Leaving Missoula Again….(100 Blog Posts Later)

I started this blog almost two years ago with a post called Leaving Missoula and here I am again, leaving Missoula.  After three amazing months in town the ache in my heart to wander has pulled me away yet again.

Mission Mountains north of Missoula

The plan back then was to drive to Alaska and then spend almost a year in South America working and exploring the continent.  The plan for South America soon turned into a season (four months) in Antarctica, which somehow turned into 14 months in Antarctica.

Nine Pipes Wildlife Refuge

This time I left Missoula for a quick trip to Chicago (where I'm writing this from); London; Johannesburg and Kruger National Park and Cape Town, South Africa; Dubai, UAE and Istanbul, Turkey before coming back to the US for two more Denali Expeditions and then two months climbing in the Peruvian Andes.

Mission Mountains

I didn't really mean for the next 5 months to turn into that, but I have a problem with saying no to travel and fun guiding work.  Some would say I have a problem.

I might miss Missoula more than ever this time.  I found a really great place to live with amazing people that I hated to leave.  I keep telling myself I'll stay in Missoula, but nothing in the near future is looking like that will happen.

Mission Valley

Throughout the next few weeks I'll keep posting photos on my Facebook Photography Page and Instagram and I'll try to keep up with these blog posts.

This is also my 100th blog post!  Not bad for two years, but I'll try to stay on top of them a bit more than usual.

I think my friend Tess says it best in her song "Leaving Montana"

Higgin's Avenue in Missoula

Fun Photos at the Races

Telemark ski races have been going on every Thursday night at Montana Snowbowl Ski Resort for years, but since I don't tele ski I've never stayed up there long enough to check them out.  This year a friend invited me to come up for the last race of the season.  I figure it would be a good time to shoot some photos and try out my new lens.  This was the result.

My First Photography Show: Antarctica: A year in Photos

On February 7th I had my first (and hopefully not last) photo show in Missoula.  I called it Antarctica: A Year in Photos.  It was a ton of work and fun to put on.  I never would have guessed how much time and money it took to get all these photos printed, trimmed and framed.  I did most of the trimming and all the framing myself and loved how something from my computer screen could turn into a tangible piece of art.  

Trimming and framing the first batch of photos.

I sincerely thank everyone who came out to check out the show on the 7th and the weeks afterward when it was still up in the gallery.  And for those of you that have some of these photos hanging on your wall right now I hope you're still loving them.

Lastly, for those of you that don't live in Missoula or never had a chance to make it to the gallery here are some photos of what the gallery looked like when it wasn't full of people.  The photo story starts during my first summer down there and progresses into the sunset to complete darkness to the sun rising again and back to the 24-hour sunlight of the next summer.

A few of the photos are still available for purchase so e-mail me if you're interested.

The section for the People & Machines of Antarctica.

The gallery felt empty right before I took it down because I remembered it the best when it was packed full of people.

Another Post from LAX

The daze has already set in and I'm one short flight into this time traveling journey.  I say time travel because Thursday September 27th barely exists for me.  I take off from my favorite airport on earth (ha-LAX) at 10pm on a Wednesday and after a 15 hour flight I land in Sydney at 6am on Friday the 28th.  Time travel is totally possible, because time really doesn't exist.  Argue all you want, but time as we know it only exist because numbers exist and numbers exist only as a way to mark things that regardlessly exist.  On my way back in 6 months I'll get that day back. I'll land in LA many hours before I left Sydney.

Some of the leaves along the Clark Fork River think it's fall.

The company that I work for in Antarctica purchased this ticket for me.  They were really smart about it, because they waited until two days before the flight to get it.  Two days ago I received a ticket with my name spelled wrong.  No good for an international flight.  Late that night they re-ticketed me with the correct name.  Then I promptly got an e-mail saying the first flight wasn't actually ticketed.  Finally, less than 24 hours before I was supposed to leave things were all taken care of.  Until I got to the airport this morning and the flight still wasn't officially ticketed!  After many phone calls things got settled.  It really helped that the flight was delayed an hour.

This photo conveys my emotions of Missoula right now.

Afternoon sun in the Montana summer air.

When I fly I think of the take off and landing process in three different phases.  Different levels of pain or death.  The first phase begins when I board the plane and ends when it picks up speed on the runway and then begins again when the plane starts to really really slow down after landing.  Barring a massive explosion I feel like if the plane was to crash at any moment I probably wouldn't be seriously hurt during phase one.

The second phase begins when the plane starts to pick up some serious speed during take-off and ends soon after the plane is airborne and begins again when the plane is just about to touch back down and ends again when the plane slows enough to enter back into phase one.  This is the scariest of the three phases.  If the plan crashed in this phases you might not die.  Well, not right away.  You'd be seriously injured and then maybe die.

Phase three is the time in between the the periods of phase two; this is really probably the safest many people with every be anywhere.  But also if the plane were to crash in this phase you'd die instantly. Much better than what would happen in phase two.  All this goes through my mind almost every time I'm on the plane-except when I get into my seat and instantly fall asleep and wake up again when the plane is landing.  This is happening more and more and it's great!

(I wrote that last part back in Denver and after this last flight I want to add a phase 2.5.  This is probably my favorite part of the flight.  You're still low enough to the ground that everything you're looking at still seems real and the movement of the plane is more akin to an amusement park ride than the usual stationary floating sensation you feel at cruising altitude.)

Another afternoon sun shot.

I'm feeling pretty darn good after last week's appendectomy. My stomach is a little sore, but I could ask to be feeling much better.  I was extremely lucky to be at home and only about 30 minutes from a hospital.  I had an invite to go up to Glacier National Park.  I also had an idea to fly back to AK because some friends were backpacking in Denali State Park.  Either way I would have been in the backcountry and much further from definitive care.  But worst of all I could have been on the Northern Patagonia Ice Cap.  This blog was originally created because I was going to spend the next year in South America.  But I got screwed over by a company that I used to work for so that meant the whole trip was off.  The Northern Patagonia Ice Cap is one of the more remote places in the world with some of the worst weather anywhere.  This means getting to medical care in a timely manner is almost impossible.  If the Chilean Navy did happen to feel like flying in to get me the weather probably wouldn't have allowed for that.  And then the only real good medical care would have been up in Santiago.  I most certainly would have died.  So I do have to thank my former boss for being a dick...you saved my life.

One of the first shots I took with my new Sigma 120-400mm lens!

 I will be in Christchurch for a few days of orientation and "Extreme Cold Weather Clothing" issue.  Once I get some photos from their I'll post my address at McMurdo Station, Antarctica and other random stuff about being down there.  Also, by the time you read this I won't have a cell phone number anymore so don't bother.

Sunrise through the clouds and smoke.

Photos from MT

Just a few photos from my time back in MT.  

Stormy sunset behind the Highland Mountains

Missoula

Fireworks and airplanes above Missoula

4th of July in Missoula

Arrowleaf Balsamroot looking at the Pintlers 

Pintler Mountains near Philipsburg 

Testing out the new camera lens on Mercedes

Leaving Missoula

Recently something changed.  

Changed from wanting to settle down in Missoula and go to grad school to dropping everything and just going.  Going with grand ideas of destinations, but no concrete plan or return date. 

I returned to Missoula from yet another trip to South America and quickly re-realized that Missoula will never change.  The people of Missoula will always be the same although they may not be the exact same people.  I will be able to come back years from now and feel right at home again.  

Every older [than me] client I have says that they wish they would have done more traveling and less working and had more fun experiences rather than get a mortgage.  There is plenty of time for that.  I figured this is might be my only time with no real responsibilities to just drop everything conventionally know as a “home” and just go.  First north to Alaska; then south to Patagonia.  So this is just the first post of hopefully many in the next year or so of traveling and experiencing life. 

Once, the van is officially sold (Tuesday) and everything is packed we (Toren Johnson and I) are leaving for our epic road trip to Alaska on Wednesday. 

Until then, a few photos of recent stuff in Missoula: 

Urban Campfiring 

Clark Fork River from Higgins Bridge

St. Mary's Peak Lookout, Bitterroot Mountains

I hope to develop this blog a lot over the next month so keep checking up on it.