Chief Dan George

Chief Dan George, as Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man, goes up to the mountain to die:"Come out and fightIt is a good day to dieThank you for making me a human beingThank you for helping me to become a warriorThank you for my victoriesAnd for my defeatsThank you for my visionAnd the blindness in which I saw furtherYou make all things and direct them in their ways, oh GrandfatherAnd now, you have decided that human beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhereI am going to die now, unless death wants to fightAnd I ask you for the last time to grant me my old powerTo make things happen."Watch it here.

Peter Parnall

Is it odd that one of, if not my favorite, artists is an illustrator and author of children's books? Probably not, no. Peter Parnall draws sparse nature and wildlife images whose contrast of empty space and bright colors evoke a somewhat morose image of the relationships kids have to the trees, ocotillos, coyotes and barns that they grow up with. Calming, but a little melancholy. At least that's how I feel...Parnall's drawings have accompanied the poetry of Byrd Baylor (when the combination is best), stories he's written himself and the works of countless other authors. (Parnall also illustrated the first edition of Desert Solitaire, but that drawing is, well, not my favorite.) But whoever's writing the book, it's worth the buy if Mr. Parnall is providing the art. It is truly, for lack of a much better word, beautiful. I wish I could say more, but I think the images after the jump do a much better job.If you're looking for a place to start, The Desert Is Theirs is a Cold Splinters favorite.

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.

...And I'm Back

I spent last week in Salt Lake City at Outdoor Retailer (photos and words to come), and from Utah, I went to New Jersey/Pennsylvania for a three day canoeing adventure down the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (photos and words also to come). I have brown skin, a Chaco tan like you wouldn't believe and a black pinky toe on my right foot that I have no recollection of breaking.One of the most exciting parts of the canoe trip - which doubled as a bachelor party for a guy who used to, way back, write a post here and there for Cold Splinters - was watching bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) fly over our heads while sipping on warm beer. While the one pictured above hails from Alaska, there are quite a few living on the Delaware River, and when you don't see them that often, it's hard to remember that they're real and not unicorns. That is one hell of an animal to see on the trail. MP3: Red Shadow Singers - Eagle Song **

Cape Cod National Seashore

I am off to good ol' Cape Cod this weekend, and after I return to New York, I'm continuing on to Salt Lake City, Utah for Outdoor Retailer on Monday. So, if you're going to be there, walking up and down the aisles of GEAR, please shoot me an email. It'd be a damn thrill to make your acquaintance.I'll be back on this blog somewhere around August 9th, and holy hell, there are lots of exciting Cold Splinters things going on in the coming months. Thanks for reading, y'all. It's going to be a special year.MP3: Loudon Wainwright III - Lullaby

NO-SEE-UMS

Ceratopogonidae, or biting midges (including what are called, in the United States, no-see-ums, midgies, sand flies, punks, and others), are a family of small flies (1–4 mm long) in the order Diptera. They are closely related to the Chironomidae, Simuliidae (or black flies), and Thaumaleidae.What a horrible, little pest of a fly. I've never felt rage for another living thing like I did for the no-see-ums on Cape Sable in Everglades National Park.

Ansel Adams

Above: "I found these 4 11x14 prints in a stash of my grandmothers things (she's been gone a long time) in a sleeve that still had it's gold seal still sealed. The stamp on the outer envelope reads 'June 5th, 1964.' The back of the sleeve reads 'Ansel Adams' photographs from Yosemite Valley, 5 Associates, San Fransisco.'"Unrelated to the photo above....Ten years ago, Rick Norsigian, a California painter, bought two boxes of photographic plates for $45, after bargaining the owner down from $75. Today, they're worth an estimated $200 million. What were they? Sixty-give glass negatives made by Ansel Adams, of course. Read more here.Look: The Wisconsin Historical Society's photos of Ansel Adams at workMP3: Jim Croce - One Less Set Of Footsteps

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."

Youtube: Salar, The Leaper featuring Lee Wulff

NOW PLAYING AT THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Yes, I know. New York Museum on a blog dedicated to the outdoors. It happens. The New York Historical Society has been home to a Grateful Dead exhibit for the last couple of months that I finally went to go see this last weekend while my parents were in town. Made up almost exclusively of "stuff" from the Grateful Dead archive at UC Santa Cruz, the exhibit is about half official Grateful Dead memorabilia (old tickets, posters, skeletons from the "Touch Of Grey" video, guest lists, the original WB contract, photos, cassette tapes from the GD hotline etc.) and half unofficial art made by fans (comic books, posters, hand painted envelopes, bootlegs, etc.) which, for me, was the more interesting part. Could I have done without the fan made "SHAVE YOUR FACE" dopp kit? Yes. If my father hadn't paid the $12 per person entrance fee, would I have thought it was a rip off? Perhaps. But what's better than being reminded that Phil Lesh used to look like this?

Youtube: Grateful Dead - Eyes Of The World

Mount Mitchell

Mount Mitchell, located near Asheville in the Black Mountains of North Carolina, is the highest peak (6,684 ft) in the Appalachians, and, as you can you can see from the photo above, the highest peak east of the Mississippi. Until 1845, when Texas joined the union, the mountain was the highest in the whole country.Mount Mitchell was named after Elisha Mitchell, a professor at the University of North Carolina, who determined its height in 1835 and fell to his death at nearby Mitchell Falls in 1857, having returned to verify his earlier measurements. Rough. His tomb is on the summit.MP3: Dolly Parton - Y'all Come (Live)

BIG BEND REGION COLORING BOOK

The Chihuahuan Desert straddles the U.S.-Mexico border in the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau, bordered on the west by the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, and overlaying northern portions of the east range, the Sierra Madre Oriental. On the U.S. side it occupies the valleys and basins of central and southern New Mexico, Texas west of the Pecos River and southeastern Arizona. The Chihuahuan has an area of 139,769 sq miles, making it the third largest desert in the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in North America, after the Great Basin Desert.Above are drawings from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department's BIG BEND REGION COLORING BOOK, which includes Big Bend Ranch State Park, the largest state park in Texas, with over 300,000 acres of Chihuahuan Desert wilderness and 66 miles of trail. Have at it.

Federal Junior Duck Stamp Program

This year's winner of the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Program was Rui Huang, 18, from Ohio, whose Hooded Merganser is on top. (Illinois is in the middle, North Carolina on bottom.) View all the past winners here.

From the FWS:

In 1989, with a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), Dr. Joan Allemand developed the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Conservation and Design Program, a dynamic arts curriculum that teaches wetlands and waterfowl conservation to students from kindergarten through high school. The program incorporates scientific and wildlife management principles into a visual arts curriculum. Participants complete a JDS design as their visual "term papers," thus using visual arts, rather than verbal communication, to articulate what they have learned. Through this program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service introduces the Federal Duck Stamp program and the National Wildlife Refuge System to participants and educates new generations of citizens about the importance of waterfowl and wetlands conservation.