Archive for the ‘Mountain People’ Category

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This Way of Life.. An Inspiring Film

09/02/2011

Don't Miss This Dose of Inspiration

The film This way of  Life is as inspiring as it gets. Filmed in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand’s North Island, this documentary is about a Maori family: a good and strong man and his wife who bring up their kids in the out-of-doors, raising wild horses. Peter, the father, is someone this writer admires for his steadfast adherance to what is right action in the midst of some people around him who act very badly.  We happened to pick up the movie at the library the other day, and were wowed by it.
A lot of what we strive for here at Mountain Spirit Institute is encapsulated in the documentary, and how this family lives their lives. No nature deficit disorder here. But the hardships, and even the new house where the kids get their own rooms, don’t sugarcoat the difficulties faced by the family.  We are about to bring a child into this world, and this film has added fuel to our fire to continue to head for the mountains. A cure for affluenza, for sure.

Director: Thomas Burstyn
New Zealand, 2010, 84 min.
Against the stunning beauty of New Zealand’s rugged Ruahine Mountains, Peter Karena and his wife Colleen instill in their children the values of independence, courage, and happiness. The family is poor in possessions but rich with a physicality and freedom within nature that most of us can only dream of. The children ride bareback, hunt, and play in the wild. Shot over four years, this film is an intimate portrait of a Maori family and their relationship with nature, adversity, horses, and society at large. Special mention at Berlin International Film Festival, 2010 Hotdocs, New Zealand’s Oscar shortlist.

You can learn a bit more about the family and the film on their Facebook page.
See the Movie Trailer

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Posted in Animals, Environment, Experiential Education, Film/DVD, Health, Holistic Living, Indigenous Wisdom, Inspirational People, Leadership, Mountain People, New Zealand, Power of Place, Spiritual, Sustainable Living/Communities | 3 Comments »

Glacier Melting & Time-Lapse Photography

27/09/2010

“More ice is released into the global ocean, from this glacier*, than from any other glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. If sea level rises, this is where it all begins. This is it, ground zero.”

EIS's James Balog

From: NPR’s Living on Earth
A photographer was one of this year’s Heinz environmental award winners. James Balog’s project — the Extreme Ice Survey — documents the rapid melting of glacial ice through time-lapse photographs from cameras in some of the world’s most remote areas. Host Bruce Gellerman talks with James Balog about the Extreme Ice Survey.

GELLERMAN: Winners of the prestigious Heinz environmental award have just been announced. This year the Heinz Foundation is honoring a wide variety of environmental innovators including a distinguished academic for his work in sustainable transportation, a pioneer in green chemistry, and a scientist who studies the suspected endocrine disrupting chemical BPA.

Awards and checks for a hundred thousand dollars will also be going to several winners who focus on climate change, among them James Balog. He’s director of Earthvision Trust and a one-time climate change skeptic. James Balog joins us from Boulder Colorado. Welcome to LOE…and congratulations.
BALOG: Well, thank you so much. It’s a wonderful week, and a wonderful honor and a privilege. I feel very blessed.

GELLERMAN: A climate change skeptic winning one of the premier environmental awards. Now, that’s an achievement.

Greenland ice sheet melting fast

BALOG: Well, I’m not a skeptic, and I haven’t been in a long time. Twenty years ago, I thought this whole science was based on computer modeling, and I’m a bit of a technological Luddite, and I thought that if it was all based on computer modeling, there could be something wrong with it. But then I took the time to learn about the evidence that was in the ice cores, and then I got out into the field and looked at what was happening to the glaciers, and I realized that this was not about models and projections and statistics. This was incredible concrete and real and immediate and happening really quickly.

GELLERMAN: In a sense, seeing is believing.

BALOG: Yeah, absolutely. As a photographer, my whole career and as a once-upon-a-time experiential educator for Outward Bound School, and as a mountaineer for forty years, I am quite keyed in to the feeling of experience. You know, seeing things, feeling things, touching things. Letting the vibrate in your chest, well when you are standing at the side of these glaciers and you’re watching huge masses of ice go away, you really get it.
Read the rest of this interview….

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Posted in Climate Change, Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Film/DVD, Mountain People, Sustainable Living/Communities | 1 Comment »

The Invitation

27/06/2010

I have read this to many a program participant around camp in the mountains, and thought I’d share it here.

Hitchhiking in Labrador

The Invitation, By Oriah

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive. (more…)

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Posted in Blogs, Books, Holistic Living, Inner Work, Inspirational People, Leadership, Mountain People, Quotes, Service, Sustainable Living/Communities | 1 Comment »

Everest Basecamp Clean-up Successful

24/06/2010

Cleaning Up After Climbers

The Swiss family Schwörer and their companions on the TOPtoTOP Global Climate Expedition have successfully completed their project to clean up Everest Base Camp. Unfortunately, expedition leader Dario Schwörer didn’t manage to reach the summit of the “Roof of the World”.

As already reported, for the last seven years the Mammut-sponsored TOPtoTOP expedition has been traveling all over the world, from Switzerland to Everest Base Camp, freeing our environment from discarded rubbish. The family used carbon-neutral forms of transport, such as walking, cycling or sailing, to reach their destination. Read the rest of this article at Mammut.ch

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Posted in Asia/Himalaya, Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Conservation, Environment, Mountain People, Sustainable Travel, Traveling | Leave a Comment »

Insightful Blog from Peru

12/06/2010

Image: by Lawrence Kovacs

Observations, anecdotes, and ruminations from our family’s year of travel in Peru and Bolivia.
Lawrence Kovacs, is author of the blog FromPeruToYou.  We worked at Pacific Crest Outward Bound in the North Cascades leading mountaineering trips. Since then he has become a father, a teacher, and from a  look at his blog, a gifted photographer and writer.
Check out it out. You won’t be disappointed.  Images from a unique angle, some of which show Lawrence’s sharp sense of humor, and stories of living in Cusco, show a man making the most of life as it comes his way. His attitude and gusto for life not only benefits his family, but the rest of us as well.  As I wrote to him in a recent message, “After having lived off and on, and guided in Peru for over ten years, I got more insight into the country by reading your blog than I normally do in my travels there.” Thanks Lawrence. Keep up the good work and see you stateside sometime soon.

Posted in Blogs, Inspirational People, Mountain People, Peru, Power of Place, Sustainable Travel, Traveling | Leave a Comment »

Ausangate Traditions and Weavings

07/06/2010

Weavers: Willoc, Peru

Dr. Andrea Heckman an expert on Quechua weavings, will show a documentary film at the South American Explorers Club in Cusco, Peru on Thursday June 10th at 7 p.m.  The film tells the story of Quechua villagers near the sacred peak of Ausangate.

Set against a backdrop of high Andean lakes and mountains, it shows a harsh existence but also a deep interconnectedness with the natural forces and their ritual relationships to the mountain, revealed in various festivals, weaving and other traditions.

If you’re in Cusco, and want see the film, contact the SAE in Cusco.

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Posted in Fair Trade, Film/DVD, Mountain People, Peru, South America, Sustainable Living/Communities, Sustainable Travel | Leave a Comment »

Eastern Alpine Ski Touring

06/04/2010

I’d grown up, skiing every spring, on Mt. Washington’s east side – Tuckerman’s, Gulf of Slides, and Great Gulf. Once,  I think I took one run, years ago on the west side,  but last week Junji Itagaki suggested we head up to his favorite haunt. I don’t often get in ski touring mode when back east, but the west side of Mt. Washington is as close as it gets to a wonderful alpine touring experience on the east coast of the U.S.
We climbed up Munro Gully, then headed to the Lake of the Clouds, then over to the summit of Mt. Washington, for a nice descent down Ammonoosuc Ravine, on thick but great snow. I think we had record-breaking temperatures that day. (See my earlier post on getting kids outside, which was filmed in Ammonoosuc Ravine).

Mt. Washington's West Side

Pictured above, Junji Itagaki, Lake of the Clouds and its Hut, Mt. Washington to the right.

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Posted in Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Mountain People, MSI News | Leave a Comment »

Children in the Mountains

06/04/2010

Mountain Family Doesn’t Stop Exploring When Kids Enter the Picture

Junji Itagaki, Mt. Washington, NH, USA

Junji Itagaki and I were backcountry skiing from Mount Washington’s summit last week, and descended down Ammonoosuc Ravine when we passed by family encamped in the base of the ravine. They were still setting up camp in a safe area, off to the side of the avalanche zone,  when I asked them for a short interview.
The families in many cultures don’t stop going outside, hiking or backcountry skiing in the mountains when their children are born. They intentionally introduce their children to camping, hiking and skiing. Here’s a great example of that in New England….

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Posted in 1- Video Posts, Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Health, Holistic Living, Inspirational People, Mountain People, Traveling | 2 Comments »

Milestones: Ron Verblauw, 1933-2009

12/03/2010

By D.R. Richards

Good Friend and Mountain Man, Ron Verblauw

Unexpected friends come into one’s life, sometimes for a brief time, but leave an indelible mark. Ron Verblauw was one of those people in my life. He and his wife, Carol, moved to Sunapee, New Hampshire, USA from New Jersey because of Ron’s love of the country and skiing. He had served as a director on the National Ski Patrol’s Eastern Division, ran a trucking company in New Jersey for 40 years, served in the U.S. Air Force in the Korean conflict and was a district governor of Rotary International.

I must admit, I was prepared not to be fond of Ron at first, because of his pro-development stance regarding our local Mt. Sunapee Ski Area and his “proactive aire” about getting things done in, what used to be, our little sleepy community, which can often rub the locals the wrong way. I later saw this as a wonderful attribute, and I quickly realized Ron was an amazing person for many reasons. (more…)

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Posted in Inspirational People, Leadership, Milestones, Mountain People | Leave a Comment »

Interview with Woman from Bhutan

16/12/2009

Punyma Taha from Bhutan was a vendor recently at the 17th Vermont International Festival in Burlington, Vermont, USA.  She shares a bit about her life in the USA and how she came to live in Vermont. Her booth was next to  our Mountain Spirit Institute booth, and we had chatted a bit, so when we asked her if she would be willing to be interviewed for this blog, she gladly accepted the offer.

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Posted in 1- Video Posts, Fair Trade, Mountain People, MSI News | Leave a Comment »

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