Apr

The Earth Throne

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/177531039″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”300″ height=”300″ iframe=”true” /]What defines you? Is it your past? How you look? I doubt it. It’s the course we chart from dawn to dusk that makes us who we are. Seventeen years ago, Sean O’Neill–artist, athlete and big brother to pro climber Timmy O’Neill–lost the use of his legs after jumping from a bridge into the Mississippi River. After the accident, Timmy dreamed about helping his older brother climb El Capitan. In 2005, the brothers decided it was time to act.

Reporter and podcaster James Mills brings us a story about two brothers, one very big cliff face and a 17-year-old dream. Sometimes climbs don’t end with summits. They can extend on into our lives.

Music: Ruby Sees All by Cake • All The Way [To Heaven] by Beat Under Control • Air Currents by The New Rochelle Rotary Club • Hybrisma by Daturah • Eye of My Mind by Museum Pieces

Music provided by IODA Promonet.

Apr

The Shorts — Indiana Powder Day

Indiana Powder Day

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/99552604″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”300″ height=”300″ iframe=”true” /]Great outdoor writing lacks ego. When listener Andy Guinigundo’s email appeared in the inbox on a rainy spring day, I read through it, read it again and thought “Damn, I wish I could have been there.? That’s because no matter where you ski, whether it’s the Alaskan steeps or a local hill in Southeast Indiana, a powder day is a magical thing. That’s the great thing about skiing, climbing or mountain biking – you don’t have to be a professional playing beneath stadium lights to understand the crowning achievements of our sports.

Andy has been skiing for decades. During the gray and often rainy Midwest winters he works ski patrol at Perfect North Slopes, a small resort across the Indiana border from his home in Ohio. Until a March blizzard, a powder day was something he had only heard about. I’d been wanting to create some smaller shorts between feature episodes, so Andy joined us in the Dirtbag Diaries Midwest Studios, a.k.a. his walk-in closet, and gave us his own farewell to an unforgettable winter season.

Music: Bradley Carter claims to be a reformed rock climber. He’s found music and changed his ways. Joined a band–Max Gross Weight. He’s traded dirtbag living in Yosemite for the life of a hard working professional musician. He swears it. Personally, I don’t believe him for a second, mostly because he talked me into to playing hooky from work tomorrow to go clip bolts…oops, did I say that out loud?

Other music: Air Currents by The New Rochelle Rotary Club • OKE by Theatre of Disco

Music provided by IODA Promonet

Mar

The Golden Hour

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Dr. R. Adams Cowley, the physician who pioneered our modern Emergency Medicine System, once said, “There is a golden hour between life and death.” His theory that a patient who survives a grave trauma has 60 minutes to reach the operating table was the guiding axiom in emergency medicine for decades.

In these precarious, defining minutes between life and death, patients fight to live, rescuers put themselves in harm’s way and decisions are made in an instant. Sometimes rescues don’t go all that smoothly. Today, with the help of Yosemite’s first responders, we bring you Tom Broxson’s story of survival, recovery and will. It turns out an hour can last a lifetime.

Music: Break by Son Lux • Across the Light by The Out Circuit • Seeing Hands by Dengue Fever • How to be a Dreamer by Southerly • The Hollows by Why?

The tracks listed above were provided by IODA Promonet. Music also provided by Bradley Carter, a reformed rock climber turned musician. You can hear his guitar work throughout the episode. It’s fitting too–Carter was actually on YOSAR. And friend Ken Christianson keeps bumping the cuts here at the Dirtbag Diaries.

Mar

All These Things

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Success in the high country requires early starts and leaps of faith. The same can be said of careers, school and family. Our dreams in the flatlands take nurturing. They require our love and time, and when our personal goals grate against the pursuit of summits, glassy waves and powder days, our heads can fill with a feedback loop of tough questions about where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

Today, I’m proud to present a new voice. Becca Cahall brings us All These Things–a story about getting older and skiing faster. We’re headed for British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains–an incredible range of open alpine faces, perfect tree skiing and tight chutes that every backcountry skier dreams of visiting. When the life’s pressing questions mount, the only antidote is the inner calm found in cold wind, burning lungs and the hiss of skis sliding across snow. Enjoy.

Music: Indie music–who knows what that term means anymore? About a million musical pundits have offered unwanted opinions. I’ll let it rest, but I do know is this–I know true indie music when I see it.

Los Angeles-based musician, Ken Christianson lives in Hollywood, but life isn’t glamorous. He shares a small studio apartment with another musician. His “room? is the closet, which he has partitioned into two stories. The upper level of this spacious abode is so small that Ken has trouble sitting up right. Every night after his nine to five at a rug store, Ken goes to work on his passion–music. The result is his musical journal, a carefully crafted assortment of music. Every plucked string, note sung and key pressed is Ken. You can stream or purchase his cuts, which range from polished tracks to tiny sketches. Expect to hear more in coming episodes.

Tracks used today: One Foot Out, Fire Diary, Five Little Men, Air, Dirtbag and Strange Hillbilly

Art: Great friendships often begin in the most average ways. Sometimes just a simple introduction during an after work climbing session can lead to a lifelong friendship.

Since that first handshake, Anya Miller has become a collaborator, a climbing and ski partner and precious friend to both Becca and me. She’s continually made my text look better with her unique illustrations and even helped drag me out of the Joshua Tree backcountry after I busted my ankle. I’ve watched her grow as both an artist and athlete. Now, I’m excited to have her join the Dirtbag family.

“All These Things” provided the perfect opportunity for Anya to design for us. Becca’s old sledding hill is less than a mile walk from Anya’s home. An architect by training and a designer at heart, she gathered together old photos of Becca and integrated them into the design. In the last year, Anya launched her own design company, Mindful Creative, and quickly followed it up by starting a subsidiary greeting card company, Ewe Me Us, which features eight different designs. If you like what you see, you can reach her through Mindful Creative.

Feb

Datos Insuficientes

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/99550700″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”300″ height=”300″ iframe=”true” /]In the summer of 2007, kayaker and blogger Shane Robinson found himself paddling down Peru’s isolated Apurimac River, one of the Amazon’s five major tributaries. Ahead of him lay the Abysmo–a deep, daunting gash in the earth. Thousand foot cliffs rose from the river bottom. Once inside, bailing would be next to impossible. Shane and his partners, Andrew Oberhardt and Bryan Smith, knew two things about the stretch of river that they were paddling into. First, the Abysmo was going to be big. There would be miles and miles of massive slot canyons and fifth class white water. Second, the end of their journey would come in the form of a big, ugly, orange bridge named Puente Pasaje. Everything between was unknown water. They had no map, no aerial photos and enough food for five days. Fifteen years of kayaking had led to this moment.

Music: Vale Do Juca by Siba • Music for 18 Musicians by Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble

Music provided by IODA Promonet.

The photo-enhanced version of Datos Insuficientes is up and running. The Range Life’s Andrew Oberhardt and Todd Gilman milked their hard drives to come up with a set of images to fit with Shane’s words. It’s the only way to get a sense of scale. El Rio Apurimac, which roughly translates into divine oracle, is massive. Look for the details. Check out the high water mark on the canyon walls.