The AMC Eagle is like the American predecessor to the Subaru Outback. Manufactured between 1980-88 by American Motors Company (AMC), the 4WD Eagle is noted by many as being responsible for the emergence of "crossover" vehicles, essentially building an SUV on a smaller platform. While getting far better gas milage than the Jeep Grand Wagoneer (also of AMC at this time), these guys definitely don't skimp on fuel, the result of dropping a truck engine in a mid-size sedan. In 1983, the AMC Eagle was chosen as the National Ski Patrol official vehicle. Cruise your local Craigslist, you can find these guys dirt cheap. They're no joke, bring on the snowstorms.
HOLD FAST
This documentary looks like it was shot with a point and shoot camera because it was. This is the story of a small group of self-taught sailors that, after haggling a derelict fiberglass sailboat in Florida, rebuilt the vessel and then sailed to the Bahamas, essentially learning to sail along the way. The film is so raw and real, waterspouts, bludgeoning mahi mahi, and swimming out anchors. Virtually everything is done "under sail" without a working motor. It takes a second to get into, but hold in there. You can download and watch it for free, but help these guys out and pick one up.
PADDLE TO THE AMAZON
For two years from 1980 to 1982, Don Starkell and his teenage sons Jeff and Dana paddled a hand-crafted, 21 foot fiberglass canoe from Winnipeg, Canada to Belem, Brazil, completely self-supported. Account of the 12,181 mile journey was compressed from thousands of pages of Starkell’s salt-stained, smeared, loose leaf diary entries into a book, Paddle to the Amazon. Starkell and his son Dana both hold the Guinness World Record for having completed the “longest canoe journey ever” (Jeff dropped out in Mexico). The group endured modern pirates and starvation, dodging bullets and drug cartels along the gulf coast from Mexico, eventually along and through South America. Almost ten years later, Starkell lost the tops of all his fingers and five of his toes in attempts to trace the Northwest Passage by kayak. After three years, and nearly 3,000 miles, the trip was cut short by just 30 miles due to frostbite.
MARK
I got a text message from my old friend, Mark, yesterday inviting me up this winter for another go at ice climbing in the White Mountains. Mark and I were roommates while attending school in Colorado together, and after we graduated, he moved back to New Hampshire, got married to the girl that had lived next door to us, joined the Army (does the hair give it away?) and started studying the effects of extreme weather conditions on the human body. That basically means that around this time of year, Mark spends his days climbing and freezing his tail off, then taking his pulse. Or something like that. He was supposed to have spent the summer doing rescues on Denali, but the trip ended up getting postponed until next year. That meant me being able to spend time at his lakehouse in New Hampshire this summer, where he and his equally crazy family has set up a Fourth of July Triathlon for themselves. Yeah....Mark is, to say the least, an animal, more fit and strong and crazy than anyone I have ever met, or probably ever will meet. But there's no one that I trust more to take me ice climbing, and after last year's trip and a car that can easily get me to the Kancamagus, I can't wait...
Do It With Joy (1976)
British Columbia has a reforestation program to restock vast tracts of land stripped by logging companies. DO IT WITH JOY is about a unique community: a group of people from widely varying backgrounds who come together each spring to plant trees in the vast logged areas of northern British Columbia.For all of them, tree planting is a source of income, but more importantly it is a chance to share in the building of a self-sufficient community for the few months of the planting season.British Columbia has a reforestation program to restock vast tracts of land stripped by logging companies. DO IT WITH JOY is about a unique community: a group of people from widely varying backgrounds who come together each spring to plant trees in the vast logged areas of northern British Columbia.For all of them, tree planting is a source of income, but more importantly it is a chance to share in the building of a self-sufficient community for the few months of the planting season.
(via BTBN)
Journey On The Wild Coast
Three summers ago, in June of 2007, Seldovia, AK residents, Bretwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, walked from Seattle, WA to the tip of Alaska's Aleutian Islands. It took the yurt-dwelling, jewelry-making married couple four months to cover the 4,000 miles, and en route, "Hig," who has a doctorate in geology, and Erin, who has a degree in molecular biology, only had two rules, one strict and one informal. The strict rule? No motorized transport. The informal rule? Don't resupply on food except where there are people with food anyway.Watch the trailer for the documentary about the trip, JOURNEY ON THE WILD COAST. (via The Adventure Journal)
Into the Tsangpo Gorge
Last week, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, I sat at a small table with Steve Fisher, considered by many to be the world's best kayaker, two other friends, one old and one new, stuffed grape leaves, tabouleh, za'atar, some turkish coffee and a couple of local beers. We listened to a jet-lagged Fisher reminisce about his experience in Tibet's Tsangpo Gorge, which would become a book, Hell Or High Water, by Outside writer Peter Heller, and a documentary, Into The Tsangpo Gorge, that you can watch for free on Hulu. It's an amazing story, and while I had the advantage of hearing bits and pieces in between bites of pita bread, the short documentary on Hulu is well worth your time.From IndieBound:
The Tsangpo Gorge in southeastern Tibet has lured explorers and adventurers since its discovery. Sacred to the Buddhists, the inspiration for Shangri La, the Gorge is as steeped in legend and mystery as any spot on earth. As a river-running challenge, the remote Tsangpo is relentlessly unforgiving, more difficult than any stretch of river ever attempted. Its mysteries have withstood a century's worth of determined efforts to explore it's length. The finest expedition paddlers on earth have tried. Several have died. All have failed. Until now.In January 2002, in the heart of the Himalayan winter, a team of seven kayakers launched a meticulously planned assault of the Gorge. The paddlers were river cowboys, superstars in the universe of extreme kayaking who hop from continent to continent ready for the next death-defying pursuit.
Marijuana in Whiskeytown
On June 22nd, rangers and NPS special agents joined a multi-agency task force for three weeks of marijuana raids and investigations on Forest Service, NPS and private lands in Shasta County, CA. Over the three-week period, they eradicated 176,974 marijuana plants worth $707,896,000, made multiple arrests, and recovered a hell of a lot of firearms and ammunition. The three-week operation included two days of raids in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, where rangers eradicated a total of 20,226 plants, which alone represented a seizure of $80,904,000 worth of marijuana.That's a hell of a lot of grass in our national park system. According to the NPS, "Evidence from the investigations suggest that the growers were from Mexican drug trafficking organizations." Go figure. The Mexican drug problems starting in the U.S? Shocker.Read more at The Morning Report.
Lee Wulff
From the 1991 NYTimes obituary for Lee Wulff, one of the world's best known and most respected sports fishermen:
After attending art classes in various academies in Paris for a year, Mr. Wulff returned to this country, where his endeavors included being an art director for a New York City advertising agency and working for the designer Norman Bel Geddes. But even as he was laboring at what he believed would be his life's work, Mr. Wulff was fishing the trout streams of New Jersey and the Catskills. He once observed that he could fish the Catskills for $3.50 a week, "gas to get there, cheese, bread and milk and a tent to sleep in."
"This 1980's Camper Thinks It's an S.U.V."
In case you haven't read it yet, The Adventure Life reprinted a wonderful New York Times article by Chris Dixon from 2003 about the Volkswagen Sycnro. Why? Because Steve Casimiro, the man behind TAL, just bought one himself:
I have been searching for the perfect adventure vehicle for years. Pickup trucks with camper shells, SUVs, Sportsmobiles, pop-up trailers…none of them have been right for me. Then I discovered the Volkswagen Westfalia Syncro van. Forget everything you know about VW vans—this extremely rare model has a military-inspired chassis and full-time four-wheel-drive with locking differential. It sleeps four, has a fridge, sink, and stove, fits in the driveway, and will go anywhere.Unfortunately, it hasn’t been made since 1991. And it was only available for six years, with just 1,500 sold. However, after 18 months of searching, I finally found the right one and last week I pulled the trigger and dropped a big pile of cash on a beautiful 1990 model. With a new Subaru engine, it cruises the freeway at 75 and, though I’ve only used one tank of gas, gets 24 mpg. I couldn’t be happier.
Read the rest of the article and see a ton of great pictures, including the sea-foam Syncro that Chris Dixon just fixed up for Jimmy Buffett, at The Adventure Life.Youtube: Jimmy Buffett - God Don't Own A Car
National Park Service Rangers
The term "Ranger" was first applied to a reorganization of the Fire Warden force in the Adirondack Park, after 1899 when fires burned 80,000 acres in the park. The name was taken from Rogers' Rangers, a small force famous for their woodcraft that fought in the area during the French and Indian War in 1755. The term was then adopted by the National Park Service.The first Director of the National Park Service, Stephen T. Mather, summed up the early park rangers as follows:
They are a fine, earnest, intelligent, and public-spirited body of men, these rangers. Though small in number, their influence is large. Many and long are the duties heaped upon their shoulders. If a trail is to be blazed, it is "send a ranger." If an animal is floundering in the snow, a ranger is sent to pull him out; if a bear is in the hotel, if a fire threatens a forest, if someone is to be saved, it is "send a ranger." If a Dude wants to know the why, if a Sagebrusher is puzzled about a road, it is "ask the ranger." Everything the ranger knows, he will tell you, except about himself.****
