th director of the National Park Service Robert Stanton. From his home in Maryland, Mr. Stanton shared with me a personal history of his career as a leading figure in the preservation of public land as well as the enduring legacy of our heritage as a nation. Born in 1940, as Black American Stanton was subjected to the racially focused prohibitions of the Jim Crow era that denied him access...

8 Likes