Podcast

Destinations, Environmental Protection, Interview, National Parks, PBS, Podcast, Television, Yosemite / 19.04.2011

01 Lee Stetson 1 Yosemite Valley California, president day: I’m walking with my recorder along a wooded path with a long bearded man wearing period clothing circa 1890, a tweed coat, a wool vest with a red pocket square and wide brimmed hat. Ahead of us is Yosemite Falls, a massive flowage of water running white and fast, churning with melted snow from the high country upstream. The man describes a fanciful vision of what we see. "Can you imagine? Can you imagine if in the midst of its headlong descent with all this whirling fairy springtime spray and those rushing comet tails that the fall was suddenly frozen solid and then carried bodily out into the middle of the valley that we might go around it and see it from all sides in the sunshine,” he says. “Oh was a show it would make. This colossal white pillar half a mile tall adorned with airy flowing drapery as if chiseled out of white marble.” Who better with whom to tour one of America’s greatest National Parks than the man himself John Muir. As if transported back in time I had the rare opportunity to get his impressions on Yosemite today.
Art, Diversity, Environmental Justice, Film Festival, Mountain Film, Music, Podcast / 15.04.2011

Now that spring is in the air it’s time to start thinking about that next great road trip. In the coming weeks I’ll pack up the Jetta and head out on a tour of the adventure media and film festivals. Looking for stories that celebrate the active lifestyle and environmental conservation I’ll be reporting from the 5Points Festival in Carbondale Colorado and then the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride. But as I’m making my plans I can’t help but think about how much our nation has changed over the past half century. Last year at Mountain Film I met a man who helped me put the freedom of road travel into a different perspective. Earnest “Rip” Patton is from Nashville, Tennessee. He’s considered an historian and a civil rights activist of the last 50s and early 60s.  Fifty years ago Rip was among first wave of student activists who road on buses into the Southern United States in the spring of 1961. Called the Freedom Rides the plan was to organize demonstrations in protest of racial segregation.
Afghanistan, Banff, Film Festival, Interview, Podcast / 20.03.2011

Millions of people around the world have read the bestselling book Three Cups of Tea. Written by David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson it’s the amazing true story of one man’s journey to turn a failed attempt to climb K2 into an international movement for peace. Working to build schools in the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan Greg Mortenson has inspired the production of a one-man play about his life starring Curtis Nielson. A Literature to Life production of The American Place Theater This stage adaptation of the popular book brings to life the spirit of exploration that delves to find the common threads of humanity that bind us all together. Three Cups of Tea is playing to captivated audiences across North America. This one-man show is a dramatic and heartwarming reenactment of the book. But Curtis Nielson’s portrayal of Greg Mortenson is a story in itself. In this interview recorded at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Alberta, Canada Curtis tells us how his journey as actor has led him to discover many wonderful gifts on the stage of life.
#ORWinter, Climate Change, Environmental Protection, Interview, Outdoor Recreation, Podcast, Skiing, Skiing / 31.01.2011

[caption id="attachment_4544" align="alignleft" width="311"] alisongannett.com[/caption] There are plenty of people out there talking about climate change. But how many are actually doing something about it. Even those of us who spend a lot of time outdoors can be guilty of contributing to the destruction of the natural environment we love. We fly in jets from place to place for the sake of adventure. And many of us are still driving low gas mileage carbon emitting SUVs. Our active lifestyles can put a really hurting on the planet. So that’s why we can all  take a few lessons from professional skier and environmental advocate Alison Gannett.
Adventure Activism, Climate Change, Environmental Journalism, Photography, Podcast / 10.01.2011

Any photographer will tell you, seeing is believing. But when it comes to climate change, a long slow process that occurs over time, its difficult to capture a single image that demonstrates the sheer magnitude of this global crisis. Even though the most obvious and apparent result of our warming planet is the recession of glacial ice, in some of the most remote places in the world it’s hard to truly show how relatively quickly and dramatically that ice is melting. So photographer James Balog came up with a plan to record the progress of climate change by taking a series of pictures from specific locations near glaciers over the course of several months. "We have time-lapse cameras installed permanently at these various glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, Montana, Alaska and soon to be around Mount Everest," Balog said. "And these cameras shoot every half hour around the clock as long as it’s daylight and they’re looking down on these glaciers that are changing and we make this visual record of the landscape in flux." Called the Extreme Ice Survey these images around the world shot on tripods show the cascade of glacial ice as it forms and then melts. The passage of time is quickly sped up to show the pace of change and its apparent progress.
Afghanistan, Charitable Giving, Interview, Mountain Film, philanthropy, Podcast / 29.12.2010

 

An interview with executive director Shannon Galpin

In her travels through Afghanistan the locals call Shannon Galpin the blond, blue-eyed infidel. At 36 this mountain bike racer from Breckenridge, Colorado makes her way through active war zones waging peace. As the executive director of her own non-governmental organization called Mountain 2 Mountain Shannon works on behalf of vulnerable women and children caught in the crossfire. “Our focus is to look at women in Afghanistan as beyond the victims but as the solutions and as the agents of change, “ Shannon said “and that these women that we are trying to work with through education and training are truly the solutions for the country.” Afghanistan has been a place of violent conflict for more than 40 years and with U.S. Troops on the ground now for almost a decade ordinary people, with no special training like Shannon are getting involved trying to find a peaceful solution. “I started traveling over there two or three years ago. I have spent time living in the middle east,” Shannon said. “I lived in Lebanon and traveled throughout the Middle East for a couple of years and I have always connected with the regions that have the worst human rights, that have the worst gender equity rights.” A single mother with a daughter at home Shannon is like many American women frustrated with the plight of people here at home and half a world away who suffer largely because of their gender. “What I realized was that I was ranting a lot and I was upset about it, and it was old adage of be the change that you want to see in the world,” Shannon said, and instead of complaining I should just get off my ass and do it.”