I was inspired by the beauty of of this orchid.

new work

My old friend Rick helped clean up the crude oil from a small spill in the early 1980′s at Long Beach near tofino Pacific Rim National Park … it was an ugly job and a decade before exxon valdez up in Alaska.

You know about exxon valdez in alaska don’t you?

What do we know about the Harper Conservative Federal Government.

Well we know they are in power ……. unfortunately via an electoral system that is not truly representative of the people

WE know they extoll the tar sands which is environmentally unsustainable.

WE know they want oil on the west coast of Canada, pipelines and tankers for China.

We know they are an environmental embarrassment to the world and Canada by not supporting
the Kyoto Protocol when we should be leaders.

WE know the Harper Government now wants to rewrite the fisheries act and any other acts and laws that have the potential to slow economic development of oil pipelines pulp mills etc.

We know the Conservatives want to and are negating public debate and consultation, due process and transparency in forums that are not only environmental.

Many people, groups and organizations and previous governments have worked long and hard to ensure environmental integrity.

The 2012 Olympics had an introductory show that highlighted the environment with state of the art 3-D holograms of the orca and grizzly and spirit bears.

With no environment we just have the spin and the holograms.

Does that matter to you it matters to me.

Four previous fisheries ministers even of the same party do not agree with Harpers Government and their proposals

My conservative MP says I am not on the same page as him ………… I told him he was right.

You have to write and call all these dickheads and let them know what you think ……… tell them that you support oil on the west coast of Canada….. if you really do.

Enbridge has had major oil spills from ruptures in North America… research it …. Kinder Morgan too. Halliburton in the Camisea Project near Machu Picchu in Peru has had 5 pipeline ruptures since 2004.

There’s collateral damage, thats fact ….. is it something that you can live with? It might be alright if you are oblivious and don’t know what British Columbia has to offer.

The West Coast is a nutrient pool unique. Do you want an oil slick on it? What are you going to do?

UPDATE OIL PIPELINE Rupture RED DEER ALBERTA JUNE 8 2012 Threatens city water supply OIL SPILLS HAPPEN

NO OIL ON WEST COAST OF CANADA get rid of the Harper Dictatorship

Semi classic store great ethnographic syntax … short and to the point.

Raft guide portrait. Where Alsek river Yukon near the BC border.

Adventure how can you find it? You don’t find it the mall.

Alsek River Yukon. Cruising by Grizzlies and Moose while bumping along on the water. The naked vein of grey churning glacial till, erosive and cold full of eddies and whirlpools great company wild land its Canada.

I was there recently. It was almost all the same except smaller. So big when I was little.

A year or two ago a homeless man was murdered in the shrubs in the front of the building. I wonder if it has been solved?

if you are not happy with a shot or you want better light go back again ……..

Like whats the story here. Look at the people look at the terrain. This was a small Dene aboriginal girl near the arctic circle.

It’s after 11pm the light “magic hour” the photographer’s cinematographers dream light exists for hours. The weather is harsh here its alpine and trees are small. We traveled by bike on this trip part of a compilation of stories we did on the yukon and adventure.

On this iron-worker I used fill to bring up the detail in the facial shadows.

Bit of a tricky shot to light top of highrise in a breeze we were (and gear) tied in.

Watch the condensation on Camera Gear reduce the differential of hot and cold on camera will fog lenses when moving to a warmer place in extreme cold do not breath on camera gear it will ice up. And sleep with batteries on overnight trips.

If you want it stopped write your MLA in Victoria BC Out of country people can do this to. A hardcopy letter is better than an email and a telephone message is better than a letter, do all 3 just let the powers that be (shutter…to think that these people do in fact have power over me arrggg) know that you do not support such atrocity.

If you look at even the smallest piles of rot the contain bug/nematode action. I was looking at a small group of pine needles the other day pushed together into a small “log jam” and there were small earth worms inside. This was on the cement at least 8 feet from the soil.

So rot is attractive to macro life. Decomposition it all goes to soil and from the soil we get growth. Call me podzolic. While you go on with your day to day a whole world exists. Perhaps an untapped world with benefits to medicine even. One my climbing buddies was doing his PHD in Pharmacology studying plant/fungal relationships for that application.
Think about it.

There’s a also a great book called SOIL can’t remember the author but its fantastic the story of humus and decomposition real interesting and not dry at all.

enjoy the seed pod

The area is dangerous to skiers that have no backcountry experience. Unpacked steep slopes beckon but have their own secrets. Avalanches are common and happen frequently and without warning and the variety of snow conditions can be a challenge to ski. Wind pack, crust, slop, powder, ice just about everything can happen here, its usually a great 3-4 day trip but has been done in less by people that have usually skied it before.

And it’s great to sleep in the alpine open above 2000m and just roll over and see the sun rise.

This struck me as being kinda cool snow melting into a tarn. Reflection too. What do you think??

Sun cups are formed by the sun radiation. Sometimes they provide great steps and on those early alpine mornings they freeze so you need crampons. If you look close you can see red algae in the snow its not blood from ski accidents but ….
… Red snow algae is a unicellular, photosynthetic plant which, in the spring, accumulates on the surface and within the upper 20 to 25 cm of old snow. It is concentrated in shallow depressions where its dark colour absorbs solar heat and further deepens the growing “sun cups.” Under a microscope each spherical cell is seen to be about 4 times the size of a human red blood cell. Their thick walls and bright red carotenoid pigment help protect delicate cells from intense ultraviolet radiation.

for more on red algae go here whistlernaturalists.ca are a great group with tonnes of info.

Adventure in the Yukon in Canada’s north. We Mtb -ed a portion of the Canol Road a great trip in wild tundra land with caribou and the Grizzly. Lots of river crossings most shallow. You have to resourceful and independent. Rescue is difficult. A sat phone might be nice … we did not have one. Few people in a vast tundra-ed landscape.

The Canol was put through in 1942 as an access road for an oil pipeline that was barely used. Cost millions of 1942 dollars. There are some remnant leaks and dumps of military vehicles enroute we just about made it half way and the were beset with a broken derailleur.

Does anybody in Canada get it? Countries that have experienced loss of habitat and wild areas (European Countries) want Canada to stand up to the plate and realize that we have profound natural areas full of biotic wonder in need of protection.

Biotic wonders – the Grizzly Bear, The Orca and forest and ocean ecosystems.

It’s interesting that when our provincial and federal governments want to hold a big party they bring Canadian iconography like the Grizzly and the Orca into play. The holographic show for the 2010 Olympics featured these animals.

Yet these governments do very little to protect them. They are only used as representation all is forgotten now that the party is over.

We shoot the Grizzly and in the not to distant past have shot the Orca when they were a perceived threat to salmon stocks.

“If you’re dealing with a nation like China and you’re not talking about human rights and judicial justice, then you’re part of the crime,” Ai said in an interview with CBC’s Q cultural affairs show.

Canada bends over backwards to deal with China economically, we support human rights crimes in China and Tibet
for making money. Harper is an economist right? Do you vote? Do you want oil on the west coast of Canada?
Check out the recent CBC radio show Q with Jain Gomeshi for interview win Ai Weiwei it will soon be up as a podcast on itunes
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/03/22/ai-weiwei-q.html?cmp=rss

Read this unbelievable account of life in N Korea.

In some countries they don’t get to vote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/16/escape-north-korea-prison-camp

We have several problem areas. Access from the Fraser Valley is terrible and will continue to so. We lack transportation that is viable and fast that doesn’t involve internal combustion engines. We are more concerned with twinning road bridges over the Fraser River rather than building rapid transit out to Chilliwack.

We have marginal rapid transit out to Maple Ridge – Mission as well. Maybe that will change one day the airshed will love it and so will commuters stuck in gridlock.

It seems a bit odd but in Eastern Canada today its warm on the west coast its snowing.

So I thought I’d post this contrasting shot today … Manatee echos warmth, the mammal is found in Florida, they may even be a threatened species there I can’t remember. I do remember seeing pictures of them with prop blades etched into their skin. They are slow moving and come to the surface every-once-in-a-while to get air. And get hit by boats towing water skiers
They like warm water

So the Manatee Range in BC west of Pemberton just north of Whistler got its name because a few of the peaks looked like the beasts + the first people that skied into this area named the peaks in the 1960′s had a very cold trip so it may of reminded them of warmer climes.

Coast Mountain explorer John Clarke a modern day John Muir who my friend Lisa Baile is writing a book about ….. was on that trip his first expedition … he went on the trip with one of those old fibre fill/cotton sleeping bags you know the ones with the duck hunters on the flannel interior… and froze his butt off. He said it took him a week to warm up after he came home from the trip.

This photo was from a climbing trip into the area, we used skis to get around notw the suncups. A tarn is a small alpine pond. Note also in the photo where some of the cornices have melted off probably causing avalanches earlier in the season. This area is used by heli-skiers in the winter.

Sudan poor dying … warlords/president preventing food from arriving. Crisis in the making.

As if Darfur was not enough. I had a conversation earlier today on intervention. Should we in the west intervene or let crimes atrocities occur.

It takes guts to intervene. Change occurs when people act together.

We as Canadians effectively support China and China is preventing positive humanitarian action to occur in both the Sudan and Syria.

The civil war in Syria has gone on for a year now needless atrocities. Slow inaction. China along with Russia vote in the UN against doing the right thing.

It takes guts to do the right thing.

Motives who knows but the two powers are content to let them duke it out. Just saw the Pianist with Adrian Brody, The Russians sat on the the other side of the Vistula River in the winter of 1945 letting the Poles and the Germans in Warsaw duke it out before they crossed later in the spring and repatriated Warsaw, many many died before hand violence and starvation, motive — they weakened both Poles and Germans, assimilated Poland into the eastern Block and over ran the softened German army all the way to Berlin.

http://www.globalnews.ca/george+clooney+released+after+sudanese+embassy+protest+arrest/6442602239/story.html

Really like the ochre cast as it reflected the warm light. Everything is juxtaposed by the angularity of the structure. The frame of the cactus and the structure of the building itself.
The sky’s blue gives a nice edge contrast.

Thought I’d brighten up the day with something that foretells the coming of SPRING. Found this graphic tower south of here. Water is a real commodity in the drier countries of the world. Something that is not on most peoples radar. WE turn on a tap and it comes out and clean too. We are so lucky to live in Canada in Most parts of Canada.

However you wouldn’t want to drink the downstream river water that flows north into the Arctic Ocean from the tar sands in Alberta though.You know about the tar sands right? I won’t editorialize though its tempting but we have to keep the day bright.

Spring snow this morn after a howl of a windstorm an explosive deepening low 100km speeds out in the gulf galiano, mayne saltspring got bombed.

What a great wild place. The Vikings first made landfall here via Greenland. Windswept humid alpine.

I have had an ongoing visual attraction to anomolies in nature. Erratic boulders are so different. They are deposited by glaciers on their retreat.
This one is like an egg erroded by the wind and sea-borne humidity you can see some exfoliation on the surface. Maybe when it exfoliates and cracks something will pop out
and save the planet.

The other I love for its pastel-ness, the softness and the odd wonder of the sand as it comes inland. It might ask a question. The wind is pretty powerful.

Update this is sold out, thanks so much see you then.

If road conditions warrant a cancel we will re-schedule.

Update thanks for everything the class was a success

It does not transplant well so if you see them leave them be.

Tripod was strung out and teetered over a 5 foot gap over a seaside bluff just before a shower hit, a few quick shots.

reminds me of The Who pictures of lily I wonder why …… lily oh lily

Dr Grant was studying toads 74km away in San Ruffino Lake in central Italy, when she recorded the toads behaving oddly.
Five days before the earthquake, the number of male common toads in the breeding colony fell by 96%.
That is highly unusual for male toads: once they have bred, they normally remain active in large numbers at breeding sites until spawning has finished.
Yet spawning had barely begun at the San Ruffino Lake site before the earthquake struck.
Also, no weather event could be linked to the toads’ disappearance.
Three days before the earthquake, the number of breeding pairs also suddenly dropped to zero.
While spawn was found at the site up to six days before the earthquake, and again six days after it, no spawn was laid during the so-called earthquake period – the time from the first main shock to the last aftershock. “Our study is one of the first to document animal behaviour before, during and after an earthquake,” says Dr Grant.
She believes the toads fled to higher ground, possibly where they would be at less risk from rock falls, landslides and flooding.

and left me with shape and form

In other less fortunate parts of the world governments don’t let their people vote because they do not want to lose dictatorial power. This is true in LIBYA SYRIA CHINA North Korea and Myanmar. The people recently demonstrated against a corrupt government in Egypt and won.
People can win only by being united.

You Don’t Want Change Don’t Vote. WE are fighting a war in Afghanistan don’t make those lives lost a waste.

The video is somewhat graphic but it depicts the reality of oppression of what is really happening in less fortunate parts the world. Savour your freedom. Many have fought for it.
filmed with d7000 and post processed in imovie

Issues you might want to consider are:

1. The protection of our West Coast Salmon Fishery.
2. Offshore property ownership of Canada
3. The Tar Sands in Alberta
4. Harm Reduction in Downtown Vancouver.
5. The proposed pipeline to Prince Rupert from Alberta
6. Oil/Development Tanker traffic on the west coast of British Columbia.
7. The Kyoto Protocol
8. The Prosperity Mine Proposal and The Destruction of Fish Lake (85000 trout) in the Chilcotin
9. Support of the Grizzly Bear Trophy Hunt in British Columbia

I believe most of these issues are of concern for the livable future of all Canadians.

Have you heard of them, do you care, have your candidates addressed these issues? The present conservative government has not.

The plate displacement during the recent Japan quake was roughly 27 metres, of which 7 metres were vertical movement, so the starter wave was already that high. The wave made it more than 10 miles inland in places. A wave traveling through deep water will not change its wavelength while its traveling, but only once it hits the shallows. The travel time is quite extreme, pretty well 1000 kph, or slightly less, so in the case of the Cascadia fault, the wave would arrive only 5 minutes later on the West Coast of Vancouver island. The Japanese fault is pretty close to the same distance the Cascadia Fault lays from Vancouver Island. Kind of sobering if you think about around the campfire on Vargas Island in the Clayoquot.

The duration of the Japanese earthquake, about five minutes, could be the key to the severity of the liquefaction and may force researchers to reconsider the extent of liquefaction damage possible.
“With such a long-lasting earthquake, we saw how structures that might have been okay after 30 seconds just continued to sink and tilt as the shaking continued for several more minutes,” Ashford said. “And it was clear that younger sediments, and especially areas built on recently filled ground, are much more vulnerable.”
An event almost exactly like Japan’s is expected in the Pacific Northwest from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and the new findings make it clear that liquefaction will be a critical issue in the young soils there.
“Young” sediments, in geologic terms, are those deposited within the past 10,000 years or so.
“Entire structures were tilted and sinking into the sediments, even while they remained intact,” said Ashford, who is based in Corvallis, Ore. “The shifts in soil destroyed water, sewer and gas pipelines, crippling the utilities and infrastructure these communities need to function. We saw some places that sank as much as 4 feet,” or 1.2 meters.

don’t feel especially wordy like these flowers though something lush and robust about them like kiwi fruit the soft first bite pastel and yielding tip of tang

As Canadians/Americans do we support China? Another generation is born we take the easier road of complacency, avoiding change, heads in the sand.
The future will be interesting?

UPDATE
Artist disappears, for speaking out.
China detains famous artist Ai Weiwei for economic crimes.
Any dictatorship will destroy all opposition. People that speak out go, People that have ideas are a threat. You destroy all thinkers, Writers/artists, teachers lawyers and doctors.
People that might be capable of facilitating change are nuked.

“so singular so unique” symmetric cleaving the desert

This climb really inspired me. The art of nature aesthetics of the line and the excitement. This line was true, pure.

I had this picture, from a calender, in my room for years. The guy in the red t-shirt with the yellow Scottish lion on his back approaching the overhang it was adventure. This film is great.
Wiggins Webster Becker

Many journalists are using this type of documentation as either backup or to augment their assignments in addition to the dslr.

Checkout Burn magazine

Hosting another workshop in May Weekend 25 Gabriola Island

“Would I do it all over again. Probably not. Everything has consequences. But I hitchhike well” she said

Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a good read

I filmed this on on the D7000 and converted it in post to 16:9 wide screen again I slightly blurred it to get rid of moire lineage.

The raging surge has breached the towns dyke/breakwater/tsunami barrier and cascades through the town with ships vehicles and debris. The wave here is 20+ feet. Wave breaches at turn in river, the flow is constricted/obstructed by the bend thus breach occurs.

I filmed this video broadcast with a Nikon D7000 HD on tripod slightly out of focus to get rid of the monitor screen lines.

Massive quake hits N E Japan 8.9 Tsunami Near Sendai Airport helicopter must of got off and taken this aerial. It was on CNN … I noticed watching footage that this still photo had part of Sendai airport in it….. So I google earthed it and got the beta ( lay of the land literally). image is from 2003 and from 2.7km in elevation

The town east of the airport is just devastated as the wave comes on. High point is bridge that crosses canal is only safe point two cars on bridge.

According to goog earth the wave surmounted a 5-6m beach tree berm before continuing onward to airport. estimates of wave travel speed are are around 10metre/second 20 mph roughly. The natural scale of this geological event is hard to realize. Pray for these people they had little warning. Happened at about 940PM PST. 540 UTC approx 250PM Local
Airport to ocean 1 kilometre …………. Beach berm width 300 metres or just about 1000 feet
Oblique view below


Update
Most recent sat photo at day 4 post quake at right

UPdate Village destroyed see link below on day 2

UPDATE Monday quake +3 I have posted some recent amazing videos see most recent posts

this peaceful farming village gets obliterated, cars are fleeing on roads. In goog earth fly to

38 11’04.39 N and140 56’56.34 E

elevation is less that 2 metres…. geologically it looks like the wave’s energy was focused by the topography of the bay absolutely devastating.
SENDAI AIRPORT Wave
distance from ocean to stranded truckers is 1.4 km or .8miles similar video Via BBC in the UK Truckers are on the overpass where the camera in located upper centre left

Found this Bryan Adams signed album at a garage sale in Vancouver. Just by fluke riding by and sorted through some old records Cuts Like a Knife Signed Bryan Adams 1985. 26 years ago! It was in a darker pen so I highlighted in Pshop with grey to make it more noticeable in the photo you see. Interesting what you can find in garage sales if you spend the time to look. He used to work at the Tomahawk Restaurant in NVan near the Lions Gate bridge that bridges the gap (first narrows) between Stanley Park and the North Shore. Local boy does well, good food at the restaurant too.

we have a real short period of time do you think we should do any thing about it?

Anyway a bit of morning digression …. the past few days before this low gave us snow, it was extremely windy at high elevations. Hearlding a buildup of Premo avalanche conditions. Since the high winds came from the west they scoured west and probably NW facing slopes and deposited all that snow on their opposite sides south and south east sides. The snow lays deep on those aspects ready for triggers big pillows of snow. So be safe. The scoured slopes on the north are now loaded again with new snow that has dumped in the last 48 hours, since these slopes were scoured by the wind, probably down to hard-pack they probably will not hold large amounts of new snow well, so these slopes will potentially be unstable. So heads up.

Naturalist attack hiking, you want to go somewhere the crowds don’t go and see wild ocean terrain with great photo ops. Everyone has heard of BC’s West Coast trail. Hit the Nootka Trail its better in my opinion. for more adventure yet, getting there is sweet adventure in itself you fly in. Any trip that begins with a flight is fun. Want to know more lets go.

New stuff and recommended check out the gutenberg project and Librivox for audio books all free.

Recently downloaded Robert Falcon Scott’s Journals of his South Pole expedition …. great naturalist observations of sea ice, bergs, penguins etc
as audio book 500megs of mp3′s to an itouch ….. bomber stuff as in bombproof state of the art as good as it gets, take a 50m leader fall on it and the gear won’t even come close to pulling. How can you beat that?

N Selkirks Esplanade Range Mottled light high lit falling crystals one foot powder pillow avalanche free.
ski with a guide here for the best experience