Ricketts Glen Waterfall Hike, Northeast Pennsylvania

Not my video, from user guided_by_veggies on the Pennsylvania subreddit. Frustratingly I only learned about this hike after I moved out of Pennsylvania, but ONE DAY... PAians, you don't know what you have there.

Helicopter Rescue, Climbing Rocks at Mission Trails 9/28/14

Kickstarter for Documentary About "Suffer Fest" Races

In an interview recently I was asked how I got into trail running and long races. (It was a residency interview, not an interview about running, but it just came up.) I said that I seemed to have a knack for endurance, solitude, and not knowing when to quit, and I went from road races to road marathons to trail marathons. Once you start doing trail marathons on wacky terrain, a) it's really purty and b) you mean progressively weirder = more interesting people, and finally aspire to be one of them. You meet paleo people, and back-to-nature types, and high-tech self-quantifiers, and poets, and radicals, and auto mechanics, and people who live in geodesic domes, and people from countries and tribes you've barely heard of who are addicted to these races and follow them around like the Grateful Dead of old. There's something off about people who do this stuff for fun. I mean seriously four-standard-deviations-away-from-the-mean kind of people, and I love them all, every last one.

So - the Kickstarter mentioned in the title is for a documentary that seems to focus on these weird=interesting people, which is a huge part of why people do this, and what I personally love about the community. It deserves a shout for noticing this truth. Give it a look-see!

How California Looks

When you grow up outside California (as I did, and almost half of us Californians did) you grow up with set-in-LA movies, and the Golden Gate Bridge, and rich people doing boring things at beaches. And then you get here, and if you're paying any kind of attention, you realize the state is so much better than that. The tragedy is that so many Cali natives buy into the movie version of California and somehow don't notice the mountains and forests in their backyards. Here's a time-lapse photo essay of the real California that is guaranteed to make trail runners and hikers smile.

Fires Here and in Mexico

Thanks to the firefighters who keep us safe. In case you missed it somehow, this week we've been having fires in East San Diego County. Take this opportunity to thank a fire fighter or buy him/her* a beer, and to make sure your family knows your evacation plan. What, you don't have one? (Seriously, this takes 5-10 minutes and could make all the difference.)
Like this but from further away. From jeffwarnerphoto.blogspot.com

I mentioned the fires in Mexico because yesterday (Sunday 12 August) as I was coming back from my trip, as I climbed the backside of our piece of the Peninsular Range (i.e. the Descanso unit of Cleveland NF) I could see a little smoke to the right (north) and a lot billowing from the left (south). The northern fire must have been the remnants of the Chihuahua fire, and the southern one must have been in Mexico - because it was huge. At sunset it was spectacular, eating up the side of a mountain down in baja. Of course, there's essentially an information black hole south of the border. Consequently we hear nothing about that, even though fire doesn't respect borders and threatens property on this side of the line too.

Sounds of the Intermontane West

I have some sound files from my roadtrip this summer I'm only now posting. These are from Glacier National Park in Montana, and one from Cedar Breaks in Utah. My iPhone can't capture video but recorded soundfiles of water and wind and footsteps. There's something that I actually like more about having sound and discrete stills; somehow it captures my memory of the experience more closely.

Meltwater Creeks in Glacier National Park, 1 of 2


Meltwater Creeks in Glacier National Park, 2 of 2


On Trail in Glacier National Park


Wind and Glaciers at the Top of the Trail, Glacier National Park


Wind Through Pines in Cedar Breaks, Utah

Driving Through a Wildfire

If you haven't seen images of the Russian forest fires, go here. If you have and you want to see first-person video of someone almost getting caught, go here.

Write-up About Rose Canyon in the Union-Tribune

Article here.