2016: A year in review

January, 2016. My teeth chattered as I rushed to load my suitcase into the taxi. The cab driver stepped out to assist. Long white shocks of hair stuck straight out under the rim of his newsboy cap, and the edges of his trench coat swirled, chasing snowflakes in the wind. His leathery hand shake said I have a story, catch it if you can.

Five minutes into our drive to the airport, the pages began to turn. 

"I worked at a suicide prevention hotline for years," he recalled, " and the number one cause of suicidal ideation was always isolation. People think nobody else can understand what they have been through, but the basic emotions are always the same. Fear. Anger. Loneliness."

His solution? Simple- if somebody is having a hard time, take them out to eat. To him, a happy stomach was love. He believed this so deeply, he proposed to his wife with a bowl of soup. The words "Will You Marry Me" at the bottom of the bowl were revealed after her final sip. Sure enough, their marriage had been a happy one, good to the very last drop. She had passed away a few years ago, so now he made soup for his friends.

Several hundred pages later, we arrived at the airport, and I took off for Vancouver, Canada.

Andrew and I spent the next month exploring parts of Canada and the West Coast. He took photos for a travel article, and I interviewed the characters - a hermit turned dog sledder, an ambitious skier turned businessman. In between, we snuck away to explore ice caves and test our own wobbly ski legs.

When I returned home to Hawaii, I resolved to uncover more stories of the human emotions that inexplicably link us together. Stories that said you are human - you are not alone.

I began a personal project- a series of street portraits and interviews, which I called People in Paradise. At first, I was terrified to approach strangers, but the more I practiced, the better I got.

Only a few weeks later, I was able to put these newly honed interview skills to work, and I covered the Eddie Aikau for the Guardian, the first of several stories I wrote this year.

I flew over to Maui and met up with the athletes from a travel racing TV show called Boundless. We shot their own athletic challenge they dubbed The Maui Wowee - 90 miles of tangled bike spokes and rubber soles, frenetic warrior chants, and smeared zinc oxide.

Back home, I continued to shoot, and brought a few creative visions of my own to life.

I taught a 6-week photography course to 4th and 5th graders, which I called Developing Empathetic Storytelling with Photography. We utilized iPads to explore creative ways to tell their stories. I wanted to explore the concept of empathy as it applied to viewing things from different perspectives, and we spent time studying photographs from the lives of other children around the world, comparing and contrasting their struggles, and discussing times they had experienced similar emotional circumstances.

Several wrote in their reflections "I feel like I'm from another planet and nobody understands me." The kids loved finding ways to take creative photos, but many said the discussion component was their favorite.

Then, in June, my father passed away.

When I was 10, my dad planted the seeds for my photography and handed me my first film camera. "A good photograph tells a story," he said. Throughout our childhood, we ducked and moaned as his ever-clicking camera haunted our most awkward moments. 

Now, back home with my family, I spent hours shuffling through the boxes of photos - stories he had left behind for us.

In a bittersweet twist, the painful circumstances brought me and my six brothers and sisters together for a few weeks - the most time all seven of us had spent together in quite awhile, and the most precious moments of my 2016.

Back home in Hawaii, I continued the year with various portraits, events and commercial jobs. I continued to interview people, and published a few more stories.

In the fall, we returned to Canada, joined our friends canyoneering for a feature with the Weather Channel, and then explored some of the amazing climbing Squamish had to offer. In some sort of an inceptionistic photograph, here is an aerial photo Andrew shot of Gaby shooting me climbing a crack on The Chief.

I also did some inter-island travel as a producer for Andrew's video production company. Here's a shot from one such adventure on Kauai, when he was filming for a show on the Travel Channel. 

After living on the islands for five years, I finally witnessed lava meeting ocean, both by air and by land.

I continued to explore the mountains that have inspired me on Oahu. Losing a parent was unlike anything I've ever dealt with. As you grow older, you see parts of them in you, both the good, and some of the things that drove you nuts. It felt like losing a piece of myself. In all this, I found a special solace in the mountains, and spent many treks in solitude exploring the ups and downs of the ridges.

I also found great consolation in stories of people who have felt the same emotions, or dealt with similar circumstances. 

Stories of fear, stories of puzzlement, stories of sorrow, stories of dreams.

 Stories of the shared experience of being human.

In 2017, I'm looking forward to sharing more photos and stories of these people and places that have inspired me.

The dirtbag's guide to TV stardom

Kitt Turner & Jenna Balsai are amazing.

We already knew that, but Weather Channel just made it official. Since my last #vanlife post about them, they have gone on to become TV stars.

Ok, ok, maybe they're not hosting their own show. Yet. But the Weather Channel will be featuring a segment devoted to the climbing couple and their canyoneering adventures on the premiere of their "That's Amazing" TV show this Sunday, Dec 4th, 9pm ET. We happened to be in Canada while they were filming, so we got to join in the adventure:

Kitt is the king of selfies in Oahu. If you don't believe me, you'll have to watch the episode to see for yourself. 

But because I did promise in the title that this would be a guide to stardom, I give you:

The dirtbag's steps to stardom:

Note: For the concerned or offended, as defined by Patagonia, "dirtbag" is an affectionate term used to describe devoted adventurers. Or in their exact words, the kind of person who might organize a game of hacky sack in the middle of an El Capitan ascent. 

Step One: Do awesome stuff
Like put up a lot of first canyon descents on your island. Or is it down? Put down?

Step two: Take the plunge
Move into a van on the mainland with your adventure-level-approved girlfriend and spend a year climbing, driving, and taking the inevitable breaks to fix your van.

Step three: Get discovered
Storytelling production crew discovers an article about you canyoneering in Hawaii.

Step three (b): Producers also find a #vanlife blog post and read about your adventure quest. *Cough cough* That's right, folks, if you let me write a story about you....... you might not get famous. But somebody might read it and make you famous. You just never know...

This guy carried that microphone over about 65 slippery-stone river crossings.

Step Four: Get filmed
Producers send a production crew out to follow you while you explore a canyon in Canada. Bonus points if several of your Hawaii friends happen to all be in Canada at the same time and can join for the adventure.

The Hawaii canyoneering crew in Canada

Step Five: Get famous?
While it has yet to be determined how far Kitt & Jenna's TV stardom will propel them, I'm happy to report my peppy bright red rain jacket has already been receiving casting calls since its epic three-second appearance in the feature.

Disclaimer: Guide not intended to guarantee actual TV representation. Results may vary. Please consult your local selfie coach before beginning a new TV stardom quest. 

Beauty in the storm

Of all the islands I have visited, Kauai has some of the most unpredictable fluctuations in weather. She also happens to hold a record for the most rainfall in one hour.

When Kauai is in a good mood, she's bright, colorful, and cheerful.

Waimea Canyon on a sunny day

On Kauai, 100% can mean half a day of rain, and 60% can mean rain all day. But if there's one thing I've learned from living in Hawaii, it's that the show doesn't end when it starts raining. There is a special, unique kind of beauty in the storm. 

Waimea canyon last Saturday in the storm.

Sure, there's something to be said for those bright, sunny moments. But if you pack your bags and head home the minute it starts raining, you might miss out on some of the most beautiful, tempestuous moments Hawaii has to offer.

The moonlit waves and cool saltwater breeze just before the storm begins.

The delicate strands of the spider's web shaking in the wind.

The gurgling streams picking up momentum as the rain brings more water.

The intricate features of trees uprooted by the storms.

And the ethereal, pastel colors of a sunset enshrouded in fog.

Sure, everyone thinks of sunshine and blue skies when they think of Hawaii. But I think there's a unique beauty in the storms, don't you?

Breakfast with Pele

My face glows with heat as our helicopter weaves through steamy clouds. Below, Pele's thick lava fingers ooze over the edge of jagged rocks to kiss the waves. The ocean explodes, and then evaporates, sending up smoke trails of steam and particles.

The Kilauea volcano on Big Island been brewing quietly for the past three years, but in May she boiled over, sending fat ribbons of scorching lava cascading down towards the ocean's edge. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire & volcanos, she has a reputation for being quite.. capricious. Legend says you'll be cursed if you remove lava rocks from Volcanos National Park (and as I found out later, it's also illegal). I was skeptical, at first. During my first attempt to explore the park five years ago, I threw a couple sassy remarks at Pele. "Oh do your worst Pele, I'm not superstitious!"

I placed a small black lava rock in my pocket and turned to step away. As if on cue, my foot slipped on the wet rock, and I went flying face-first into the razor sharp A'a rock. "OK, OK, YOU CAN HAVE IT!" I shouted, hurling the rock out of my pocket with my bloodied arm. Needless to say, my relationship with Pele has taken on a much more respectful dynamic since our first encounter.

I recently had a chance to fly over the flow with helicopter pilot Kris Gourlay of 2 G Group and photographers Rob & Allie Cox of AquaNalu. From the helicopter, we could observe Pele's powers from a safe distance. 

The morning sun illuminates steam rising off rivers of lava.

Since the lava began flowing, Volcanos National Park has seen an increase in visitors to over 6,000 lava-lovers daily. Most are content to view the eruption from the park, but a few brave souls make the six hour approach by foot to get a closer look. 

Boat tours make their approach through boiling ocean waters.

A few brave hikers watch the morning sun stream through clouds of steam formed where the fire meets the ocean. These clouds, while beautiful, can also prove deadly. The plumes contain levels of hydrochloric acid, which can wreak havoc on a body, if inhaled for extended periods of time. In 2000, park rangers recovered two bodies inside Volcanos National Park. Their bodies showed no sign of trauma, and the rangers were stumped. But little bits of their skin were eaten away by acid rain, and an autopsy revealed they had died from swollen lungs, caused by inhaling large quantities of hydrochloric acid. For clouds such as these, they are best appreciated from a safe distance.

From the helicopter, we were able to avoid the clouds and still get some pretty spectacular views up close. I always assumed the lava would turn into black, hardened rock the moment it touched water, but it turns out the ocean is not able to cool the lava as fast as it enters. If you look closely, you can see orange fire continues to glow beneath the surface of the ocean.

The rocks form a variety of shapes as they meld with the water. This one resembled Darth Vader blowing smoke out of his mask. 

On the right, you can see waterfalls of lava trickling downwards.

From above, you can watch ocean waves kiss the newly hardened lava rock formations.

Skeletons of the trees killed by the lava flow are strewn across the newly formed rock surface.

But death creates new life. As we flew back towards Hilo, we soared over forests of new trees growing on land formed by lava flows from many years before. 

In the end, my second trip to visit Pele was much more friendly than my first. If you do go to check out the lava for yourself, it pays to do so with caution and respect.

You can consult the National Park for more information about conditions and safety precautions here: https://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/lava2.htm

Fireworks from above

Taking photos of fireworks from a helicopter at night is a very challenging, but rewarding photography experience.

My friend Kris Gourlay called me up on July 4th and invited me up in the air to test out a few new fireworks shot ideas he'd been playing with. Kris is a talented helicopter owner and pilot. He's always thinking of new ways to combine his love of flying with his knowledge of Hawaii's beautiful scenery. In addition to working with photographers, he operates various luxury helicopter experiences. Today, he wanted to check out some of the different firework shows across Oahu.

The fifth of July is my birthday. As a child I spent every fourth pretending the fireworks were ringing in my birthday. I don't get so excited about birthdays anymore, but watching fireworks from the air brought back those giddy childhood feels.

I did a little preliminary research, but "Firework Photography from a Helicopter" didn't bring up a lot. I knew that you normally shoot photos from a helicopter at a very hiiiiigh shutter speed, at least 1/500 of a second and up, because the levels of vibration are so high your photos will be blurry otherwise. I also knew that to capture fireworks you would typically use a tripod and a slooooooooow shutter speed, because it's so dark, plus longer exposures allow you to capture the light trails instead of the fireworks looking like little pins of light in the sky. So take a slow photo from a helicopter that requires fast photos..... 

The best night time aerial photos I found were achieved with expensive gyros for stabilization. Since I don't have one, I decided to bring a few options and figure it out in the air.

Sony - ISO 1600 - 55mm - f/1.8 - 1/200 sec

I brought a Canon 5D Mark III with a 16-35mm 2.8 and a 24-105 F4 with IS. I've read mixed reviews about if internal stabilization helps for aerial photography. I also brought a Sony A7rii with a 55mm 1.8, and my metabones adaptor. The nice thing about the 2nd edition of the Sony mirrorless is that the internal stabilization is built into the camera, so regardless of which lens you attach, you have IS. Since the Canon prime lenses don't have IS, you end up having to choose between stability or speed. With Sony, you can have your cake and eat it too. I only wish I had the SonyA7sii, as it handles low light and high ISO much better than the A7rii. 

Sony - ISO 2000 - 55mm - f/1.8 - 1/125 sec

Kailua fireworks began first at 8pm, so we headed out towards that side to start. As we passed Waikiki, we could see boats lining up for the show in the dusky evening glow. I quickly realized my F4 Canon lens was not going to be of any help, IS or not. It was already so dark I was struggling to get enough light with the 2.8 lens. I ended up shooting almost exclusively with the Sony and 55mm 1.8. I now know that in this situation prime lenses with a low f-stop are the only way to go.

Sony - ISO 1600 - 55mm - f/1.8 - 1/50 sec

As we made our way along the coast, I experimented with a few slower shutter speeds on the A7rii. Obviously they weren't tack sharp, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected. 

Sony - ISO 10,000 - 55mm - f/1.8 - 1/100

We arrived just in time for the start of the Kailua show, and picked a spot from the water behind the islands. Getting enough light to capture the islands in the foreground was especially tricky. It helped that we still had some dusk lighting. 

Sony - ISO 10,000 - 55mm - f/ 1.8 - 1/60 sec

Once we got into position, Kris was able to hold the helicopter in place for enough time to fire off a few sharper shots. Everything was manual focus, since neither camera did particularly well at focusing while moving quickly at night, especially Sony. 

Canon 5dMkIII - ISO 12,800 - 19mm - f/2.8 - 1/80 sec

Canon 5dMkIII - ISO 12,800 - 35mm - f/3.2 - 1/80sec

I wasn't able to get any photos that were bright enough to show the islands in the foreground with the Canon, but I did use it when we pulled around to check out Kailua with the city lights. While I had to use a higher ISO, and I think there's slightly more blur without the IS, the Canon handled slower shutter speed reasonably well.  It was also slightly harder to focus quickly while moving - the focus peaking on Sony really is nice for things like that. 

Canon 5dMkIII - ISO 12,800 - 35mm - f/2.8 - 1/40 sec

As we headed back from Kailua, we could see the fireworks starting in Waikiki, so we moved in for a closer view.

Sony - ISO 10,000 - 55mm - f/ 1.8 - 1/125

The view looking back with the city lights in the front was stunning, especially with the reflections of the city lights on the Ala Wai.

Sony - ISO 10,000 - 55mm - f/ 1.8 - 1/125

Unfortunately, air space can be kind of tricky at night. At this point, several airplanes were taking off in our area, so we were forced to land before the grand finale in Waikiki. We caught a few last glimmers as we descended back towards the airport. 

Sony - ISO 10,000 - 55mm - f/ 1.8 - 1/125

Overall, I was pretty happy with the results, given this was my first try. In the future, I would definitely stick with prime, low f-stop lenses, and perhaps a camera that handled high ISO better, like the Sony A7sII. Despite the challenges, I was happy with the results.

In the end, it was one of the best ways I've ever rung in a birthday, and pretty good fourth of July. :)

Have any tips for night aerial photography? Which camera do you prefer for low-light high ISO? Comment below and let me know your thoughts!

Just keep dancing

Wanaka, the town that never stops dancing.

Nestled deep in the mountains of New Zealand, somewhere near Mt. Aspiring and south of Mt Cook, is a cozy little town named Wanaka. The smaller (and quieter) sibling of snowboarding central Queenstown, Wanaka is home to a lively population of Kiwis and a steady influx of working holiday visa holders, primarily French. It’s a small town, with a population of just over 7,000. The majority of tourists bypass Wanaka for the more popular Queenstown. They’ll never know what they're missing out on.

I first laid eyes on this house during a trip through the South Island in the winter of 2013. 

On the corner of the town center sat a small white stone house wrapped in red vines. Directly adjacent was a gurgling stream that snaked around from behind the right side of a small hut, the former Wanaka jailhouse. The house itself was aging. The leaking roof and drafty halls whispered stories of old, when the house was home to the jail warden, and the tiny hut held all of Wanaka’s troublemakers.

Now, the troublemakers of old had been replaced with new ones in the form of four young tenants: Wes, our old friend from Hawaii, and his three flatmates. We were planning on stopping through for a day or so. We deeply underestimated the magic of Wanaka. 

We arrived on a winter night and were greeted by cheerful music and the smell of brown gravy.

“Hello hello!” a woman pushed her way around Wes to join in the welcome. Her large, friendly eyes danced behind a web of curly bangs. Her name was Juliette, and she introduced herself with a hug as strong as her French accent.

On the side of the kitchen Chris, a young Kiwi waved from his perch in a window seat alcove. He was buried in work on his laptop, but his head was bobbing to the music that floated through the house. Wes and Juliette led us into the kitchen, where they were preparing dinner.

A note on the fridge announced the house’s current mission statement:

Things to think about

• We need to come up with a plan for wood for the fireplace.

• We miss Paz when he’s away

• When we are sober… it’s not normal.

• Our friends are awesome.

• Dancing and dishes in same times. Always.

While all of the statements were scrawled in various hands, there was no doubt who had wrote the latter. Juliette swayed between a cutting board and a pan, tossing vegetables into the pan in rhythm with “Happy” by CDC. As the song hit the crescendo, she leapt onto the bench and thrust her large wooden spoon into the air victoriously. “I need to be happy! Every, everyday! Yes! Yes!” My eye dropped from the swaying spoon to two large bruises on her legs.

“That’s normal,” chuckled Chris, as he followed my eyes, “dancing in a bar and she got a little too excited. Last night it was after a couple beers, but it happens even when she’s sober.”

By now Juliette had moved to the sink and was washing the cutting board and knife. Soap bubbles flew off her fingertips as she continued to sway in beat with the music. “Come, join!” she pulled Jamie into the middle of the kitchen and began spinning in the middle of the tiles.

A few copies of “The Wanaka Messenger”, the local newspaper, were strewn across the kitchen table.

“We mainly read it for the Crime Line section,” explained Wes, “that’s where the best stuff is.”

This seemed to be a grossly misappropriated use of the term “crime,” as the entries could hardly be counted as such. “Wanaka Gossip and Entertainment” seems like a more fitting title for the entries.

“A resident heard a knock on his door and opened it to find nobody there,” or stern reminders: “The orange cones around the construction of the new roundabout are not to be worn as hats when you’ve had one too many sherberts.”

The occasional drunken revelry provided some extra excitement. “Two miscreants took a tractor out of a barn on the previous week, and drove a few donuts in the driveway before leaving.” In a world full of tragically horrific headlines, the Wanaka Crime Line was a comforting reminder that there are still places of comparatively innocuous populations.

“I’m home!” The cheerful greeting announced the arrival of Paz, the fourth flatmate of the house. Paz was currently enjoying a month off work, playing disc golf and snowboarding on the slopes of Wanaka. He split his time between working one month in Australia, where the wages were higher, and time back home in Wanaka. He was followed in the door by Cam, his young Canadian sidekick.

“I mean, how hard is it to understand the rules of the game? You’re so f*ing stupid!” Cam exploded through the door behind him in a fury of impatience.

Paz smiled amicably until the corners of his mouth touched the fuzzy ear flaps on either side of his wooly lumberjack hat.

“We love Cam,” Wes explained as he turned to me, “because his remarks remind us just how not-normal we all are.”

Cam was a fresh high school graduate from Canada. He was staying on Paz’s couch for a few weeks before starting a job at the local ski resort, but had clearly already found his place in the house. It was explicitly understood that his outbursts of rage at the general lack of sense was actually his way of expressing of affection for this bizarre house and its residents. At least that was the general consensus.

Without warning, the music stopped. Chris hastily excused himself to the living room to address this issue. As resident DJ, Chris kept his small computer and a DJ setup in the living room. He took his job as house DJ quite seriously, and kept a steady playlist of music streaming at all times, morning and night.

“You don’t understand- it’s very important,” he admonished us as he bent earnestly over his setup, “the music keeps people happy, and when it goes off, people get antsy. I must fix this right away.”

Chris had lived in Wanaka his entire life, and spent most of his time working on his internet business. But his real love, his passion, was finding the perfect song mixture to convince even the most reluctant guest into a dancing frenzy.

Throughout the rest of the week, a slew of other people flowed through this house on a regular basis, constantly coming and going, but always present, much like the adjacent stream. The house’s warm vibes and music drew visitors at all hours of the day and night.

Over a fierce Tuesday night card game, the flatmates and their throng of friends decided to head off to the neighboring Mt. Aspiring National Park. We charged off into the mountains to spend a night in a cabin nestled within a breathtaking wall of misty mountains. Naturally, dancing ensued.

By Thursday afternoon, I was used to the drill. It started with a group of people sitting around chatting on the couches, and ended with everybody dancing; on the floor, behind the couches, on the couches, on the table. It wasn’t sensual club dancing - just fun, simple dancing. For a moment, everyone in the room became a child again, lost in a whirlwind of laughter, spinning arms, tapping feet, and literally jumping for joy.

On Friday, our last night, the town of Wanaka threw a celebration for the beginning of snowboarding season. Despite the fierce competition from Queenstown, the locals still held that their resorts had the best powder scene, and they were excited to show their spirit. Chris was the DJ at the local pub that night, so we all threw on our coats and trouped through the snowy streets to follow our music leader. The bar was small, but the tables were packed with outdoor enthusiasts, working together to ease the load on the kegs. There was no doubt another edition of the Crime Line was in the making.

After Chris’s set ended, we headed home to continue the living room dancing into the night. I finally collapsed on the couch in utter exhaustion, but a remix of Marvin Gaye’s “Sunny” came on. The upbeat mix coursed through my tired limbs and begged them to get up and dance for just one more song.

“It’s like eating potato chips,” laughed Wes with a knowing smile, “every time I try and go to sleep I’ll think to myself ‘I’ll go to bed after this last song, and then it quickly fades into another song that is just as good, I just have to stay for one more.”

Whenever I think of that house, I think of that song “Sunny.” For others, it was a different song. If there is a psychology to reading music and people, Chris must have an honorary Phd. He identified the songs that resonated with each person, and blended them together in a way that kept everyone on their feet. Paired with Juliette’s enthusiastic dance moves, it was perfectly irresistible.

Like all good things, our time in Wanaka had to come to an end. Jamie and I packed up our belongings and crawled into the camper van to continue our trip. I didn’t see them again, but the memories and happy feelings from that little town stayed with me. We drove past Queenstown on the way out, but I didn’t even care to look around. I already knew it couldn’t compare to the magic of Wanaka. I didn’t want to ruin it.

Three years later, I sat down to write this blog about the magical house of dancing. I got in touch with Juliette, who was now back home in France. She informed me the Wanaka house was being torn down.

“They will build a bar there…”

“Noooooo!” I cried.

“But a bar,” she replied, “think of it.”

It would still be a place of dancing.

But there was more. After she left Wanaka, Juliette had been in a bad car accident, and lost one of her legs. It was very hard, she admitted, but was still remained upbeat.

“I can dance, a little bit. I will always be dancing!” she added, as if she had read my mind, “I can’t live without dancing.”

 “I think often of that time in Wanaka,” she added. “I probably wouldn’t be the same way in my head without it. It gave me a lot, and it stayed with me.”

She was right. Good times come to an end, places change, and people leave. We can't hold on to a moment in time, but the joy that is created in that moment and memory is yours to keep and hold throughout life. 

And for those who have experienced the magic of Wanaka and still remember those moments of joy….

…they will still be dancing, too.

Eddie Went

I had the opportunity to cover the historic Eddie Aikau for the Guardian. You can check my story & photos here: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/feb/25/rare-eddie-aikau-surf-competition-oahu

#vanlife

 When Kitt Turner lost his job of ten years, he decided to turn the unfortunate event into an adventure of a lifetime.

 He and his girlfriend Jenna Balsai left their homes in Hawaii to embark on a climbing trip across North America. This past January, they began their trek in their new home – an emerald green Sprinter van. The lifestyle comes with some unique challenges. But Kitt and Jenna have found a way to renovate the typical dirt bag vanlife in fresh, luxurious style.

White. Tan. Cobalt blue. If you don’t pay attention to the colors, all the Volkswagen Westphalia’s in Joshua Tree National Park start to look the same. The Sprinter’s tall shadow streaked across the rows of campervans as we rumbled down the campground road. A light cloud of dust stirred behind the back of the van, and settled across the pop-up rooftops. Few heads turned to watch our entry. Most were too engrossed in their own activities. It was 2pm on a Thursday afternoon, but not a single soul was doing anything that could be remotely confused with work. Most were climbing, the rest were creating. Their heads were bent over easels and paints, their fingers tickled handmade flutes. Life is a song, and they were busy writing their own lyrics. Restless souls that refused to submit to the bridle of societal responsibilities.

We pulled into the last campsite at the end of the road and came to a stop. The emerald green door slid open to reveal a luxurious mansion in the dirtbag world of van nomads. Enter Kitt and Jenna. The stylishly disheveled climbing bums – proof that you can embrace the van life and still have nice things.

Their van is equipped with a big screen TV, full solar power, running water, hardwood countertops, swiveling captain chairs, a spacious refrigerator, a real bed, a heater at night, even a remote controlled ventilation system. The best part? You can walk around freely inside the van without having to hunch over.

You can only understand their rendition of van life by understanding Kitt and Jenna. As adventurers, they’re walking oxymorons. Savage yet classy.

On Oahu, Kitt was a mild mannered financial consultant, and Jenna was a sweet nurse. But on the weekends, they were rock climbing, thrill-seeking waterfall maniacs, plunging over 600ft drops in torrential downpours. Kitt was always looking for the next first decent, and is responsible for a majority of the development of canyoneering on Oahu. Together, Kitt and Jenna pushed the limits of adventures, but always came out of it looking annoyingly well put together. I’ve seen Kitt charge into a jungle and bushwhack through 12 miles of dense foliage and raging rivers and still emerge with the hair of James Dean.

And while Jenna's personality may initially seem sweet and demure, she’ll suggest trekking across South America with the same casual demeanor a person might suggest brewing a cup of tea.

So when it comes to van life, it only makes sense that they would decide to be responsibly irresponsible. Kitt liked his job, and he didn't have any intention on leaving. But when his firm closed down, it seemed like the opportune time to go explore climbing in other places. Climbing on Oahu is limited, and they had been wanting to check out other areas with more climbing options for awhile. But they spent a while working and saving up first. They spent $10,000 on the van, and estimated they spent another $10,000 on improvements. In addition to the initial costs, they budgeted an adequate monthly allowance and savings to start over at the end of it all. And Jenna is on a year long leave of absence, so she can return to her job if they decide to go back to Hawaii at the end of their trip.

Kitt and Jenna first met three years ago while climbing at the Mokuleia rock crag on the North Shore of Oahu. Jenna distinctly remembers the first time she saw Kitt, viciously chopping down tall California grass with a large machete. Kitt doesn’t have any recollection. “It wasn’t love at first sight!” laughs Jenna. But a spark slowly grew during the first year of friendship, and the climbing partners finally started dating.

Now, two years later, they’re taking their partnership on the ultimate relationship test. Van life isn’t for everybody. Tensions can run high when you’re together 24/7 with another person in a small space. You have to work through problems without taking your frustration out on each other.

Even with all the van's luxuries, there’s still plenty that can go wrong. They have to keep an eye on water supplies. The portable toilet isn’t fun to set up in cold winter nights. Even with an atlas, directions can still be controversial. Sometimes the van has mechanical difficulties. They’re still working out a few details inside the van- like a system for keeping the kitchen supplies above the sink from falling out while they’re driving. And it’s not just van problems – frustrations can rise from things like a rope getting stuck on a climb. It’s a lot of partner work, and it takes a lot of patience, trust, and understanding.

But they seem to be figuring it out. When we met up in Joshua Tree, they had just completed their first month of van life, unscathed. They had been staying at a free campsite outside of Joshua tree, but they shared our camp spot inside the park while we were there.

In the early morning light, Jenna prepared a healthy breakfast. Her kitchen supplies are housed in ample shelves, drawers, and a handy spice rack next to the water tank.

Part of the counter lifts to reveal a deep chest refrigerator and freezer. It’s one of the luxuries that makes a healthy breakfast of Greek Yogurt possible. The device is powered by the internal electrical system, rigged by Kitt and his dad. They have two 155-amp hour batteries that are charged by solar panels on the van roof. They also have a 2000-watt inverter for running anything that uses 120 volts, like their blender, hot water kettle, or crockpot.

Next to the control panel is a switch for the external diesel heater. The inside of the panels along the walls of the van are lined with three different types of insulation to retain heat inside during the cold winter night. But there’s one drawback of their heating system – it smells like diesel when the heater is on. That’s where the remote control ventilation fan comes in handy. Next to the sink is a stack of books – climbing locations, maps, and crockpot recipes for two. The crockpot works well, Jenna explained, because it uses lower levels of power spread out over the day. That way the solar panel can keep up with these energy demands without completely draining the battery.

Entertainment is ample in their new life. At night, their mounted Mac computer swings down and functions as a movie screen. But during the day, there’s no time for movies - they have places to climb. 

The back of the van has a second storage compartment, stuffed with ropes, shoes, cams, carabineers, and other adventure accessories.

We loaded up a pack and headed out to a nearby crag to check out the attractions.

Back at the camp site, Kitt and Jenna reclined in their comfortable bed and talked about the transition. So far, the rewards have been worth all the hard work. They’re looking forward to the next 11 months as they continue to check out canyons and climbing crags across California, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Kentucky, Canada, and wherever else their itching feet take them. At the end of the year, their plans are open ended. They’re hoping to figure out where they want to settle down during their travels. But for now, they’re just enjoying the good life on the road.

“The best thing about van life…” ponders Kitt,

“is doing whatever we want,” Jenna fills in.

“Just being able to go anywhere you want and…” Kitt continues,

“…climb wherever you want,” Jenna adds, “Wake up whenever you want.”

“And I think we planned it with enough luxuries so it doesn’t always feel like camping.” says Kitt, “It feels like…”

As if on cue, Jenna and Kitt finish the sentence together.

“we’re home.”

Want more? Follow their adventures online:

Kitt- @kitt1047

Jenna- @jennabalsai

Blog: http://northamericanvanlife.tumblr.com/

Dog Sledding in Whistler

When are animal rides cruel?

Last month, I had the opportunity to go dog sledding in Whistler, Canada. I was excited, but tentative. There's a certain childish appeal to animal rides, and I love dogs. But I’d heard mixed reviews on the subject. Some people said it was cruel to the dogs. How do you know?

In some cases, it's a no-brainer.

I remember my first sheep ride like it was 18 years ago.

Like most young girls, I was afflicted with the curse of horse-lust. I was born in the thick of the 80’s My Little Pony craze. As a young girl, I joined the throngs of wide-eyed gremlins clutching rainbow-colored rubber horses with heart freckled rumps. All I wanted was my own little real pony. 

When my family moved to a farm, my siblings and I barraged my parents with the ineluctable plea.

"Can we get a horse? Pleeeeeeeeassee???"

“Horses don’t bring in money,” my parents said, “Goats give us milk. Sheep give meat and wool. Horses don’t provide income.”

My brother Dan and I were not to be dissuaded from our burning need to ride something. We were all about improvising. Pearl was a strong, stocky Suffolk sheep. If you squinted your eyes halfway, her inky black face almost resembled the majestic Black Beauty. A Black Beauty with an oversized, white, wooly saddle. The perfect solution to our horse-lust woes.

Dan and I approached our newly appointed trusty steed, armed with a handful of her favorite treats. I clenched and unclenched my free hand behind my back while she slurped up the grain from my outstretched left hand.

In one swift move, I wrapped my scrawny legs and arms around her woolly back like an octopus attacking a cottonball. For a moment, Pearl paused, stunned.

3, 2, 1...

My brother started to say something, but his words were drowned by the pounding of hooves against the ground. Pearl launched us into the air at rocket speed.

... BLASTOFF!

In my nine-year-old memory, it was an eternity of rushing air and thudding hooves. The lanolin coated my already sweaty palms and I felt myself slowly slipping down towards her thudding hooves.

In reality, it was actually probably only about 6.2 seconds before Pearl put things to an end. She pulled a fast tight turn into the fence, slammed her side against the panels and sent me flying into the alfalfa.

“No thanks!” I thought I heard her mutter under her breath as she trotted away indignantly.

For Pearl, it was obvious she didn't enjoy our little rodeo. She gave me dirty looks for two weeks straight.

But for dog sledding, it wasn't quite as straightforward.

Whistler dog sledding got a bad rap after a mass killing of 56 sled dogs went public. Many claimed this cruel act exemplified the horrors of dog sledding. Conditions of the working animals were brought into question. And a slew of articles advocated banning dog sledding altogether.

But other sled dog owners spoke out against the occurrence, upset to be grouped with the event. Did the actions of one cruel man justify placing all dog sledding companies into the same group?

Dog sledding has a rich history in Northern America transportation. The story of Balto tells the tale of the heroic sled dog that saved a village by delivering medicine to a village when other transportation methods failed. In today's modern society, however, dog sledding is primarily recreational. Using a dog sled to save a village of people seems a little more justified. The topic begs the question: "When is it ethical to use animals for rides?"

In this case, it may be something that can only be decided on a case by case basis. In this case, my tour was set up through Canadian Wilderness Adventures. They contract through Trappers Run, a kennel run by Jamie Hargreaves. Jamie is an advocate for ethical dog sledding. I can't speak for other dog sledding groups. But a few things stood out to me about this particular group of dogs and mushers.

The biggest thing I noticed was a respectful relationship between the handlers and the dogs. Around these parts, Jamie is known as the “dog whisperer.” Rumor has it she can silence sixty barking dogs with one word. But the effect doesn’t appear to stem from fear. Jamie’s dogs wag their tails and perk their ears forward when they see her approaching. When she lets a couple dogs out, they rush to cover her in kisses.

I don’t speak dog-ese, but the dogs seem to hold Jamie in high regard. And the respect is mutual. Jamie can't say enough good things about her dogs.

“People say I’m so incredible with dogs, but to be honest it’s the dogs that teach the dogs. I just facilitate the process.” Jamie says.

It’s a process that she calls Can-ology, much like sociology.

“We work on dog’s personal confidence. We want them to be a part of something, and they all come together for a common goal.”

Her mushers share these sentiments. To start our tour, we met up with Addison, our musher for the day. Addison's team of dogs for the day approach him with a full on body hugs and soft nuzzles. Like Jamie, he knows every single dog's name. The best part, he says, is when the dogs learn your voice and start to respond. It's a group effort, and there's something special about that feeling of belonging to the team.

At this kennel, quality of life seemed high. The mushers knew each little nuance about each dog -- who needed what, and when. Some of the dogs had blankets to keep them warm while they waited outside. Another wore booties because her paws were more sensitive.

When they aren't working, the dogs are kept in kennels.  During the summer, Jamie says they’re allowed to run free on the expansive property.

The kennel grounds were a frenzy of barking as we approached. The dogs who were set to pull waited on tethers near the sled. They jumped up and down, barking eagerly. Addison introduced us to each of the dogs, and then let us help him hook them up. Some of the dogs practically dragged us to line to be hooked up.

Once they were hooked to the sled, the real racket began. The dogs leapt forward in their harnesses. You could almost hear them yelling eagerly:

“Aww yeah! Let’s go!”

Addison gave the command, and the dogs tore down the trail like a pack of kids that had just spotted a blowup bouncy house on the distant horizon.

As we went up the hills, Addison stepped off to help push the sled up. On the way down, he applied a break to keep the sled from gaining too much momentum and careening into the dogs.

Every fifteen minutes we took a break. Addison explained that running makes them have to poop. After they relieved themselves, the dogs dove headfirst into the snow, rolling and shaking.

Once the pack had cooled down, they began leaping in their harness, eager to run again.

“Let’s get this show on the road!”

We pulled back into home base a couple hours later. The dogs lapped at a high-calorie soup while we passed out treats to reward them for a job well done.

The change in behavior was remarkable. Dogs that were rioting just a few hours ago now lied down, content and calm. Can they invent some form of dog sledding for hyper energetic children bouncing off the walls?

For some of the more energetic dogs, Addison said they would get to run one more time later that day. For other dogs, once was enough.

For these dogs, they seem to be enjoying their lives. They’re happy, they’re having fun, and they enjoy being part of a team.

But what happens afterwards? Will their careers as a sled dog ruin their chances at a happy life after they can no longer pull?

At Jamie’s kennel, her dogs aren’t all just the traditional Huskies. Her team is a diverse assortment from a variety of backgrounds. The majority of these dogs came to her as rescue dogs. And Jamie has no intent on sending them back to the lives they escaped.

It’s why she adopts her dogs out early. While most are happy to work up to 13 years, she works with an adoption agency to find them homes long before then. That way the dogs have more time to bond and enjoy quality time with their adoptees after their sledding years.

As happy as they seemed to me, I wondered- how do you really know if a dog enjoys pulling sleds? “No dog is here if they don’t want to be here.” said Jamie. “If they’re not enjoying their days and it doesn’t seem to work for them we adjust and we find new homes for them.”

For Jamie, reading dogs is like reading humans.

“You have to know your animals and know what they’re feeling." she said.  "Certain dogs are more sensitive and need more attention; other dogs need a lot of positive reinforcement. Every dog, like humans, has different needs. And if you know that animal, you know if it’s going to be happy or not. You just know.”

Jamie smiles and nods in the direction of her tail-wagging clan.

“It’s the connection with them.”

Personally, I'd never try to ride a sheep again. But dog sledding? If the kennel is anything like Jamie's, I would definitely give it another go.

5 things I learned as a photographer

2015 was my first official year in the business of photography. I'd been taking photos for awhile, but it's a whole new world when you make a business of it. In true Liz fashion, I learned all of my lessons the hard way. I laughed a lot. I cried a lot. Sometimes I locked myself in my room for days. My first year was all about "The School of Hard Shots." Here's my top 5 photos from the year, and what they taught me about myself as a photographer: 

It's ok to try everything

In this day and age as an artist, there's a lot of pressure to "find your niche." In the beginning of the year, I just knew I liked taking photos and meeting people. Early in the year I did a lot of yoga projects, and some of my photos were a hit (this one made it into some different yoga catalogues and advertisements). I started getting a lot of inquiries for yoga photos. I even got to do a shoot for Lululemon.

But then I froze up. I started worrying if I put myself out there as one "type" of photographer, I would be branded for life. What if I wanted to shoot more than just yoga? For a period, I stopped posting any of my work online. I was scared of being branded as one thing or another. For fear of going in the "wrong" direction, I didn't go anywhere.

In the end, I learned more about myself and photography by just going out there and shooting everything. In addition to my own shoots, I assisted on a lot of different types of shoots for free, just for the experience. Working for free meant also picking up extra side jobs to help pay the bills, and consequently turning down a lot of social invitations due to lack of time. It was fun. Sometimes it was lonely. But overall, it was really rewarding for me. I learned what I like, and what I don't like. I'm eternally grateful to the photographers that took me under their wing, mentored me, and showed me their crafts. On a side note, I gained a whole new level of respect for jewelry product photographers.

When you find things you like, don't give up on them

As someone who is constantly fighting feelings of inadequacy, I find it really empowering to tell stories about strong, inspirational women who pursue their passions. Especially if it involves things I also love, like being active and outside.

But my ideas don't always come together the way I want them to. This particular shot was from my fifth attempt to shoot a girl climbing with blue water at this location. It's over an hour drive from my house, and on this particular day, it was overcast and pouring rain.

It was one of those "NOT AGAIN!!!" moments of frustration.

But then we remembered why we were out there in the first place - to do the things we love, and have fun. We decided to go climb in the rain anyways, just for fun. As we played, the clouds parted. We ended up getting some blue water climbing shots with a bonus rainbow.

I'm currently working on a personal project that I have attempted eight times so far. When I get frustrated, I like to look at pictures like this one. It reminds me to relax, have fun, and just keep working at it.

Always make time for personal projects

It was really tricky for me, finding a balance in mixing my artistic expression with my source of income. At times, I started becoming more of a "button pusher" and less of an "artist." Some of my photos felt downright flat and lifeless.

About halfway through the year, I realized I didn't want to be hired just because I have a nice camera and can push buttons. I wanted to have the creative freedom to work with people who trusted and valued my artistic vision. At this point, I realized I had tried a lot of different things, and I was ready to start making moves towards defining myself as an artist. I've always have been a storyteller. And I have a lot of fun, but quirky ideas.

So I started adapting a more photojournalistic, story-telling style in my photos. And I started working on more personal outdoor creative projects.

For me, personal projects were the best way of attracting my ideal clients who liked my style and trusted my ideas. My "Mother in the Moon" project arose from working with a client who trusted my vision to create something special for her. And that was a really good feeling.

A picture is only as powerful as the story it tells

This was by far, the biggest revelation to me this year. I got to take a lot of beautiful photos this past year. But the photos that meant the most to me were the ones that captured not just a place, but also a story.

This picture of Helene Dumais had a large reach this year. It was from my largest personal project of the year, documenting the first female to complete the Ko'olau Summit Ridge in one through-hike, and it won several contestss. But what made this photo so powerful to me was not so much the timing, framing, lighting, or any technical details. What made it powerful to me was the feelings and story behind it.

It's not actually a triumphant photo of reaching a summit or end-point. It's a photo of defeat mixed with determination and dreaming. It was right after a failed attempt to complete the trek. We were scouting a section of the "saddles," three treacherous climbing sections that had forced us to quit. Our limbs were covered in bruises and rashes, and our knees were swollen. We were completely depleted. But Helene's body language still conveys a sense of strength, adventure, and hope.

I like this photo because it has a meaningful story behind it. It reminds me to keep your sense of adventure in times of adversity, and never, ever, EVER give up on your dreams.

In June, we finally succeeded and became the first documented women to through hike the entire ridge line in one self-sufficient through-hike. Ironically, on the last attempt of the trail, I actually left my camera behind. Finishing the trail required significant weight cuts. It forced us to choose between high quality photos, or being truly ultralight and actually having a chance at finishing. It was appearance vs. experience. I left the camera gear behind, and only brought a mini point and shoot to document. As a photographer, it was a game changing decision for me. I realized that I was first and foremost, a storyteller.

Photos have an incredible power to move a viewer emotionally, and incite action

Emotions captivate me. Happiness. Loneliness. Curiosity. Sorrow. Love. Fear. I spent a lot of this year learning how to help people relax and capture them in their most natural states. That was one thing I discovered about my "style"- I like capturing genuine emotions. Most were in happy moments, like weddings. But I captured other emotions as well.

I took this shot during an emotional search for Moke, a missing teenage hiker. In this moment the father & David (a volunteer searcher) embraced in a tearful and emotional hug after they returned from a flight scanning over the mountains for his son. Moved, I quietly took a few photos of the love & sadness I saw between the people there.

I wasn't sure if it had been insensitive to take photos in those moments. I asked the family before I shared any photos. Surprisingly, they agreed, and actually thanked me for the photos, which we were then able to use for a fundraiser. As Moke's story spread, volunteers and donations poured in. While many different forms of media helped their cause, it was rewarding to be a small part of that. It was the first time I experienced the power of photos to not only tell a story, but to generate action. And that was pretty inspiring.

It really brought home the capacity of photos to move people on a deep, emotional level. And when people are moved, they act, and create change.

---

There are so many other things I learned through the school of hard shots this past year, but those were my big ones. What advice would you have for somebody in their first year?

Don't trust a man who's never had to bury his own shit

"Can you just poop over the cliff?!!”

When mother nature calls, you can only hit the decline button so many times before she takes over and answers her own call. My friend Jessica and I were scouting out a hazardous section of climbing along the Ko’olau Mountains. The trail had narrowed to a generous 16 inches and didn’t show signs of widening any time soon. We’d been crawling over and around a series of crumbling razor-thin edges for hours when the urge hit Jessica.

Considering we’d been fighting to hold together the eroding remnants of ground below our feet, trying to dig a hole directly on the path wasn’t exactly an option. The only space on either side of the path was air space - a direct drop-off into a plunging ravine of green below. And from the looks of the next climb, wrestling up a loose dirt overhang over a 1700 foot drop-off guaranteed to scare the shit out of both of us if we didn’t take care of it on our own.

And that is how my dear friend found herself jutting her butt over the side of the 1700 foot cliff. With one hand gripped around a small scrubby brush and the other hand digging deep into a mound of loose dirt for stability. So it goes on the Ko’olau Summit Trail.

No worries, she's just climbing here folks.

Ko’olau Summit Trail: Take 2

04/18/2015 Pupukea to Poamoaho: “Awwwwwww shit!!”

Long, ropey strands of wet toilet paper, stuck to a fern branch and twirling in the wind. And now stuck to my backpack. Whoever had left it probably hadn’t realized their doo wiper would be fluttering in the wind across the trail. We hadn’t really thought about preparing for it either, until after our first attempt at through backpacking. It went on the gear revision list, right next to dark chocolate:

‘bring an extra Ziploc bag for carrying out used toilet paper’

Had we completed the trail on our first try, we might not even have been forced to think about it. But it was our second time attempting the trail. We were now retracing our steps, and the steps of others, and there was definitely some er, shit, that they had left behind.

I hadn’t even planned on attempting this trail more than once, but the first attempt had been like pulling back a curtain to reveal a peek at a prize, and I was hooked. We went up again only four days after our first failed attempt. My knees weren’t quite ready. We’d cut our packs from 45 pounds to 35, but I was still struggling. In an effort to distract my mind from the excruciating pain that was shooting through my knees, I diverted my mind to a separate stream of consciousness – running chatter.

In all fairness, they probably didn’t realize their shit wouldn’t disappear quickly. In modern daily life, you flush and never have to think about it again. Out of sight, out of mind. You don’t really start thinking about your shit until you start spending more time in places where it doesn’t easily disappear. I guess that could go for a lot of things in life besides shit. If we had to pile our trash in our own yards and face our own mini landfills every day, we’d probably be more mindful about waste. Everybody should have to bury their shit at least once in life. It just adds a whole new level of – cognizance. Responsibility. Don’t trust a man who’s never had to bury his own shit.

I remembered reading an article that estimated there were about 300,000 dumps taken along the PCT last year.

Just imagine what the trail would look like if those hadn’t been buried away from the trail, and all the hikers left all their toilet paper. What if park rangers scolded hikers for leaving trash the way people scold their dogs for pooping on the carpet?

I imagined a park ranger gripping the collar of a hiker on the PCT and shoving his nose into the pile of dirty toilet paper and trash he had left behind while saying “No! Bad dog!” The thought made me giggle. It distracted from the shooting pain running between my knees and hips.

“Helene, on a scale of 1-10, how are you feeling?”

“Oh, about an eight!” was the cheery reply.

Fuck. I’m a solid three.

We’d decided to combine our two days from our first attempt since we’d had extra time both days, but I was feeling it. It was noon and we were at the first cabin. We’d conquered the bushes, but now we had the mud to fight through.

I sat down on a rock and put my head in my hands.

I can’t do this. I can’t. I just can’t. I literally don’t know how I’m going to move my feet.

“Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast,” Helene coached. She pointed out I couldn’t exactly bail at that point anyways. I had no choice but to find a way to keep going. If I could at least make it to the next cabin, there was a bailout I could take from there the next morning.

I felt like I was balancing the weight of the world on two little toothpick legs made of fine china. I focused my mind by breaking the trail into little checkpoints and hitting them. Get to this point by 1pm. Check. Get here by 2. Check. Get to the boot by 3. Check.

At the cabin, I chugged water and washed the blisters on my feet. I spent the rest of the night with my legs propped up, rubbing my calves to alleviate the throbbing pain.  I took a few breaks to rub my lower back and arms. Both Helene and I had extremely itchy rashes from being in the wet mountains for days without giving our skin a proper chance to recover.

04/19/2015 Poamoho to Waimano: Haunted by the mistakes of our past

No Man’s Land is that it is just that. It’s on the Leeward side of the mountains, between Poamoho and Kipapa. The wind is blocked, and it’s completely quiet. It’s a dark, formidable forest of fog and brush, and especially overgrown. Nobody seems to walk through these parts -- it’s a god-forsaken land. It’s also near impossible to tell the trail at times. About every 15 minutes, we’d find ourselves in the middle of a clearing where the trail seemed to end, and realize we had to retrace our steps back to the last spot until we found our clue- usually a small fragment of ribbon peeking out from behind a few branches.

The sad thing is that we still made every. single. mistake. that we had made the first time we hiked through here. No man’s land was still just as confusing. But since we’d made them before, we were a lot quicker to recognize it.

“Oh yeah, we did this last time. Welp, time to turn around again.”

I wondered to myself if that was how life was sometimes. Just because you made a mistake in life and fixed it, doesn’t mean you will never make the same mistake again. But maybe you’ll recognize it faster, and correct your steps quicker the second time around.

The quicker corrections made for quicker times, and this time we made it all the way to our intended campsite at Waimano. We threw together our yellow starfish and collapsed. Surprisingly, my legs had held up.

04/20/2015 Waimano to N. Haiku: Moke

I was in serious trouble. I’d been ignoring my legs successfully so far, but now they were starting to cramp up like crazy.  I chugged water and took salt pills in a desperate attempt to make the cramps go away so I could move my legs faster. That was one thing Helene had taught me- when you’re sweating a lot, you lose a lot of salt. Drinking water isn’t enough. Low sodium in the blood means trouble and cramping, especially for prolonged periods of time. Helene had brought along salt pills to replenish, and when I took them, they actually helped with the cramps.

As we progressed through the morning, we realized the climbing wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. The clouds cleared to reveal four prominent peaks in front of us.

“It’s like Goldilocks and the three little bears!”

I was lost in an animated world where everything was cute and fluffy. I panted as I pulled myself to the top of the first notch. Cartoons played in the back of my head. Goldilocks was chasing after us up each mountain peak, her cartoon hair bouncing with each step.

“First she tried Papa’s porridge, but it was too hot.”

I turned my feet sideways to try and catch some grip as I descended down the backside of the first peak. I pulled myself up the second mound, knees pressed to the hills. Small gnats buzzed around my red sweaty face as I pressed it close to the earth and grasped for any clumps of grass I could find to help leverage my pack up the incline. With one heavy gasp, I sucked a poor innocent gnat down my windpipe.

I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.

I collapsed at the top of the second peak, choking and wheezing.

“This porridge is too cold!”

Helene popped up behind me. “Or this mountain is too big!”

“Or that.”

As it turned out, Goldilocks and the three bears were joined by all their wicked cousins AND stepsisters. The peaks continued, one after the other. But by lunchtime, we were close to the first saddle – the treacherous climbing sections. FINALLY!

And it was pouring rain, which made it impossible to hike on the saddles. Of course.

Even though it was only the middle of the day, we had no choice but to take shelter in a nearby bunker. The bunker is one of many old abandoned bunkers left in the mountains from WWII.  It’s a small covered concrete square building, about 12’ x 12’, with an open door.

Almost all my water was gone. I’d sucked through 3 liters like it was nothing, trying to fight off the massive cramps. And our next planned water source was down in the middle of the saddle, two hours hike and one rainstorm too far away. As the sun set, the rain let up. I rocked back and forth on our small tarp, trying to conserve energy and pretend like I wasn’t thirsty. All I could think about was water. Nothing mattered except water.

Helene went outside to watch the sun. She started shouting.

“The SADDLE! I can see the saddle!”

She dragged me outside to share her first peek at the saddle with her. It dipped low from one mountain peak to another, a loss of about 1500 feet in elevation before climbing back up to the next peak in one smooth, graceful arc.

“It’s like the big grin of a Chesire cat. I can’t stop smiling back at it!” Helene was jumping up and down.

It was cold, so we brought out our emergency blankets and fell asleep huddled together on the tarp. Dreaming of water. Sweet, cold water.

We were awoken at 11pm by the sound of voices and two faint lights in the distance.

We were at least a good 5-6 hours hiking distance from any place in civilization. We weren’t exactly in a popular spot for hiking, either. Who was up here? And at 11 at night?

Night marchers? Ghosts?

“Ho shit, there’s people in there!” cried a man’s voice.

Crazy rapists living in the mountains? Helene and I were frozen.

Their faces filled the doorway. The light from their headlamps cut triangles of shadows underneath their eyebrows and noses. It was enough to recognize them. I sighed with relief. It was Kama and Mike, two men I’d met a couple months ago when I was helping search for a missing kid in the mountains. The very kid who had disappeared hiking the saddle that lay before us.

But what were they doing up here? As it turns out, it was Kama’s 50th day of searching for his little brother.

“Oh shit, you are the brother of that boy!” exclaimed Helene. I’d told her all about his disappearance when explaining why we had to take extra care on the saddles, but this really brought it home.

“Yeah, he’s in highschool. He’s supposed to graduate this spring,” said Kama.

Helene and I exchanged a chilling glance.

Kama went on to explain that they had hiked up with supplies to start exploring new areas of the mountains. This bunker was near a new area they wanted to check out, and they’d come up planning to spend the night so they had the following day for searching.

Mike pulled a water bottle out of his backpack. “We brought extras of these if you need any.”

I pounced. Self-sustained or not, I was parched. Helene didn’t want any. She still had enough, and she was dead set on only using what she brought up with her. 100% purist.

“Careful on the next section,” Mike warned, “There’s a piece on the saddle where the rope is gone, and it’s pretty sketchy to climb without. We climbed it with just our light daypacks, and there were rocks falling everywhere.”

This time around, I’d left the big camera behind. It’d been part of our weight cuts. In it’s place, I had a small gopro. I took a shaky photo of the four of us in the shack before we relegated to our separate corners for the night and fell back asleep.

04/21/2015 “What’s wrong?” Helene was clutching a missing person sign for the missing boy, which had been laminated and tied to a tree near the area where his last cell phone ping had come from. In the past two weeks of hiking, it was the first time I’d ever seen Helene low. While I’d bumbled along whining, she’d prodded me along, cheerful and persistent. And now, for the first time ever, on our first saddle, she was hesitating. Her eyes were tearing up.“I’m crying because I’m scared,” wavered Helene. I was floored. It was the first time I’d seen any weakness in her. I’d almost begun to fear she was some insane athletic robot, and not actually a real human after all. I tried to put on a brave face, and we both started working away at the saddle, but the climb Mike had warned us about was everything he’d said and more. Rocks fell to either side as we ducked and struggled to find a way to get our heavy packs to the top of the vertical wall that crumbled before us. The weight addition of six liters of water to our packs at the stream in the middle was bringing back the old cramps and knee pains I’d been fighting since the day before. My knee was shaking uncontrollably. And now, of all things, it was starting to rain. The forecast had turned, again, to rain. For the next three days. The saddles just weren’t happening. After two hours of fighting the same spot, we decided we had to come down. There was no way around it.

What had happened to us? Hearing Kama talk about Moke had messed with both of our heads. It was one of those things that made you realize how serious things could get. It made us stop and wonder why.

Why are we doing this? Why do we take risks? Why do we set goals? When is a goal worth pursuing, and why is it worth it? How far would you go to reach that goal?

Our pant legs were catching on everything. They were shredding at the bottoms from catching on bushes. We tucked the torn remains into our long wool socks and pulled our pants high.

“We look like two fashionable old ladies on our way to bingo!” snorted Helene.

I giggled and held out my hand. “Come on then, old lady.”

We hobbled off the mountains and began the eight miles down the nearest trail option for bailing. Helene was flying back to Canada in just a few days. We were both spent, and there was no time, money, or energy left to try again. Altogether, she’d been here for three weeks working on the trail with me, and we’d done a lot. It’d been a good run. I drowned out the crunching below my feet with a steady chatter of inner thought.

If you wanted it enough to pursue it in the first place, it’s worth pursuing. You pick a direction, and goals that align with that direction, but there’s more to it than that. Maybe we challenge ourselves because we want to be better versions of the person we were yesterday.  Maybe it isn’t just about reaching the end goal. Maybe it isn’t just about the beautiful moments in the mountains, either. Maybe it’s the person you become in the process of reaching for the goal. About being humbled, and learning. About how your respond and grow from the struggles. Failing, but getting stronger from each time you fail, and never giving up. And about the moments you shared together in the journey. We had a good run.

I smiled as I looked at my fellow little old lady, hobbling down the trail with me. Helene silenced my inner chatter with three short words:

“I’m coming back.”

Chasing Giants

 Hiking the entire Ko'olau Summit Trail in one through-hike was a dream I had always thought was wildly raw, beautiful, savage, and impossible. But one thing the mountains taught me this year is that the first step to reaching your goals is to actually believe in them.

This was the first of three attempts hiking the Ko'olau Summit Trail.

4/11/2015 Day 1: 

Dark chocolate is amazing

The day started at 7am in Pupukea - two hefty backpacks with a couple of woman strapped to their backside. Helene and I hugged Jessica goodbye, the third lady of our group and our woman on the ground.“Make sure your tracking device is working!” she chirped in her mother-bird voice.This was it! After months of preparation, we were finally hiking the Ko’olau Summit Trail.

The Ko’olau Mountain range is the crumbling remains of a shield volcano on the island of Oahu. It’s the breathtaking backdrop to a place many call home, but to a very small group of people, it’s a unique trek. There are many hikes up the sides of the mountain range, but not many people hike along the summit line. The first part, the Ko'olau Summit Trail, is the remainder of an old contour trail. After the official trail ends, the summit line climbs along the spine. Altogether, it's a 52 mile stretch that runs from the North end of the island to the Southeast. While the highest point is only 3100 feet, the length involves climbing a total of 26,000 feet of elevation gain following the rise and fall of mountain peaks formed by fire, wind, and weather. It’s an obscure trek that few people care or even know about.

But for us, it was completely captivating.

We only knew of two people who had ever done the trek in one shot. After the first man documented hiking the entire length in 2012 in one self-sufficient trek (meaning no supply or water drops along the way), numerous athletes and backpackers were inspired to fly to Hawaii to attempt the trek in this way and failed. It’s not the typical mountain climb or trail run. It's dangerous. It can be deadly. It requires not just physical strength, but also an understanding of the unique terrain, weather, and navigational factors of Hawaii. It’s climbing loose crumbly terrain with a heavy pack, navigating a confusing network of trails in dense fog and jungle, hunting down unreliable water sources, and a constant fight against shifting weather patterns.

We spent hours staring at these ridge lines on Google Earth

It took all of about 20 minutes for the excitement to wear off and the pain to set in. My knees wobbled under 45 pounds of camera gear, camping supplies, a week of food, and dark chocolate.

"Dark chocolate is amazing"

This was the very first note we wrote at the top of our gear revision list. The thoughtful list was compiled after a two day series of misadventures that we called “gear testing.” It started with a beautiful sunset under our ultralight tarp tent.

It ended with a 3am chase after the blown away tarp and a sleepless struggle to stay warm and dry in the rain. The only thing that kept our spirits up was two squares of dark chocolate wrapped in a piece of crinkled foil. No doubt about it, chocolate was essential.

But altogether everything was HEAVY! The straps of my pack chomped into my shoulders.  There was a little goblin stabbing a five inch dagger under my shoulder blade.

I HATE the world. Absolutely hate it. My knees were already creaking for a rocking chair. It was impossible to think about anything but the pain. Pain and torture.

“Why are you doing this to yourself, you idiot! You can’t do this and you know it.”

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

Helene blithely ambled behind me singing random bits of songs. She stopped to admire the different trees, feel the textures of the colored patches of bark, and inhale the sweet eucalyptus. “Look at those little roots hanging down, it’s like they want to be trees!” Helene pointed to a Banyan tree.

She wasn't even breaking a sweat.

I knew I wasn't strong enough for the trek, but Helene Dumais was.

 I'd first met her in the summer of 2014, which is when I told her about the trek. She was equally intrigued. I might not be capable, but if she did the trek, I could document it as an inspirational story about women adventurers. Originally, it was supposed to be her and one other ultra runner, but in the end, the other woman couldn't make it. Hiking alone in Hawaii is extremely dangerous. Shortly before Helene arrived, a solo hiker disappeared on one of the climbing sections of the trails, and still hadn't been found. So Helene got a SPOT satellite tracker. I agreed to go with her as far as I could, and then hike up at different sections to check on her and document.

At this point, I wasn't sure I'd make it past the first day. It wasn't long into the trail before we met the bushes.

THE HORRIBLE BUSH MONSTER.

The bushes didn’t just cross the path, they consumed it. When I tried to push through, they scratched and clawed at me, leaving red marks streaked across my neck. I took a step forward, only to be pulled back by bushes  viciously grabbing onto various parts of me. I sucked sticky spider webs down my pipes with each gasp as I struggled to push my way through.

I set my pack down to catch my breath. The top section of my pack has been partially detached by the powerful grip of the brown thorny masses.

THAT’S IT! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS! I AM GOING TO DESTROY YOU BUSHES!

Cue music: final countdown.  An epic battle was going down. I purposefully grabbed a handful of crunchy brown spindly branches between my US diver gloves and snapped them in half, just to make a point.

Take THAT, you bushes.

I sweated and struggled to fashion reattach the top of my pack with 550 paracord. Helene came up from behind, giggling. “Oh, these bushes are so lovely!”

The woman’s in her own world.

“What the heck is lovely about these bushes?” (everything is Alexanderandtheterriblehorriblenogoodverybadday right now)“They just love me so much!”“Oh, loving!”“Hehe, yes, loving! They don’t want to let me go!”You can’t go wrong with a French Canadian backpacking companion. The vivacious delivery of Frenglish phrases alone was enough to shake any bad mood. And she did have a way of looking at things.

"Liz, your own worst enemy is yourself."

My friend had laughingly told me this three years ago when I was flipping out on a hike. Now, the phrase was playing on repeat in my head.

Current mood: Aggravated with a hint of amused

We fixed my backpack together, and soon reached a summit with a clearing and views.

The green hills stacked against each other to block out any view of the city that we were in just a few hours ago. After hours of fighting through dense bushes, I was just happy to have clear space around my head.

“Oh yeah!” admired Helene, “Now you’re calling!”

“Talking?”

“Maybe?”

Slowly, a rhythm emerged. Whatever it was, this was the feeling I had been looking for. I was pretty sure the little goblin still had his dagger in my shoulder, but I wasn’t sure. My mind wouldn’t even give the pains the time of day; it had run off to frolic in the vast greenery. Everything started to move faster, one foot in front of the other.

 After a bumble in a confusing bog, we found ourselves at the cabin.

Helene perused our maps and munched on our rations of cold water and nutrient-infused mashed potatoes.

 I flipped through the stories in the logbook. One theme was consistent in the scribbles: “Look out for the rats.” “Rats live in the rafters now.” “Rats ate my special chocolate.““Do you hear that scrabbling sound above us?” We strained our ears, eyeing the rafters suspiciously. Suddenly, the light filtering through the dusty windows changed to a distinct golden glow. 

Somebody had graciously left a large oversized pair of rubber boots by the door. Helene slipped her petite feet into the fourty-sizes-too-big shoes, and together we clomped up the hill to get a better view of the sunset.

The thick layers of dense clouds acted like a dark filter, and made it possible to follow the distinct outline of the sun all the way down in its descent. It was eerily quiet as we watched the small round disk slide behind the dark peaks. A soft breeze of clouds and air swirled around us as we tripped our way back down the hill to our beds.

One solid chunk of dark chocolate down and my aches and pains were a distant memory. I drifted off into a content sleep- warm, dry, and hopeful.

Dark chocolate is truly amazing.

4/12/2015 Day 2: The Giant in the mountains

rats.

2:28am

I was awoken from the fog of a rodent dream by the distinct feeling of something in my sleeping bag.

SOMETHING IS IN MY SLEEPING BAG.

Half asleep, I shook my legs in the bag, and felt a soft fist-sized lump bump up against my leg.

Rats.

RATS

RATS!!!

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” I screamed. I hopped around like a maniac until I managed to wriggle out of the bag, still screaming, and fumbled for my headlamp. By this time, Helene was fully awake.

“What is it?”

“RATTTSS!!! AHHHHHHH!!” I switched my headlamp on to its fullest beam and frantically shook my sleeping bag upside down to eradicate the intruder. A dark lump fell out. My pair of extra socks rolled menacingly to the floor. You just never know when a pair of socks will get a mind of their own and turn against you.

We look at each other and shook until the entire hill was pealing with laughter. It didn’t matter. We were in the middle of nowhere, miles from anybody else, just two girls in the mountain.

I knew for a fact the rats were up there in the roof, peering down from the rafter beams and cackling at us behind their tiny clawed hands.

We woke up again a few hours later. The early morning mountain range was one thick blanket of foggy white.“Ave Maria….” Helene began to sing as she began to prep our gear, and I joined in. Neither of us knew all the words.

Like it mattered.

Helene shifted to a latin rendition while I swept the cabin and she scrubbed our pot from our granola breakfast. There’s something decidedly both eerie and calming about singing in the clouds.

Putting on cold muddy socks and pants was like wrapping a cold slimy snail around our skin. We had optimistically hung our clothes up to dry. Silly, silly girls. Nothing EVER dries when you are up in the Ko’olaus.

My backpack was now one dinner and lunch lighter, and the pain in my shoulder felt more like a familiar friend than arch enemy.

We stepped out onto the trail and straight into knee high mud, setting the theme for the day.

Squelch, suck, squeak.

It was a bit of a struggle to stay balanced in all the mud, plus I had my new backpack. I remembered reading about the special new technology.

“This pack uses a custom 3D pivoting hipbelt for dynamic load transfer. Because the shoulder straps and hipbelt move with you, friction and hot spots are eliminated.”

It had sounded promising. Eliminating hot spots was good, right?

Maybe on a normal trail. The Ko’olou Summit Ridge is not a normal trail. Every time I slipped, my pack swung on my hip to compensate. But my pack was already really heavy, and as I slipped, my pack would swivel even further, hurling me into the ground with 45 pounds of force. Eventually my backpack and I shook hands and agreed that we were going to be swinging separate directions for the entirety of the day.

Squelch. Suck. Thud! Helene and I pulled ourselves up from the mud, wiping hair out of our faces with our muddy paws. Helene burst out laughing as she looked at my face, and I laughed as I saw her disheveled hair and muddy streaks on her cheek. “Do I have mud on my face too?”

We weren't alone. Other pigs had left trails that criss crossed with ours, and we found ourselves wandering around in a boggy forest. The trees were covered in thick clumps of dangling moss.

We were lost.

We turned around and retraced our steps until we found the trail. We repeated this about five more times.

Around lunchtime, human figures appeared in the distance at the top of the approaching peaks. After two days of isolation, we were bummed to see people, but it marked our arrival at the Poamoho summit, which was incredibly clear and sunny.

 I had a feeling we might be paying for that clear summit later. 

We arrived at the next cabin around with the entire afternoon free to clean and plan. A look at the weather confirmed our worst fears. The weather had shifted, and a rainy streak was coming in fast. The three worst climbing sections were still ahead of us -- the “saddles.” There was no crossing the saddles unless the weather was clear and dry. 

We’d have to race to make the most of the last few days of clear skies before the rain swept in, so we might as well leave any excess food behind, and travel as quickly as we could.

“It’s in the box!” grinned Helene triumphantly.

“What box?” I glanced around.

“You know, it’s in the box. We’ve got this!”

“I think you mean it’s in the bag. And yeah it is!”

When I said it, I believed it. Helene’s persistently perky optimism was rubbing off on me.

Current Mood: Quiet calm, when your heart beats in rhythm with the rise and fall of the mountain ridge, and all else is silenced.

Somewhere in our muddy struggle, I had let go of my own internal struggle. Not only were we lightening our packs by eating through our food, but the giant load on my mind had been lightened as well. We were feeling silly and giddy, light and happy. We were having fun. For the first time, I had a bold thought. Maybe I actually could do this whole trail!

Helene clomped in from washing our dish outside, wearing an oversized pair of slippers she had found to spare her feet from our wet shoes. “I think there is a giant living in these mountains,” she said, “and he goes stomping around leaving his massive boots and slippers in different places. Wherever he is at, I think we’re getting closer.”

4/13/15 Day 3: It’s in the box

The small ping of Helene’s watch was enough to wake me up, but it was still dark outside. Helene slept right through her alarm. Everything was so warm and cozy. It sounded so cold and wet outside. I could sleep all day.

The lullaby of comfort was drowned out by the voice of the little inner photographer shouting in my face. “GOOOOOOOOD MORNINGGG RISE AND SHINE! Sunrises are always worth the struggle, you know this!”

I sighed, and swung my feet onto the floor in resignation.“Helene, wake up, your alarm went off.”

We did the cold-wet-clothes-dressing dance, and shuffled out onto the trail. The trail from here was easy and clear to see. We were finally on a nice section of the contour that cut through the mountain.About time.The contour led us around the corner and out to the windward side where we could see the….OH.MY.GOD.

It was a sunrise sundae. The same view from the summit yesterday, but this time the cones were topped with cotton candy clouds and dripping in brilliant golden hues. The clouds slowly lifted and permitted rays of carmel to flow into the valleys. Rays so vibrant we could taste them - sweet, syrupy, melt in your mouth delight. The flowers and seed tops of the plants waved gently, and the dew drops on a spider web caught the light like a million diamonds.

I inhaled deeply - everything was so fresh and clean and pure.

The world is amazing. I love the world. Absolutely love it. 

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god!” Helene moaned.

The woman has a point. Drunk on the mountain morning, we stumbled through the next five hours of no man’s land to the beginning of the true ridgeline hiking. No more contours -- just straight climbing up and down from here on out. 

We made a short climb off to the side to filter some water out of a puddle. Small little dead bugs floated on the surface in serenity. They seemed to have enjoyed their last sips.

"I'll have what she's having."

We stretched our bandanas across the top of our water bladders to filter out the bugs as we scooped up water from the puddle, tossed in purification pills, crossed our fingers, and started hiking again.

We were climbing out of the gap, our first major dip in the ridgeline, when a sheet of rain slammed into us sideways with the pricks of 10,000 microscopic soldiers with spears.

Or maybe those squatting little green army men with the bayonets raised over their heads. I hate stepping on those, they're the WORST.

he rain had caught on to our plan to speed past it, and matched our pace.

The bastard.

I huddled on the edge of a one foot crumbling edge and pushed myself against a bush while I hurriedly packed my camera into a drybag. Too late. The buttons were already malfunctioning.

I silently cursed.

We got to flat campable spot with ten minutes of remaining light, one ultra light tarp, one trekking pole, and a few small stakes and strings. The only spot with enough shelter and space for both of us was under a low hanging mossy bush-tree.

After a brief struggle we assembled something that bore a resemblance to an oversized and mis-shapen yellow starfish. The strings pulling the sides of the tarp out at random angles and attaching to various pieces of tree and ground.

But we were finally out of the pouring rain. The shelter of the little starfish felt like a five star hotel. And I was starting to acquire a taste for that cold capt'n crunch potato mix.

Our sleeping bags weren’t warm enough, so we lined them with our emergency blankets. I fell asleep shivering and hugging my camera to my chest.

Pitter-patter. Drip-drip. Scuttle-scuttle. Slimey slimeeee…...

It was 1am. Something was definitely on my face. Yep. It was moving. Centipedes?

Come on Liz, camping in Hawaii under a tree in a wet area with an open tarp, and you didn’t expect that?

I slowly reached one hand and flicked a long creepy crawly off my face. Somehow, after surviving the attack of the great rat the night before, a centipede didn’t seem so bad. If we could survive that, we could survive anything.

“It’s in the box.”

Day 4. 4/14/2015 “Live to try another day.”

I shivered miserably and hugged my muddy pants to my chest. It was time to face the facts. We were enveloped in a cloud of thick grey. The rain was here to stay for the next four days. Trying to hike the saddles in the rain would be like playing Russian Roulette in reverse- five bullets and one empty chamber.

I texted Jessica:

"If we come down, I'm not going to have the strength to do the first part again." "Maybe just Helene can go back once the weather clears. She can hike it really fast from the beginning, and you can just go up farther down and meet up with her with your camera a few days later."

It sounded great to my knees and shoulders. My body was done. It was our original plan. So why was that idea bothering me so much now?

We dejectedly packed up our little starfish and bailed down Manana, a side trail.

It was the point where I’d planned to end my trek.  But my plan had backfired. It might have been some of the mountain magic. It might have been some of Helene’s annoyingly persistent optimism.

As soon as the rain cleared, I knew she was going back and starting the trail all over again from the very beginning so she could do it the entire thing in one shot. And I was going back to the beginning of the trail with her.

I wasn’t sure how, but that didn’t matter. For once, I was starting to believe in my goals. For myself. Where there's a will, there's a way.

I'd figure it out. Right now, the only thing that mattered was that every single step I took was closing the gap between me and a hot steamy mocha.

Ngakuta Bay: Of People and Places

Sometimes people ask me why I got into photography. It wasn’t planned. Actually, I’d say my journey to becoming a photographer began with a series of plans going really wrong.

I was terrified when I quit my job. I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I just knew that I wanted to travel and see mountains. I used some of the money I had saved to buy an introductory level DSLR camera that I had absolutely no idea how to use. I set off to spend the summer in New Zealand. As it turns out, June is actually winter in New Zealand.

So winter. I set off to spend the winter in New Zealand.

Living in a van, by myself. What could possibly go wrong?

 It was during this winter (summer?), that I realized I loved capturing stories about people.

At the time, I was enraptured with Henry David Thoreau’s poetic reflections on solitude and nature, and planned to spend most of my trip in New Zealand solo backpacking in the mountains of the South Island. It was, as my friends would call it, “Hippie Liz Phase.” Ok, I was kind of digging the whole hippie vibe. I even had a multi-colored hand-knit beanie and I thought I understood yoga. My head was full of Saltwater Buddha, Siddhartha, and my latest book- Walden. Theme of the year: self-discovery in nature.  I was on the verge of illumination. I could feel it.

“I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still… I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

After a week in Wanaka with old and new friends, I was restless to begin my spiritual journey. My friend Jamie tucked a little slip of paper from her fortune cookie into the cup holder of my van and hugged me goodbye. I raced towards the hills in pursuit of enlightenment.

My idyllic visions of soul searching in the mountains were quickly trampled.  A torrential downpour, overflowing rivers, rockfalls, and landslides blocked the passage to natural nirvana. A crippling case of contaminated water was the final blow, and I found myself huddled on the side of the road, retching my guts out. Only three days later, I limped my way along the coast towards Picton, crushed and defeated.

I called the parents of a kind kiwi I had met in Wanaka, and asked to spend a night and recover. The directions were simple. Follow a winding road until I saw a beautiful bay filled with sailboats. Turn near the bridge. I wound through the roads along the Marlborough sounds and found myself tucked away in the heart of Ngakuta bay.

"Welcome!” boomed a deep voice. I was face to face with a man with sharp blue eyes and a mustache that would have made Einstein jealous. He embraced me in a big hug. The rough wool fibers of his sweater were spattered with flecks of fiberglass.

“I’m a bit of a mess, I’ve just been sanding my kayak. Lent it to a boy that’s off to be the first person to walk around the entire coastline of New Zealand. He had to navigate the coastline of the sounds by water. Took a little beating, but what a story, eh!”

His name was Pip. His wife, Anne welcomed me a warm smile, and gently led me to the house. Her hair was soft waves of gingerbread and honey and everything sweet.

“Are you hungry?” Pip was right on her heels. “Of course you are, you’ve been driving all day. Let’s go get some fish for dinner then, eh? Anne, we’ll be back shortly with dinner!”

Within 20 minutes we were rowing out to his fishing boat anchored in the bay.

“Look at us, rolling on the river just like Fogerty and Tina Turner!” he cried. His white hair flittered in his face as he lustily belted out the lyrics.

Left a big job in the city

Big wheel keep on turning

Proud Mary keep on burning

Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river!

Marlborough sounds is a lake within an ocean. It’s an area of sunken valleys, consumed by the sea. An expansive network of peaks of land rises, and welcomes the tumultuous ocean into their calm arms. They rock the swell to sleep in their channels, and by the time the ocean reaches Ngakuta bay, the water lies as still as a milk drunk newborn.

There was no wind to speak of, so Pip started the engine and we slowly putted our way through the sounds. The water rippled softly away from the boat like folds of iridescent silk smoothing under a hot iron.

“Now then, a visit to Ngakuta Bay wouldn’t be complete without a glass of the homemade spirits.” Pip poured a glass from a bottle filled with deep amber.

I eyeballed the glass tentatively.

“It just wraps itself around your tonsils and screams ‘I’m here, ho!’” He assured me, and raised his glass to the sky.

A colorful printed label on the bottle explained the warmth filling my belly:

“RICOCHET” Ngakuta Gold RUM

This finest quality B.B.O.P.* is guaranteed to increase ones libido and general sense of being whilst at the same time titivating the taste buds and liberating the inhibitions.

Aprox 40% alc. (Give or take 10%)

*Bloody beautiful old plonk

While we waited for a nibble, Pip filled me in with the triumphs and struggles of bay life; thrilling summer boat races and fishing with dolphins; polluted waters and damages from increased logging.

Between stories and sips, the sun sank away. We returned to shore at dusk with hands as empty as our bellies.

The table was prepared. The kitchen smelled of gravy and mushrooms and meats and buttered sweet corn. Somehow, Anne just knew.

Something had finally calmed my stomach, whether it was the rum, or the time on the water, and I took a small bite. Heaven.

“This is the same as one of the first meals Anne cooked for me!” beamed Pip. He looked over at Anne proudly. “You know, it’s a miracle I even got her to agree to a second date!”

Anne smiled sideways and shook her head.

“I was the principal of the school, and so I knew most of the parents. When I took her out to dinner for our first date, the waitress said ‘You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?’ It’s a small town, you know, so I replied ‘I don’t know, maybe you’re the mother of one of my children.’”

Pip shook with mirth. “I didn’t realize how bad it sounded until I had already said it!”

“Swept me off my feet,” laughed Anne. After dinner we sank into warm brown corduroy armchairs. The black wood stove crackled as Pip strummed on one of his handmade ukuleles.

While Pip was more vocal, Anne asserted her voice in her own ways. She approached my chair with a book. “This is the book I wrote,” she handed me the book as Pip played in the background. “It’s my autobiography.” She settled into her chair, as I flipped through the pages of Anne's carefully constructed memoirs. Pip had spontaneously switched to a flute, and was now piping along with the singer performing on the TV behind him.

The next day, Pip introduced me to the best bakery, where we gorged ourselves on meat pies. Anne brought me along to school where she taught in a one-room multi-grade schoolhouse where tree climbing is still allowed. Back at the house, Pip sang songs and acted out history lessons of his own.

“Do you know Ernest Rutherford went to the school we taught at? The father of nuclear physics, from our little school!” Pip beamed.

“More importantly, New Zealand was the first country to allow women to vote,” Anne added.

My one night stay melted into four days. As I drove towards the ferry in Picton, I realized that my experience in the beautiful South Island would not have been as rich without the people.

I did eventually find some peace and quiet solitude in nature. But I also began to realize I wanted to capture stories of people, not just nature. Just as places shape the people who live there, the people shape the places where they live.

I didn't find a way to make money capturing people's stories until much later, after I learned how to properly use my camera, lost the rainbow beanie and started taking showers again. But as I continued to travel, my journals and photos became my way of capturing the essence that I felt in the places. And when I ran out of money for traveling, meeting new people with different perspectives became my form of traveling.

As I left Pip & Anne’s house, I propped up Jamie's fortune cookie slip on the dash of my van and left it up for the rest of the trip:

Secrets of the Supermoon

Warning: objects in rearview mirror may appear larger than they are. 

Especially when said object is a supermoon, and you replace "rearview mirror" with the screen of my iPhone. If you've ever tried to snap a picture of the moon and wondered "It sure looked bigger in the sky", you know what I'm talking about.

I recently undertook a project to photograph the moon with pregnant ladies. I knew two lovely ladies that were going to be first time mothers, and I wanted to create a special concept for them. Full moon, full bellies.. it just made sense. I had no idea just how much I would have to learn to make it happen. That hits the spot... Finding the right location was tricky. I thank God everyday for amazing apps, like The Photographer's Ephemeris (although she insists, please, just call her TPE) & Sky Guide. For basic planning purposes, TPE helped me scan the island and see where the sun and moon will be rising and setting, when it will be full, and where I can angle the moon behind my subject and still have enough space between us in order to use a telephoto lens. TPE helped me find the best spot, and then I hiked out there and scouted during the day to make sure I could elevate my subject and be able to see them unobstructed from far away. Using Sky Guide, I could hold my phone up to the sky, fast forward to the time and date I would be shooting, and see exactly where the moon would be in relation to where I was standing and where I wanted my subject to stand. So far so good.

Bigger isn't always better...

I knew in order to make the moon appear larger in the picture, I needed a telephoto lens, but I didn't know how large I needed it to be. 400mm? 1600? After looking at a few images on other blogs, I decided 800mm would give me the size I wanted. Only one problem- it's $350 to rent the 800mm lens for 3 days.

  After consulting with the helpful staff at Hawaii Camera, I opted for the poor man's version- a 100-400mm lens paired with a 2x converter to create an equivalent 800mm, and a sturdy tripod. I was ready for my first victims.

I brought my beautiful friend Stacy and her husband out to the spot, and then ran back to my location 500 feet away to set up the lens. They set up their phone on speakerphone, while I juggled mine in one hand while adjusting the camera and tripod. As the moon started to rise, I realized we weren't in quite the right spot! I yelled directions into the phone. Quick- move! Over there! Two steps, no back! We soon found out that at 800mm zoom, the moon moves across your camera screen so quickly, you only have about 15 seconds to capture it before it's too high. 7 days of planning and anticipation is a lot of hype for a mere 15 seconds. thatswhatshesaid

Stacy and Rom were committed to getting the shot, so I had them move to a higher rock and re-positioned my camera. I double checked the alinement of the moon against my subjects and my camera lens angle using Sky Guide, and we waited again.... the excitement....the anticipation....

Watching the glow of the moon silently rise up behind them and illuminate her full belly was magical, but we had to work fast. When I was exposed and focused on Stacey and Rom, the moon was a white blur. In order to have both subjects properly exposed and focused, I took two photos- one adjusted for the moon, and one adjusted for my subjects, and created a composite with both my subjects and the moon in focus.

The result was beautiful. For my next attempt, I wanted to create an image where the moon was still large, but the belly was larger against the moon. To understand how to create this effect, I had to learn a little more about the science behind it all. Back when I was in highschool and my little brother was in middleschool, he helped explain my math homework to me. He likened himself to Jason,  child mathwhiz of the comic Foxtrot.

10 years later, nothing has changed. He's now getting his PhD in physics, and he helped break the science of solar photography down a little better. My first question- is there a size difference between the moon at different times in the night?

The moon is not bigger on the horizon A picture of the moon at 800mm zoom taken high in the sky, and a picture of the moon gracing the horizon with the same settings are, in fact, virtually the same size on the screen of my camera. It turns out it's all one big solar optical illusion, and for all photographic planning purposes, it's not actually as large as it appears. thatswhatshesaid

Distance is the greatest determining factor

I thought I could control the relation of the size of my subject against the moon using the zoom on the lens, but it turns out of all the factors involved, the distance between the camera and the subject is the one that makes the greatest difference for my purposes. My mathwhiz brother broke this down to me even further in a spreadsheet involving the lensmaker equation and other fun things, but that's a whole new level of nerding out that I'll save for another day.  For the second shoot, I decided to be only 300 feet away from my subject. I brought out another lovely mother, Coco, and her husband Ryan, who helped hold the phone for her on speakerphone. I stuffed my own phone down my shirt so I could holler at them while using both hands to adjust the camera and focus (another reason to pick a spot farther away from civilization). With the knowledge gained from my attempt the night before, we were nearly perfectly aligned as the moon rose, and in that special moment, Coco bowed her head gently towards her growing belly.

Mission accomplished, we hiked home under the light of the full moon, having created a special memory of the anticipation, awe, and fullness of heart embodied in these beautiful first time mothers.

Thank you to everyone who helped bring this vision to life. :)

808 Cleanups

 Meet Michael Loftin, co-founder of 808 Cleanups.

Michael loves trail running, stand up paddleboarding, and a variety of other outdoor activities. Being active in nature has not only helped Michael cultivate a healthy lifestyle, but also stirred up a recognition of the symbiotic relationship humans have with their environment. With this awareness has come a sense of stewardship, which led Michael to co-found 808 Cleanups with Wayde Fishman. It's their way of taking care of their playground.

808 cleanups has three main problem areas they target: cleaning graffiti off natural surfaces, ocean debris, and trash collection.

Volunteers track and report new graffiti as it arises on natural landscape features, and people volunteer to form cleanup groups to tackle the problem areas. This is Michael in front of the newly cleaned "pride rock" along the Lanikai pillbox hike. Using the brushes shown above, along with a kit of cleaners and other supplies, volunteers removed all the graffiti from this area and restored the rock to it's original state.

 808 cleanups literally plays janitor of the ocean, arranging ocean cleanups in coordination with divers, ocean lovers, and other concerned individuals. These cleanups target retrieving trash left in the deep blue, not only to keep the ocean beautiful, but also to remove hazards for the ocean wildlife.

Some of the largest areas of participation in 808 Cleanups come from collecting bags of trash on trails, beaches, and other areas. Many residents have begun to adopt local trails and beaches in their neighborhoods, setting regular times to patrol and maintain these areas. Michael promotes these cleanups by sharing their reports from their cleanups on social media and growing the hype with the hashtag #808cleanups.

In addition to encouraging people to adopt areas, the group hosts many cleanup events that bring together the community in person. During their last cleanup on tantalus, numerous groups and individuals came together to join the cause, including members of Travel 2 Change, Diamondhead Hui, Hawaii Adventure Tours, and numerous other groups. Together, the group cleaned up over 2,000 lbs of trash together. That's some serious stinking business!

If you're interested in adopting one of the areas near you, or pitching in on a cleanup, you can check out the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/808cleanups/

Moke: A Community of Aloha

This past week as an entire community has rallied together to help a family find the hiker who went missing February 27th. Hawaii Fire Department had called off the search after 3 days, but late into the 4th day, 5 nurses heard him clearly calling for help, and the search resumed with a frenzy. Even the Navy came out and help for a day, weaving between cloud enshrouded ridges with infa-red cameras.

Since then, I have been awed to witness the outpouring of love and talents that have pulled together from near and far to support this family and find Moke Pua. When the clues pointed to areas that were inaccessible, my friends from 808canyons stepped in to aid in the search. If you know me, I enjoy rappelling down canyons and waterfalls with my friends for a hobby, and something we sometimes get a bad rap for (pun intended). In this case, however, the island was lucky to have my crazy daredevil friends who knew how to safely rappel down to the area in question. We got together this past Saturday to check out an area in question, but I ended up being assigned to join the helicopter to drop the ropes at the top of the trail, scout out the leads from the air and document them with my camera, and use this intel to determine the best route for them to descend. Meanwhile Kitt, Chris, and others headed up the trail at a brisk pace carrying heavy packs of gear. These are just a few of the amazing moments that I watched unfold throughout the day.

At the airport, I was introduced to Kris, the helicopter pilot. He owns the helicopter we used, and donated over 20 hours of his time and fuel to fly in and out of the canyons, incessantly searching and assisting every way he can. He's got a huge heart, and you could tell that this weighs heavy on his mind. He's also an extremely skilled pilot, as he  wove in and out of the canyons and hovered over the narrow Moanalua saddle allowing me to drop four 600 ft ropes onto the narrow patch of ground.

This is David, a writer of one of the popular hiking blogs on the island. He's been spearheading the search, and has been investing countless hours and days on end to the cause. He's become a figure for the family to look to for assurance that their boy will come home, as he posts daily, even hourly updates on the search, and rallies for more volunteers and resources.

This is Brett. She joined me in the helicopter for a round of searching, and aided with a lot of coordination on the ground. Having solid coordination on the ground is extremely vital to the success of large crews like this. Multiple teams were hiking, rappelling, and searching from every angle, and her quick thinking and concise actions helped to organize information and connect teams quickly, safely, and efficiently.

From the air, the mountains extend on into endless valleys and ridges.

After hours of treacherous searching from the air, we landed at a makeshift base camp the school in Haiku valley has set up for us.

The principal of Kamakau Charter School lent her weekend to unlock the gates and clear a landing pad in the school parking lot, as well as organize a base camp. Volunteers and family members filled the parking lot, scanning the hillside with binoculars and bringing food and supplies for the volunteers. After 6 hours of scanning the mountains in freezing, windy conditions, shaking from fear as we swept in and out of valleys so closely I could see each blade grass, I was extremely grateful for warm food and hot coffee.

On the ground, teams regrouped to analyze each piece of data, communicate with the teams in the mountains, and determine the next steps.

Base camps at both the school in Haiku, as well as Moanalua Valley Park have been providing a place for support for crews on both sides, and the family members all stand by, anxiously awaiting news.

In Haiku, we gathered in a circle and the principal led the group in a prayer in Hawaiian to the mountains to bring Moke back to his family. Goosebumps covered my arms as they all started singing in Hawaiian, and even the children chimed in, their tiny voices blending together with the strong voices of the elders. As the sang, they were choking up, sobbing through the words, but insistently chanting on. Tears were streaming down my face by the end. One of the strong Hawaiian ladies put her hand on my shoulder and looked straight into my eyes. "We're not giving up," she said, her eyes glinting with determination, "you know that, right? We're bringing him home!"

After days of endless waiting on the ground, Moke's father was finally able to go up in the air and be in the mountains near his son. Watching that flight take off was a truly powerful moment. Once again, the Hawaiian prayers began, and all eyes were turned to the mountains as the women called to them, begging them, pleading with them to return their boy.

The chanting grew, their tatooed hands shaking, praying, as the helicopter roared louder and louder, sending Moke's father flying off over the mountains to find his boy.

I can only imagine the dynamics of what went on during that flight. Somewhere below them the mountains held Moke. I am told his father was whistling loudly over the roar of the helicopter, calling out to his son. When they returned to base camp, David and the father embraced, overwhelmed with emotion.

We returned to Moanalua Valley Park to regroup as the amazing teams of hikers and rappel crew slowly trickled in, returning from their long hard hours in the mountains.

This is Marc. An avid hiker himself, he's spent days in the mountains and on the ground coordinating the search efforts.

It's amazing and inspiring to see how a community has pulled together. Climb Aloha donated ropes to ensure safety of the rescue groups. Hawaii Camera donated telephoto lenses to help zoom in on areas of interest and document the mountain sections in question. Tom and Bruce, two photographers from the BI, flew over to join the crew, and Cameron also joined the photo crew for a day.  Crews from 808 Cavemen, Hawaii Trail and Mountain Club, and more,  joined the search. Many many others that I don't even know have all come together to donate, hike, and join the cause. Although we may not know Moke, we know the heart of a brother, a sister, a father, a mother. And the island has shown a dedication to bringing this boy home to his family.

The family is going in to their 13th day of not working and spending their personal resources to find their boy. If you want to contribute, please donate to the family fund here: http://www.gofundme.com/ns2oj4 Hawaii has proved once again, it's not just a place. It's a community, it's family, it's love, it's aloha.

Yoga: The elements

A collaboration with four artists & four yoga teachers. 

Art Director: Michiko Nagai
Photography: Liz Barney
Models: Coco Zhang, Naomi Kiyalah Iwabuchi, Christina Soo Hoo, Emily Elizabeth
Artists: Dexter Naira, Anna Leychenko, Michiko Nagai, Justin Sosa

Lessons Learned in Team Adventure

Adventure:

verb

 “To engage in hazardous and exciting activity, especially the exploration of unknown territory.”

Dust particles cloud the air as ultra runner Helene slides sideways on a vertical slope of shale. A loose rock breaks out from under her feet and ricochets down the hundreds of feet of vertical canyon wall we have been clinging to for the past four hours. We’re on the hunt for a plane wreck, a seemingly large object, but right about now it feels more like a needle in a haystack. This is our first day training in these operations, and we had not anticipated this terrain. Occasionally, a coarse smattering of desert brush provides some aid for our desperately scrabbling feet, but at the cost of slicing what remains of our tender hands. I am not an ultra runner- I am completely out of my league. I hike, climb, and surf, but rigid training has never been a part of my daily routine, and now I am paying the price as I try to keep up with this team of elite athletes in front of me. Slowly, Helene becomes nothing more than a small purple dot far in front of me, and as I pause to wipe my red and sweaty face, I fight the urge to give up. With this team, there is no man left behind, and the fact that my surrender would come at the sacrifice of the team’s mission motivates me to push myself to new heights my body has not previously known.

As the popularity of adventure sports has exponentially grown, there is an increasing focus on the me, myself, and I of adventure. Adventure athletes are constantly trying to out-do each other’s latest feats, pushing themselves to new levels of danger and thrill. With this increasing focus on individual achievement, “others” is sometimes interpreted as “obstacles,” and the benefits of team adventure are often overlooked. While individual quests have their own inspirational aspects, there are some unique lessons I learned from adventuring with a team.

I had the opportunity to tag along as a photographer on the hunt for Lt. Steeve’s jet with Adventure Science, a group of elite athletes who work together on missions such as these to use their skills for greater causes- science, knowledge, and, when necessary, search and rescue.  For this mission, a team of athletes flew into Los Angeles from a vast range of locations stretching across the globe.

In order to understand the intrigue of this mission, let’s take a step back in time to the spring of 1957 in the high Sierra Nevada mountains, where the adventure originally started with a lone man, stranded alone for an astounding 53 days. Lt. David Steeves, a test pilot in the Air Force, left San Francisco on May 9, 1957 was forced to eject over the Sierra Nevadas after a plane failure. Steeves landed in the middle of the wilderness with nothing but his parachute for shelter, and two badly injured ankles from the impact of his landing.  He survived the next few days of agony crawling through snow and treacherous terrain, and eventually stumbled across a ranger’s cabin with food and supplies. What followed was a wilderness survival experience akin to “Into the Wild,” hunting and gathering to survive. Fifty three days later he stumbled upon a group of hunters and was miraculously rescued. Countless searches were conducted to find the remains of the plane, but with no luck.  His stories of survival came under close scrutiny. Accusations began to fly around that he had sold the plane to the Russians and faked the whole thing. He was discharged from the air force, and his marriage dissolved. Steeves survival skills in the rugged Sierra Nevadas had saved his life, only for it to be destroyed by vicious gossip and speculation of society. Countless investigations, psychological studies and profiles, and re-combing facts turned up with nothing. Steeves spent the remainder of his life fighting to clear his name, and later died, ironically, in another plane wreck.

The mystery remained stagnant until 1978, when a troup of boy scouts discovered a jet canopy in Kings Canyon. The serial numbers were checked and found to match the serial number of Steeves jet. Finally- resolution of the black stain that had followed Steeves to his grave. Still, some held firm to the original speculations, stating the canopy was light and easy to drop and plant as evidence.  Until something solid was found, there was still room for speculation.

And thus, 57 years later, a team of qualified individuals gathered to crack the case open once more, in hope of finding the ejection seat, maybe even the plane itself, setting the facts straight, and vindicating the ghosts of Steeves’ tarnished name.

1. A well picked team is the key to success

Picking quality team members is crucial to the success of the team. Simon Donato, head of Adventure Science, spent a good deal of time in the months leading up to the trip reviewing applications and skyping with potential athletes before selecting the best applicants for the team.  “When you’re out in the middle of the wilderness, you don’t want any surprises,” he said, “you need to be confident in the capabilities of each team member.” As we began the long road trip towards Bishop, it made for a great time to swap stories and get to know each other. While everyone was eager to charge off into the mountains, this quiet downtime getting to know each other was valuable as well.  The women from the team all packed into one car for the long trip, and we began to hear each other’s stories of inspiration and hope. Together, each individual brought their own unique strengths and experiences to form a cohesive and indestructible team of wilderness detectives.

Wanda Summers is a personal trainer and ultra runner from Great Britain, and her smile and positive spirit exude strength. Wanda broke her back and the doctors told her she would never walk again, but she stubbornly ignored these admonitions, forcing herself to push through painful exercises for hours every day. “When things start to hurt,” she says, “You just tell your brain to stop listening to the pain- they’re just signals. Your body is capable of much more than you think possible.”

Helene Dumais

is a vivacious French Canadian athlete and health coach from Montreal. Helene bubbles over with energy, enthusiasm, and an overall love for life. Some people say Italians talk with their hands- well Helene talks with her body. She moves with artful precision and control, led by her ridiculously firm and toned mid-section. Helene is a feel good person- her smile, genuine interest, and bright eyes elicit stories and laughs the whole ride up into the mountain.

Jane Davis

brings encouragement and a nurturing spirit to the group. From the minute she first walks in the door, she enthusiastically introduces herself to everyone and begins cracking jokes as her laughter reverberates down the hallway and fills the house with warmth. Jane lost her husband to prostate cancer, but she didn’t let herself sink into depression- like Wanda, she used the pain as motivation to push herself to new levels as she began competing and finding healing in the outdoors. She joined a team of other athletes who have faced losses due to prostate cancer, Team Winter, founded by our other female team member, Winter Vinecki.

Winter Vinecki

was only nine years old when she lost her dad to prostate cancer. Even as a young girl, she knew she wanted to use this experience to help others, and so with the help of her mom, she founded Team Winter, a non-profit to raise money for prostate cancer research and awareness. At the time, she was already well on her way to becoming an elite athlete, as she ran her first triathlon at age 5, and completed her first Olympic triathlon at age 9. This streak continued as she recently became a winter olympics 2018 hopeful in aerial skiing, and the youngest person to complete a marathon on Antartica. At 16 years of age, she is the youngest on the team, but she speaks with resounding determination and spunk.

The whole time we’re getting to know each other,

Simon Donato

is driving, making dry remarks, laughing, and shaking his head at how he found himself on a trip with a car full of woman. Simon Donato is the fearless leader and instigator of this whole adventure- a scientist and athlete, he founded Adventure Science as a way to combine athletic skills and scientific knowledge and apply them to solve mysteries, search and rescue, and conduct outdoor research to benefit the greater good. He now stars in Boundless, an adventure travel show on the Esquire network, and organized this search during his down time before starting the 3rd season. Thankfully, Simon has some male companionship for the long trip, as Jordan Eady is riding shotgun and they are caught up in their own witty banter and recounting old memories.

Jordan and Josh Eady

, also known as the Eady brothers, have known Simon since University.

While Simon was off studying science and competing in athletic events, they were developing their skills as filmmakers, running down the streets of Toronto chasing bands and making music videos, developing innovative and creative media on multiple fronts. They later teamed up with Simon Donato to pitch the idea of the show Boundless to a TV network. The idea stuck, and they were granted the funds to film the first season. They filmed the pilot episode in Hawaii on the Molokai to Oahu stand up paddleboard race, where I met them back in 2012 while tagging along on the escort boat. Jordan and Josh are a dynamic duo you’ll not soon forget. The stories, jokes, and facial expressions as they toss dialogue back and forth like a hot potato make for scenarios that brought us to tears laughing.

Every team adventure needs an eagle scout. The one with the extra supplies, extra batteries, first aid training, and a sharp eye for potential dangers. You wake up at 6am and open the flap of your tent, bleary eyed, only to discover they’re sitting outside next to a fully prepared backpack, 10 liters of filtered water, and a sling and guaze, just in case.

Tim Puetz

is that man. Tim Puetz is a former officer in the US Army, and now works in public health in DC. It’s clear to see there is a special piece of him that comes to life when he’s working with a team in the outdoors. When a couple of boys stumbled on our camp with a deep head injury, Tim was quick to jump to action, sterilizing and sealing the wound, all the while talking to the boys in a calm voice and assuring them they would be alright.

2. Planning and preparation is crucial

A lot of thought and preparation went into this search, long before the athletes even set foot in California. The effective operation and safety of the team depended on well constructed planning and base logistics. This is where the other three members of the team came into play- Keith Szlater, Chris Killian, and Mike Killian. While they were unable to join us beyond the pass, they were crucial elements in leading the first initial search operations for the smaller wrecks, and immeasurably valuable resources on the ground to prepare us for what lay over Bishop pass.

Keith Szlater

has been a vital member of the adventure science team for a long time, and has gone through a lot of work to make sure the logistics of communication and team safety are covered. He gives us a briefing on proper use of the radios to stay in contact with the rest of the team as we prepare to spread out and begin searching. Together with Simon and Tim, he coaches us on proper methods for scanning the canyon walls thoroughly, without dropping rocks on each other. It turns out maintaining a safe and still effective formation in terrain like this is slightly less complicated than choreographing a herd of penguins to walk a tight rope while tracing the letters of the alphabet, but he talks us through it and breaks it down. Never turn your back on Keith- he always has something up his sleeve, whether it’s the Russian anthem to salute our “Putin” leader Simon, or extra treats to perk our spirits up when we are tired and exhausted. That twinkle in his eye was a spark to keep our fire going in the nights to follow.

Chris and Mike Killian compiled extensive knowledge and resources on plane wrecks to back this entire search. An affinity for aviation runs in the family- his son Mike lent his skills as a pilot to navigate a small craft overhead to scout the areas in advance from the air. Chris now devotes a large portion of time to researching the unsolved mysteries of different plane wrecks, and reaches from an impressive repertoire to tell stories about drug money, scandals, and hidden secrets that come to light with the unveiling of the stories behind each plane wreck.  In order to determine a starting point, Chris uses the intel from where the canopy was found, combined with the wind patterns and other information from the day of the crash. Along with the help of a volunteer math whiz named Corin Bowin (who is completing a physics MSc at the University Michigan), they create a trajectory within where they think the metal ejection seat has landed in the Dusy Basin. This map provides our guide to begin our search.

Behind the scenes was Melissa Stewart, who I never had the pleasure of meeting, but she relayed messages, ensured effective communication on behalf of the team while we were deep in the woods, and spent hours putting together and maintaining a blog to track our progress.

With this team of diverse backgrounds and strengths, we were fully prepared to take on the tasks ahead of us.

3. Flexibility allows the team to benefit from the strengths of each member

Originally, the plan was to pack the entire team, including base operations with their radio equipment and solar panels, over the pass with the use of mules, and spend the week based in Grouse Meadows, performing daily searches from the base camp within. Unfortunately, there was still too much snow on the pass for the mules to make the trek, and it was impossible to pack that much gear on foot. We decided to spend a few days in the area waiting out the snow and searching for other plane wrecks that Chris and Mike had spotted from the air, but hadn’t ground truthed yet.  While this delayed our initial plans to search for Steeve’s plane, the day hunts through the canyons and mountains led to the successful ground truthing of two wrecks, and the entire team learned a lot about communication, search patterns, and just how small a plane wing in the middle of the mountains can really be.

These skills prepared us for the coming days, and although the snow forced us to finally go ahead and hike over the pass on foot without base camp, we had the reassurance of knowing two master base camp logistics were waiting on the other side, ready to help, and we were much more prepared to conduct our search within the Dusy Basin.

4. Communicate goals to maintain a clear focus

Each evening ended with a briefing for the goals of the next day, and summarizing of the day’s accomplishments. This not only allowed us to take pride in our accomplishments, but prepare our minds for the task ahead of us. Furthermore, it gave us a chance to rally each other for the next task. I’m not going to lie, I was not used to these kind of missions. After a day of hiking many miles with a heavy pack, chasing people around with my camera, and fighting elevation sickness at 12,000 feet, I found myself thinking to myself “this is it. Tomorrow is the day I’m going to quit.” But somehow when we talked through the goals together as a group, it brought my focus back to our original goals, and this shared group focus helped me keep my eyes on the prize.

5. When one person succeeds, the team succeeds

Shortly after Helene disappeared in the canyon walls on that first day of training, my radio crackled with her voice- “Base camp, I’ve found the plane!” Those words sent shivers down all of our spines, and we quickly oriented ourselves in the direction of the wreck. As we combed over the ruins, each and every team member was smiling and congratulating each other. Helene had been the first to find the plane, but the entire team was sharing in the victory and congratulating each other.

One very important difference in team adventure is this type of mentality- all victory is shared, and likewise, all struggles are shared.  This mindset set the tone for the actions of the entire group for the remainder of the week, and was part of the glue that held the group together so tightly. For that week in time, each team member ceased to be a “me,” and became a part of the greater “we,” and the burdens became lighter and the victories sweeter.

6. Teams go farther because they push each other to persevere

Vince Lombardi Jr. said “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, nor a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.”

I thought I was pretty tough. Then I met these athletes, and they blew me out of the water. We were off trail, scouring cliff sides, and they charged up vertical inclines, clinging to nothing but loose rock, testing each foot and hand hold, dodging the falling rocks that broke loose. Not only did they navigate this terrain effortlessly, but at quick speeds, with incredible aerobic stamina and astounding strength. Each day I wanted to quit, and I found myself coming up with excuses internally. I’m not an ultra runner. I don’t train. My cardio is shot. I can’t do what these athletes do.

And then, in these moments of weakness, I found inspiration in the other team member’s stories. Each had faced a variety of challenges that all made my miseries seem small. They provided encouraging words: “Set your mind on the goal and you can make it happen.” “Don’t stop, you will get stronger.” “If you say you can’t, then you can’t. If you say you can, you will.” These phrases rang with truth, and I drew inspiration to keep going.

I took a deep breath, picked up my pack, swung it back over the welts, cinched the waist straps. Stepped onto my blistered toes, and told myself- it’s just pain, nothing more. And where I would have quit and called it a day, this team coached me to complete more physically challenging day missions than I had ever accomplished before in my life. Had I been alone, I would have given up long before. But sometimes that’s the beauty of being a part of a team that doesn’t let you quit- they pull you up right alongside them, and you realize you can achieve more than you ever dreamed possible.

7. Adventure is about the journey

In the end, we didn’t find the Lt. Steeves jet. The snowy conditions had left us with only two days to scour the basin  area, and with the amount of ground we needed to cover, the chances of covering the area that contained the ejection seat within those two days were slim. But we didn’t leave Bishop dejected- far from it. I will tell you that the hike out on the final day seemed like it would never end, and when we reached the parking lot it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. And when I heard Keith telling us that him and Chris were on their way to pick us up, those were some of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. But looking back on the trip, those final moments of completion were not the moments that I cherished the most.

The moments that lingered in my mind were the moments on the trail, radioing back and forth to establish locations and secure our search paths. The moments of careful planning and preparation. The moments where we felt like the hiking would never end and all we could think about was our next meal. The moments when we rounded a bend to open up to a breathtaking meadow, a shimmering waterfall, or a towering mountain ridgeline. The moments when one person radioed in to check out a shiny object and our hearts all skipped a beat. The strong communication between the team. The lifelong lessons learned, the feeling that no matter what, everybody had each other’s back.

You can rest assured members of this team will continue to search the area every chance they get, until the ghosts of Lt. Steeves are finally put to rest once and for all. But in the end, the success of the adventure isn’t defined alone by the end result. Like life, the best moments are in the process of the journey itself: what you learn about each other, and what you learn about yourself.  Because when you’re in a team, you don’t give up on each other, and you don’t let each other give up on themselves. Working with the Adventure Science team has given me inspiration to push myself to new limits I never would have previously thought possible.

In the words of the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”