Summer Reflections and Setting Intentionality - My last roll of film Kodak Colour plus 200

October 17, 2023

I shot my last roll of film ever this summer I think… film is getting too expensive even though I love it. It’s not the images themselves that are so special, even though they do hold the nostalgic styling that so many chase after in their imagery these days. It is the process and the outcome. I usually only shoot about 2-3 rolls of film a year, meaning I forget many of the images contained in the roll. When receiving my scans back it affords me the opportunity to reflect on those moments over the last 6 months. Many of those moments special in their own way. When shooting film I always allow my self the extra moment to take a deep breath and ask my self: “do I really need this photo.” For me film is about intentionality. A theme I have been trying to focus on more in my day to day life.

Aspen with R & T late summer.

It’s been a strange summer, one of both progress and reflection. As I prepare to turn a page into the next steps of my life I feel a duality of urgency for what lies ahead and also a reminiscent longing for what a great last 6/7 years I have spent chasing my dreams, growing as a person, making new friends, and accomplishing something’s I am quite proud of. I think we can be very quick to always be looking forward to whats next in life, especially at the pace we move through life in this day and age. One intention I set for my self this summer was to be present in the ‘suck’ when ever it may rear its ugly head. There are so many things in life we look forward to and when it arrives we are unsatisfied with how it came out to be. I realized that being present and aware in these moments and embracing it for what it is not only set intentionality in my life but a sense of calm in these moments when things didn’t live up to what I dreamed it to be or it is harder that I imagined it would be.

Solo Bike packing Trip Around Kananankis - August

I rode my bike around a mountain range near home in early August, something i’ve been meaning to do for many years. Re-discovering my ‘home’ roads and discovering some news zones as well was such a privilege and eye opening experience. One of my goals of the trip was to try to avoid listening to any music or podcasts, just listen to the wind in my ears and be present with every sound, smell, and noise. I felt so much more connected with the scenes and moments which I peddled through for the two days. To my surprise, the terrain and time passed almost faster than it would have with the addition of the music. Being present during these 48 hours reminded me that silence and listening to our own thoughts is the purest form of meditation and in my opinion, one of the healthiest forms of good mental health practice.

Due to the fact that I was solo on this adventure, I wanted to be intentional about the images I captured. I packed my point and shoot film camera and a point and shoot digital camera with me. I knew I would be sacrificing potential image quality, but in return I knew that the convenience of point and shoots would potentially allow me to capture images I wouldn’t be able to with a larger camera. This is something I continually battle with my self over. When capturing authenticity I want to be nimble and quick even if it means sacrificing image quality. While this might not come through on the images to the viewer, it allowed me to be more present during the ride without stopping too often.

Mount Marathon, Seward, AK. One of the most special gatherings of stoked humans I have ever been apart of.

Running around the hills at home for the first time in a while after a long hiatus from running due to a back injury. Wow, I forgot how much I love moving through the mountains like this.

The West Coast of BC, visiting old friends and family. August.

Learning valuable lessons the long way on Mt. Moran - The Skillet

May 12, 2022

Mid - April, the time of year when high alpine objective start to open up. The Skillet on Mount Moran in Teton National Park has been on my list for sometime and this year seemed like the time when my experience and conditions had lined up. Plans were in place and we had our weather window, however four days before departing for Jackson a wind storm slammed into the Teton’s and shot up the danger of the avalanche conditions, the trip was put on pause. However the day before the trip conditions had seemingly healed, with few chances to make the trip up and a seemingly possible weather window the trip was back on. The next morning I hit the road from Denver to meet my partners in Jackson. Two hours into the drive while cresting the final hill in Laramie I hear a violent bang and ensuring black smoke tailing my car. The worst that could be assumed shorty came true … a totalled engine. On the loud tow truck drive to Laramie I contemplated if the world was trying to tell me to go home and throw in the towel. Never the less, my partner for the trip Simon took a detour to Laramie and scooped me on route to Jackson, saving me from a long night in Laramie’s finest motel and a tow truck ride back to Denver.

Arriving in Jackson at 930PM after managing to turn a 7 hour drive into a 12 hour travel day, we rapidly packed our bags for the next day and laid out our sleeping bags in the back of Simons van with lights out at 10:00. With a restless few hours of sleep the alarms rang shortly after finally getting a few minutes of sleep at 11:45PM. With skis on our backs, wheels were rolling by midnight as we hustled the 10KM’s down the closed road on bikes.

After four hours navigating the forest and lakes under the night sky we punched into the alpine at last. Unfortunately our celebration was short lived when we were confronted with avalanche debris containing boulders up to the size of small cars, only lit by our headlamps, the avalanche field gave off an uncomfortable eerie feeling. Never the less we pushed on with cold temperatures and hours until the sun would reach the face. We were quickly met with icy slopes and a rock hard boot pack, signs of good climbing conditions and safety but bad ski conditions. As we continued to ascend the lower flanks of the skillet we started to uncover the wind facets that we feared, we went back and forth between rock hard conditions and wallowing in 2 foot deep sugary wind facets. With each new isolated wind facet section we became more and more weary of the conditions ahead of us. Upon reaching the the top of the skillet below the start of the handle, we made the tough decision to call off our goal. We sat and enjoyed the sunrise from the middle of the line before picking our way down the lower half of the line and enjoyed a nice morning ski back across the lake. Upon arriving back at the cars at 10:00 AM and discussing our decisions, it became clear among the group that we had been spooked by how the debris looked in the dark and when unable to assess the line to a deeper extent our decisions were very isolated. The general consensus was that due to being ahead of schedule and after skiing down the lower half of the line, it would have been possible to have completed the line. However we were all in agreement that there is never a wrong decision in turning around early and the skillet will always be there for us to ski. This was one of the days that I have learned more about my decision making in the backcountry than maybe any other day, and that is something I will always greatly appreciate.

Skiing powder & big lines with friends in the Wasatch

March 30, 2021

With the ski racing season in the rearview mirror, I pointed my car south to Salt Lake City to meet up with a few local friends to explore their local playground in the Wasatch mountains just outside the city. On our first day we set out for Mount Superior, one of the 50 classic ski lines of North America. With a big group in tow we set off early from Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon. I love in this part of the Wasatch you have straight access to the alpine and can avoid the long slog through the trees. We had ourselves a mostly cloudy and low fog day with some intermittent snow which hid the panoramic views for a majority of the day.

Occasional breaks in the clouds provided a great view of the lower half of our upcoming line.

Ola setting the pace early in the day.

Boot packing up the ridge to the summit

After an hour or two of steep skinning up Superior’s lower slopes we approached the ridge and subsequently the boot-packing section. Boot-packing can be a demoralizing pursuit, constantly digging yourself out of waist deep snow every time you punch through the track. Eventually we began to gain the ridge and proceeded to traverse the narrow ridge before the final push to the 3,500 metre summit. It turned out to be much further than I had anticipated as I hung at the back of the group and finally slammed my bag down when I reached the top where the others were waiting. Skis on, and we were off, albeit poor visibility we were rewarded with knee deep powder and easy turns as we exited the initial gully of the summit. Everyone was grinning ear to ear and hooting and hollering, that’s what we do it for! The main line was all done, so we set off for some party laps on nearby bowls and made the most of the remaining day. One for the books!

Evan gaining the ridge on a party lap after completing Superior.

Sam finding some deep powder on the last run of the day back down to the car.

Day two we kept it pretty mellow and there wasn’t much to write home about, fast forward to day three; the real meat and potatoes of the week. Sam, Leah, and myself headed out under the light of the headlamps with the NW couloir of the Piefferhorn in mind, a wasatch classic. During the first hour of the trip I was feeling particularly worse for wear which I chose to blame on receiving the COVID vaccine the day before. I knew once the sun came up and we reached the alpine I would feel better and so I did. After skinning through our approach we reached the headwall below the mountain for a short boot pack before reaching the real ridge boot pack.

Sam and Leah strapping up the skis below the ridge of the Piefferhorn.

The long boot pack up the ridge into the clouds, wind, and snow was exhausting but we remained relatively on schedule. We knew a storm would be coming in at 3 or 4PM and we managed to summit at 11 AM with that in mind, although it seemed the storm had come in much earlier than expected with winds and snow picking up rapidly. We transitioned our skis and donned or helmets and harnesses and peered down into the couloir. The first few turns were nothing to marvel at, sliding down a wind blown chute filled with rocks. After making it through the 8 foot wide choke the couloir opened up allowing for a few nice turns in soft snow entering us into the no-fall zone above the 35 foot rappel.

Sam and Leah looking down into the couloir before strapping on our skis.

Sam lowering himself down as Leah and I look on.

We reached the rappel with a sigh of relief just as the snow really started to come down and the wind began to change directions from what it had been blowing all week. Sam sets up the rappel and lets himself down….. it’s short, dammit! We had a fear our rope maybe short for the rappel given the low snow year. We switch the rope from a self rappel to a single length so sam can lower Leah and I from the bottom allowing for a few extra meters of rope. At this point the snow is coming down HARD and the couloir above us is beginning to windload with the new snow and sluff is starting to come down in bigger amounts than what would be considered fun. Sam lets down Leah and I and we down climb the remaining 10 feet with our ice axes to exit the rock band.

Bottom of the rappel getting slammed with continuous sluff.

We strap our skis back on with urgency, no one is thinking about anything except getting the hell out of there. We are cold from the constant snow coming down on our heads and the persisting high winds. We get in some nice turns through the bottom half of the couloir before it drops us out into the apron which only has about 30 feet of visibility without the assistance of the rocks for depth perception. In the apron we were greeted with knee to waist deep snow, although hard to enjoy given the visibility. Once we gain the trees and better visibility we take a sigh of relief and take a moment to marvel at our achievement before taking in some celebratory powder tuns on the way back to the car.

Skiing out the bottom half of the couloir.

Our line! Credit: Ben White

Adventuring in Grand Teton National Park

September 7, 2020

With Fall (and winter) weather quickly approaching I saw a quick window to sneak down to the Tetons with my friend Ti. Grand Teton National Park is a mere 3.5 hours from my new base in Bozeman, MT. We hit the road after class with a goal to arrive in the Tetons before dark, after 2.5 hours of driving we were nearing the destination when we happened upon a closed road leaving us with no choice but a 4 hour detour. We arrived at the park at 12:30AM, quickly pitched our tent and hit the sack.

An intermittent break of storm clouds on our first morning gave us a few minutes to cook up some breakfast.

Scaling some magnificent rock on our approach to the summit of Teewinot Mountain.

Ti climbing off the summit of Teewinot Mountain as we saw another wave of dark clouds on the horizon.

The views from the top of Teewinot Mountain were staggering.

One last look before heading back to the car.

Our campsite for the 2nd night, exhausted after a much longer than expected day in the mountains.

I always dream of sun rays like this, we felt so lucky to watch it happen over the Tetons, a few steps from our campsite.

Climbing Teewinot Mountain turned out to be a much bigger endeavour that originally anticipated, the planned 6 mile round trip quickly turned into 15 miles after making a simple error at the trailhead. It was evident our brains were foggy from a short nights sleep. We persisted and made it the summit despite thunderstorms in the morning hours we were rewarded with a afternoon and evening of beautiful sun and warm weather. We found a new camp spot for the evening, pitched our tent, and watched the sun go down behind the Tetons, beer in hand. Not long after we found the “comfort” of our sleeping bags, knowing we had an alpine start the next day.

The first hit of sun on our skin was warmly welcomed.

Our first clear view of our objective for the day: Middle Teton.

On the trail by 5AM and the day started with a bang! One of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever witnessed and perfect weather. We made good time up to the meadows were many campers were still asleep. As we started to make our way through the boulder fields the sun began to creep over the mountains. If you know me, you know this is when I have a massive smile on my face: perfect weather, lighting, and fantastic rock structures surrounding me. We forged on and slowly made our way to the saddle.

I couldn’t get enough of this beautiful sun coming up into the valley.

Ti making his way through the many boulders.

Our final view before calling it a day and turning around early.

It was at around 10,500 feet that Ti was noticeably starting to feel the altitude today and the fatigue of the previous days. Despite that we pushed to the saddle at 11,400ft. It was then that I also started feeling the altitude myself, but we both new that only the SW Couloir remained in tackling the Middle Teton (13,000ft). After taking a short rest on the shoulder and looking up the the SW Couloir all our hopes were immediately drained from our bodies. We knew it would take at least another two hours to summit. Due to lack of sleep, fatigue, and time restraints we felt it was best to turn around and return to the car, knowing we had another 4.5 hour drive ahead of us back home. Despite the overwhelming disappointment of failing the main goal of our trip, we couldn’t help but feel so fortunate to be having an amazing time with a perfect weather window in a new-to-us National Park. We will surely be back soon Grand Teton National Park.

A short film I created from our trip:

Fastpacking through Assiniboine Provincial Park!

July 13, 2020

Not long after entering the Sunshine Meadows, the views revealed themselves quite quickly.

High waters caused wet feet and a bit of balance practice.

Making our way towards Citadel Pass, the first benchmark of the day.

Our first view of lake Magog and a cloudy Mount Assiniboine. We took a moment to appreciate the view before completing the last kilometre of the day to the campground.

A rainy afternoon fishing for trout in lake Magog.

We didn’t anticipate the amount of rain that would fall that afternoon and evening. None the less, big smiles all around to be mostly dry and cozy in our sleeping bags, hiding from the rain.

Going light also means unconventional setups. 2 hammocks and 1 bivy bag, with a tarp above us to keep us dry. It rained all evening and through most of the night. Damp feet and a bit of shivering, but good enough to get us through.

6:00AM and back at the lake to catch another fish.

Sunburst Lake & mountain looking phenomenal in the morning light.

A quick detour up to the Nublet on our way out of camp.

Worth the extra few KM’s for a beautiful view of the surroundings before heading home. Mt. Assiniboine hiding in the clouds to the left of Sunburst Mountain.

After Mount Assiniboine was hiding in the clouds the whole time we were there, it decided to give us one quick look before we left.

She’s a real beauty! Time suffer another 30KM home.