What's next you might ask? Surfers and runners—get ready...
]]>Over the last few years of doing posters and onesies we've come up with dozens of variations for each letter across a really wide variety of outdoor activities. We can only use 26 for each poster, but there's so many great details and bits of history and culture that it seemed a shame to let them waste away in a sketchbook. So, we've committed (!) to sending out into the universe a Daily Letter—a small token of appreciation for just one letter and one concept at a time. They're just an internet thing for now, but they might be printed up as cards eventually if we can just keep it going. F
The inaugural letter? F, as in Fun Hog.
Back in 1968, a guy named Yvon Chouinard and some friends took a little road trip down through Central and South America. It was the beginning of something bigger for him, (as well as the late Doug Tompkins) and what came out of that experience has influenced multiple generations of outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers. They called themselves the Fun Hogs, and that attitude of getting outside and making the most of the opportunity is something worth hanging on to and adapting for one's own outdoor needs. A mindset worth emulating.
Follow along on Instagram as we get this rolling!
December 20, 1968: Funhogs, from left, Dick Dorworth, Doug Tompkins, and Yvon Chouinard on the summit of Fitz Roy. Photo by Chris Jones
One of my favorite things about working on this Outdoor Alphabet "thing", is the response people have when they see the concept for the first time. Whether it's on a poster or a onesie, it's always a smile and a nod—it's not too complicated—and ultimately, that's the point of all of this. To share the stoke and smiles that come from spending time outdoors with those around us.
That's why I'm super excited to announce that today, My Outdoor Alphabet is being featured on The Grommet—a unique site that will bring that stoke and our products to a whole new audience.
Take a moment to check us out: http://thegrommet.com/my-outdoor-alphabet - Thanks!
]]>From The New Way of the Wilderness — a beautiful little book from the 50's that covers the basics of backcountry camping. Author Calvin Rutstrum wrote 15 books, mainly how-tos and personal narratives based on his experiences growing up in Minnesota and spending time outdoors.
As the outdoor world continues to embrace the benefits of technology and innovation, there's something to be said for an awareness of how things were done "back then"—even only 60 years ago. An understanding of this kind of history allows those principles and practices to still have an influence in our modern outdoor experiences and ideally remove some of the cruft that makes it harder to disconnect when we are out seeking for something deeper.
Perhaps Rutstrum's greatest legacy is the philosophy he shared as an author and outdoorsman—of making the outdoors a priority in one's life and taking full advantage of the benefits of spending time there.
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You might have already seen this out there, but it's worth watching again. Still plenty of summer days to get out on the trail and spin some wheels...
]]>“Mountains,” said United States Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, “have a decent influence on men.”
I would have to agree. Mr. Douglas spent more time on the US Supreme Court than any other Justice, and and in his autobiography “Of Men and Mountains”, he shares a lifetime of stories and anecdotes that probably put him in the lead for the Justice with the most amount of time outside as well. His ties to the Cascades are what initially piqued my interest, but he’s actually quite a character worth spending some time reading about. Consistently liberal, he became known on the court for his fervent support of civil rights and liberties, particularly the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press.
I am particularly impressed however, with his commitment to the environment and outdoor conservation, in an era when it wasn’t yet at the forefront of the public consciousness. His prescience in making the environment an important part of the issues of the day helped preserve access to wilderness areas that otherwise might have been lost. Regardless of his politics, his eloquence in writing about the relationship between men and mountains is enough for me to keep him on my bookshelf.
See also: Time Magazine’s 1950 review of the book…
]]>There still are rushing rivers in my dreams;
There still are grinding boulders in the streams;
There still is mountain madness,
Thund’ring down in reckless gladness
—Tho I’m safely in my bed in town, it seems.
There is still a shining world of ice and snow;
There still are steps to slog and miles to go;
There still are fragile bridges,
And windy fearsome ridges,
—Tho the city sounds about me all say “No…”
There is still a threat’ning avalanche to round;
There still are blinding fog banks, summit bound;
I can find no safe belay
Yet the suns ays “Do not stay”…
—Then I wake to find I’m home on level ground.
I’ll be toiling up sublime eternal heights,
I’ll be threading huge seracs by candle lights,
I will pause where none may pass
By some bottomless crevasse…
—I’ll be dreaming that I’m climbing… many nights.
by Clark E. Schurman
]]>Having lived now in Wyoming and Montana for nearly 8 years, I've come to really appreciate and love the climbing history that surrounds me. I recently finished a wonderful book called "Teton Tales and Other Petzoldt Anecdotes", which is a brief memoir of sorts from Paul Petzoldt. It was a quick read, but only because the stories were so close to home, and so comfortably shared by the man who lived them.
Petzoldt started climbing pretty early and had a good common sense approach to safety and order which manifested itself in the climbing commands still in use by climbers today around the world ("On belay!"). He pretty much set the standards known today as minimum-impact camping, and taught those principles to thousands over the years through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and the Wilderness Education Association (WEA). In the introduction to Petzoldt's book, his friend Kevin Cassidy summed up the simple lessons Paul shared: know where you are going, watch your step, look around the bend, and pay attention to what you have left behind—good advice back then, and probably even more so today.
Anyway - having now finished the book and done some additional reading up on the guy, it made my day when I came across this footage of Paul along with a wonderful overview of his work with NOLS. The video below was re-discovered at the NOLS headquarters and cleaned up and posted online. It's a bit rough, but the message comes through clear enough.
See also: An article on Paul Petzoldt from Life Magazine in 1969.
]]>What's a tumpline you ask? To put it simply, tumplines are straps used to carry heavy loads using the strength of the spine, and have been around for a long, long time. Do they work? The fact they've been around for so long and spread out across multiple cultures and geographic regions point to yes. They definitely have a place in paddling history, as evidenced by their use among the voyageurs as they carried heavy loads over portages. Chouinard likes 'em, and actually sells them online. Might be worthwhile to experiment a bit with one and see if it can’t straighten out my posture a bit.
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A great little piece from Canadian filmmaker Bill Mason, who was also known as "the patron saint of canoeing." Noted primarily for his canoeing books, films and art, his contributions to the sport also included techniques and approaches to canoeing on rivers, specifically in whitewater situations. His films are available to watch online at the Canadian National Film Board website.
]]>"Get a bunch of kids. Let them walk over a big hill, eat outside, run a bit wild, jump in a river, toast marshmallows and sleep under the stars in their clothes."
That's the recipe adventurer Alastair Humphrey pulls together for a classroom of kids, and the results? Pretty inspiring.
Two years later, the same class is ready to do it again as a celebration of their completion of "year 6". See what you've started, Alastair? Nice work.
Find out more about microadventures by clicking through the image below to Alastair's site, and tell him we sent you.
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Along with the new Paddler's Alphabet this week, we also flipped the switch on a few smaller sized prints, featuring a few of the illustrations from the new poster all by themselves on a 8x10 print. Ideally we'll have the entire alphabet up and running for all the sports so you can have the letters you need to spell out a name or initials, so let us know if there's any specifically you'd be looking for right now and we'll get on it.
These are archival quality digital inkjet prints, printed on an Epson Stylus Pro 7900, using Epson UltraChrome HDR ink-jet technology on heavyweight (10.3 mil) Epson Enhanced Matte Paper.
]]>But these aren't the Tetons you're looking for.
Today, the 20th letter of the alphabet stands for a unique piece of climbing hardware from climbing engineer and designer Bill Forrest. Forrest was a prolific climbing inventor whose designs are a distinct part of climbing hardware history, including the Mjolnir, the first modular ice tool which is on display at the Smithsonian Museum. Titons were developed in 1973 with Kris Walker, as a cammable T-shaped nut that had a wide variety of possible placements. Click through the image below to see the full "Titon treatise" from an early Forrest Mountaineering catalog.
Scan courtesy of Vertical Archaeology
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As in Beckey's Bible.
As in The Book of Fred.
A staple of most PNW climbing bookshelves or dashboards in one form or another since the late 40′s. Fred’s still out there, writing and climbing and doing his thing, and thanks to his exhaustive work on the Cascades, so are a lot of folks. Malcolm Bates did a nice little personal article about earlier versions of guide in Volume 5 of the Northwest Mountaineering Journal.
]]>With the launch of the latest addition to the My Outdoor Alphabet world, I wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes peek into how one of these things comes to life. Sound good? Let's go.
It all begins with getting outdoors.
For the Paddler's Alphabet, it started with a free canoe someone gave my young family nearly 15 years ago. Where it really came to life however, was during a 50 mile canoe trip my boys and I took down Montana's Missouri River with their grandfather. As we prepared for the trip and spent time together on the water, we were setting the foundation for this poster without even trying. The seed was planted, the trip was amazing (check the photos here), and it made it very easy to roll into the next phase—the alphabet itself.
For each of the posters—current offerings as well as those yet to come—I create a list. An A to Z list where I can simply write in the words that come immediately to mind, as well as figure out the blank spots and where I'll need to do some research. There's usually more than one word per letter, but in the end it all comes down to what works best. Does it resonate with the core audience? Does it highlight something unique or significant in the sport? Can it be simplified and iconified? If yes, then onward.
Once the list is in good shape and there's something for each letter, I get out the sketchbook.
I'll draw out a few pages full of empty boxes, and armed with my letter list, jump right in and begin to simplify, iconify, sketch, and doodle. Most letters go through multiple rounds of revisions and approaches, but some get figured out right away. Not every letter gets the full sketchbook treatment, but most do, and it's my favorite part of the process. Packing along a pencil and a few colors to be able to bring a letter to life wherever I'm at is fun, and watching the concepts evolve over time as I turn the pages is pretty cool.
From the sketchbook I move into Illustrator. This becomes the sandbox for the next level of detail and exploration, as colors come to life and the nuances of each illustration are explored and adjusted, and sometimes completely redone.
Rough shapes are blocked out, and the poster becomes a mish-mash of vector shapes and bezier curves and things that work and things that don't quite work. Because I'm only working with three ink colors, I'll work in some textures or half-tone dots to keep things interesting. The red color that's been a part of each poster is also overprinted to give me another option for depth. As the illustrations progresses, the colors are separated into individual layers that will become the screens for printing.
From there, once the letters are in place, the copy is proofed, and the color separations are triple checked—it's off to the printer. For quite a while the posters were done up the road in Big Sky, but we outgrew that operation and are now working with the fine folks of The Half and Half in Columbia, South Carolina. After the files are in their capable hands, I can sit back and get shipping tubes ready while they work their magic on the French Speckletone paper stock.
Eventually though, the posters end up in your hands. That's the point of all this, right? To inspire a life outdoors—one letter at a time. To celebrate the building blocks of our outdoor passions, and keep that stoke alive not only for ourselves, but our families and friends. The Paddler's Alphabet is only the latest expression of that spirit—and here's to many more.
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That’s one heck of a resume.
Seattle’s own Dick McGowan was (among other things – see above) the first employee of REI, the first American to set foot on Mt. Everest, led the first guided climb of Denali, and obviously an accomplished backpack model.
See also: Some early instruction on alpine climbing from Dick himself.
]]>“What is the impact of the closing down of the Wilderness on the development of children’s imaginations? This is what I worry about the most. I grew up with a freedom, a liberty that now seems breathtaking and almost impossible. Recently, my younger daughter, after the usual struggle and exhilaration, learned to ride her bicycle. Her joy at her achievement was rapidly followed by a creeping sense of puzzlement and disappointment as it became clear to both of us that there was nowhere for her to ride it—nowhere that I was willing to let her go. Should I send my children out to play?
There is a small grocery store around the corner, not over two hundred yards from our front door. Can I let her ride there alone to experience the singular pleasure of buying herself an ice cream on a hot summer day and eating it on the sidewalk, alone with her thoughts? Soon after she learned to ride, we went out together after dinner, she on her bike, with me following along at a safe distance behind. What struck me at once on that lovely summer evening, as we wandered the streets of our lovely residential neighborhood at that after-dinner hour that had once represented the peak moment, the magic hour of my own childhood, was that we didn’t encounter a single other child.
Even if I do send them out, will there be anyone to play with?
Art is form of exploration, of sailing off into the unknown alone, heading for those unmarked places on the map. If children are not permitted–not taught–to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?”
An excerpt from Michael Chabon’s excellent Manhood for Amateurs.
It makes me infinitely grateful for my own upbringing as a feral child of Wyoming, and makes me wonder if I've done enough to let my children have that freedom of the hills in their own lives. We see with greater frequency the news articles about nature deficiency, as well as parents who are punished for allowing their children to spend time alone outdoors unsupervised. It can be a tough balance, depending your personal comfort level and location, but personally—I'd rather fall on the side of too much outside time than not nearly enough.
]]>Happy weekend! Get out and enjoy it, even if it's a T is for Thunderstorm kinda situation—just stay safe.
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