This will get your attention - Click on the picture to play the trailer
Author Archive
Climbing Films – Reel Rock Tour
18/10/2011Jagger Visits Peru, Talks Environment
18/10/2011
Rolling Stones Front Man Mick Jagger Arrives at Machu Picchu
by Andean Air Mail & PERUVIAN TIMES
British rock star Mick Jagger arrived at the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu on Thursday, as part of a trip to Peru that has included a sit-down with President Ollanta Humala and a visit to an eco-lodge in the jungle region of Madre de Dios.
The front man for the Rolling Stones, Jagger travelled to Machu Picchu by train from Cusco and was expected to climb Huayna Picchu, the picturesque peak that overlooks the ruins, on Friday, state news agency Andina reported. Read the rest of this story..
Spring Skiing in New Zealand’s Backcountry
16/10/2011
The View of Kingston/Lake Wakatipu From Above
“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” Walt Whitman
The other day, as the spring corn was coming onto the scene, I finally decided to investigate the moderate ridgetops of our valley here in the Wakatipu Basin in Kingston, New Zealand. The skiing wasn’t the steepest, and the “peaks” aren’t the sharpest in the Southern Alps, but the snow was damn perfect. After all, the first ski hut in New Zealand was just down the road on the Nevis Road. There must have been a reason for that being the first NZ ski field.
What I found after a two hour hike to snowline, were broad snowfields of cornsnow with some minor peaks along the ridge. Evidently this is where a snowmobile/heli-ski operation brought people up last season. I could see them lifting off, just across the road, and thought, “If they’re headed up there, must be something to it.” We live in Kingston, a sleepy little town, home of spectacular scenery, rock climbing, dramatic walks, a long pebble beach at the south end of the second largest lake in New Zealand, and home to an eclectic community that hasn’t been discovered by Queenstown yet. Oh I almost forgot to I mention the Kingston Flyer steam train, which is now up and running, after a number of years in receivership. Look closely at the image on right, the clouds of smoke are from the steam train’s maiden test run, and from the fires it started along side the tracks.
A long, fun day. Rising at 4:40 I hit the DOC trailhead by 5:30, and got back to the car around 18:30 I was a little tired, but jazzed. Fortunately there were freezing temperature up high, so by 10am, there was perfect corn on the northern aspects. I took some pix and video, so decided just to blend them into a movie for the day…Enjoy.
The Story of the Splitboard, from Utah
15/10/2011I couldn’t resist a great story.
Wally has always had the spirit of adventure and lightheartedness with his business building bindings, skis and boards. Good on ya Wally.
Good on ya Cowboy Kobernik for being tenacious with your idea.
Aqe of Aquarius: Right Around the Corner
04/10/2011
Meditation in Las Cajas Range, Ecuador
A few days ago, our family started doing a daily meditation which was suggested by an invitation from Snatam Kaur. The meditation leads up to 11/11/11, when astrologically (and astronomically) speaking, we end the Piscean age and enter the Aquarian age. I thought I’d include this article below for one take on the changeover. There are other perspectives as well.
The Aquarian Sadhana: Last 40 Days until the Aquarian Age
By Ravi Hari Singh Khalsa
We are forty days away from the historic date of November 11th, 2011 (11-11-11).
I’ve spent a large part of the past year researching Yogi Bhajan’s teachings about the Aquarian Age in preparation for writing the book We are the Aquarians, Yogi Bhajan’s Vision of the Aquarian Age. Yogi Bhajan spoke about the date 11-11-2011 repeatedly as a critical milestone marking the end of the cusp period that started on 11-11-1992 and the beginning of the transition to the Age of Nanak, which he also referred to as the Age of the Shabad Guru, and which officially begins in 2038. You might think of the period from 1991 up to the present as being the time during which changes have happened mostly on the level of vibrational frequencies. (more…)
Snatam Kaur on Yoga/Meditation
29/09/2011From: Snatam Kaur’s Blog
Snatam Kaur on Yoga
Life has such an ebb and flow. One minute you can be riding the wave, the next minute you are under the wave. One minute you can feel safe and secure in your life, and the next minute you can feel totally threatened by something.
I find that when I meditate it helps me to separate myself from the sting of something to realize that it is all coming from God’s Divine Will. Usually the most emotionally charged things aren’t really that big of a deal anyway. (more…)
Here’s an Idea: Shweeb
29/09/2011
The Shweeb: Where's the passing lane? Aside from that, sign us up!
Shweeb’s bike-powered 200 meter monorail, pitched as an adrenalin-fueled sky cycling adventure in Rotorua, New Zealand, may be headed for bigger tracks. Google, who found out about it a few years ago, has been so enamored with the system, in which users are suspended form the track in transparent pods to cycle around the landscape a t speeds of up to 45 km per hour, they’ve invested 1.05 million in developing the technology. I t could be the future for alternative transportation, so Google claims. What one would do about traffic jams is something to ponder, but that’s a minor speed-bump compared to running fossil fuels till we’re extinct.
The Bro Code
27/09/2011How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men
An important documentary - see it.
The Media Education Foundation does it again with another solid documentary, although this one, The Bro Code, is a bit hard to watch. The sad fact, that we all know, is that men are indoctrinated from day one to act and behave a certain way, especially towards women. This film lays bare the ways in which men get trapped into the tunnel vision of how they fit into the world.
In MEF’s powerful new release, The Bro Code, filmmaker Thomas Keith takes aim at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Keith breaks down a range of contemporary media forms that are saturated with sexism — movies and music videos that glamorize misogyny; pornography that trades in the brutalization of women; comedy routines that make fun of sexual assault; and a slate of men’s magazines and cable TV shows whose sole purpose is to revel in reactionary myths of American manhood. The message he uncovers in virtually every corner of our entertainment culture is clear: It’s not only normal — but cool — for boys and men to control and humiliate women. By showing how there’s nothing natural or inevitable about this mentality, and by setting it against the terrible reality of men’s violence against women in the real world, The Bro Code challenges young people to step up and fight back against the idea that being a real man means disrespecting women. Featuring interviews with Michael Kimmel, Robert Jensen, Shira Tarrant, J.W. Wiley, Douglas Rushkoff, Eric Anderson, and Neal King. To see the trailer click here..
Learning to Snowboard Indoors and then.. Spreading the Wings
27/09/2011By R. Richards
Marco Wells, Coronet Peak, NZ - Image: R. Richards
Last Friday, I had one of the strangest, (but good) experiences of my outdoor career – I took a 14-year old friend snowboarding for the first time in the mountains. However, it wasn’t his first time snowboarding . He had learned at one of forty indoor ski facilities in the world, Snow Planet in Auckland, New Zealand. He learned to board over of a number of years, but had never been outside on natural snow on a mountain. At Snow Planet they have a Poma style tow-lift. He had been on a chairlift once with his family, but that was in the summer without a snowboard on his feet. So combining his indoor boarding skills and one-time on a chair lift ride, gave him a collection of skills to head outside. Taking him up Coronet Peak’s chair for the first run, was like watching someone who was putting all the pieces together. He kept saying, “Look at all this snow!” and, “We’re high up on this chair”. His skills were solid and it was quite an amazing experience to see someone come out of their shell or out of their building. The next days were filled with a trip in the backcountry, and an afternoon at the Remarkables Ski Area, where he was exposed to all sorts of terrain and conditions and handled them admirably. It reminded some obscure fact of how many indoor rock climbers never climb on real rock, or never end up placing a piece of rock gear for protection on a climb, (what they quaintly call “trad”, I call climbing)
Anyway, congrats to Marco for coming out of the indoors ski gym and joining me in the mountains. Come out again soon! We’ll be waiting.
A Bright Idea
21/09/2011
Waterbottle Light - A Bright Idea
In the slums of Manila, an innovative project is shedding light on the city’s dim and dreary shanties. Plastic bottles jut from the roofs, bringing light to the dark dwellings below. The technology is as simple as it could be. Each bottle contains water and bleach. When placed snugly into a purpose-built hole in the roof, the home-made bulb refracts and spreads sunlight, illuminating the room beneath. Eco-entrepreneur Illac Diaz is behind the project. “What happens is, the light goes through the bottle, basically a window on the roof, and then goes inside the water. Unlike a hole which the light will travel in a straight line, the water will refract it to go vertical, horizontal, 360 degrees of 55 watts to 60 watts of clear light, almost 10 months of the year.” The initiative, known as “A liter of light”, aims to bring sustainable energy practices to poor communities, an idea originally developed by students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The bottles are designed to emit clear light for about five years, as the bleach prevents algae from building up in the water. For Erlinda Densing, a mother of eight, the technology has made a big difference to her small home.
“‘That’s only water?!’ my neighbors were asking. ‘That’s only water!’ I said to them. Basically, the sun’s rays are really bright. A lot of neighbours came and got curious. They were like, ‘can we see? can we see?’. Maybe they also wanted to have lights installed. ‘It’s really bright,’ I said.” The device can be built and installed in less than an hour. A sheet of corrugated iron serves as a support structure to hold the bottle in place, and prevent any leakage. “Liter of Light, lights up the house, saves a lot, but at the same time improves the standard of living across the board, of the bottom 90 per cent of this country.” Working with low-income communities, local governments and private partners, the project has installed more than 10,000 bottle lights across Manila and the nearby province of Laguna. Rey del Mundo is a volunteer.
“This is very important. Because at present, we’re too dependent on fuel that we don’t produce. Although we have some local production, it’s not sufficient for our needs. So if we strive to develop alternative sources of energy, which are the energy sources, this will help our country a lot.” For residents, it means less money spent on electricity to power lights during the daytime, and more money on food. While for Diaz and his volunteers it’s quite simply a bright idea.
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