Matador Network's Blog, page 2309

Why 'Hostel' is the stupidest movie

Photo: Way Too Indie

“OMG dude, haven’t you seen Hostel? Aren’t you scared you’re going to get kidnapped and killed in the middle of the night like all those film actors in that one fictional movie?”

No, I am not afraid of my hostel owner gutting me with a knife in my sleep, and nor should you be. Because travel is safe, you ask? Nay. Travel is not always safe. But that is due to a rather flagrantly obvious and deviously simple truth: Life isn’t safe.

Nothing ever is. Risks are all around us, and there’s no telling when you might just trip over a condom wrapper left in the street and smash your face against a telephone pole and splatter your brains all over the pavement some idiot used as an impromptu toilet the evening immediately prior.

But let me tell you something: A hostel is the absolute safest place a backpacker can possibly find him or herself whilst imbibing the alcoholic and experiential gifts a foreign land can bestow. Allow me to explain why…

A hostel is filled with an army of youthful citizens at the peak of the physical capability.

In few other circumstances can a victimized young target of violence be more readily defended than in a 42-bed dorm room populated by boundlessly muscular, heavily intoxicated young gentlemen whose current physique stands at the uppermost echelon of what they will ever achieve in their lifetime. And with impossibly indigestible quantities of alcoholic substances coursing through their veins, their diminished ability to process the sensation of physical pain will render them nearly impervious to the danger posed by any assailant wielding a melee weapon of any kind.

Of the utmost importance in this particular case, however, is the insatiable desire to defend the livelihood of helpless young ladies anywhere to be found, in a perhaps misguided, though entirely appreciated attempt to obtain the endorsement of their reproductive quality control guidelines in the aims of potentially engaging in post-traumatic reproductive recreational activities shortly following the incident of horrific danger.

They will be there for you. And they will win.

Someone’s always awake.

Seriously, have you even been in a hostel? It is a chaotic inferno of constantly coming, going, talking, drinking, shouting, zipping and unzipping, buckling and unbuckling, and crinkling of crinkly clothing into which no self-respecting Psycho enthusiast would dare attempt wade.

And even in the unlikely event that 100% of hostel dorm room occupants are simultaneously unconscious, even Usain Bolt would find it a daunting challenge to speedily make his way from one bed to the next, climbing atop loudly creaking bunk beds one after another, thus slowing his progress and rendering the task unlikely to be completed by the time half a dozen strapping young gentlemen awake from their slumber.

For a description of the aftermath that would ensue, refer back to objection #1.

He won’t be able to collect your bill.

…and your 85-liter pack full of soiled clothing is the last thing you’ll find on his holiday wishlist, below elephant feces and Betamax devices.

What of your laptop, you say? He’s probably got one already anyway, and it would be a rather not-lucrative business to lose out on the cash he’d get from the bill you owe just to sell a deteriorating machine of diminishing value which you might not even have anyway. Plus, who’s going to give him a 5-star review on Hostelworld? Not you!

Can you imagine the hassle of removing a body from a hostel dorm room, not to mention the already-irritating hassle of having killed someone, silently enough that no one notices, paying for its disposal, and then selling a cheap laptop on the open market on a regular basis, all the while losing out on a continuous stream of hostel-dwelling bill-payers whose only significant upkeep consists of ongoing sheet laundering? Seems to me like this guy is an incompetent businessman, and if such is the case, he’s probably an incompetent serial killer, too. So no worries.

Here are some movie titles more appropriate than “Hostel.”

You know what that movie should have been called? Hotel. Think about it. What does a hotel have that a hostel doesn’t?

Seclusion: You’re all alone in that eerily quiet room of yours, with no one to defend your defenseless little body.
Locks: What the hell good is a hostel door going to do when an easily lockable hotel door will keep other suspicious guests from making a timely entrance?
Cold, uncaring guests: Have you ever broken down the door of a hotel room to defend a fellow guest against the murderous hand of a homicidal hotelier? No, I didn’t think so. You’d probably tell yourself the guy in the other room is just watching a scary movie anyway. Like Hostel.

They could have just called the damn thing Bed and Breakfast and it would have made a whole lot more sense. Who would ever suspect the innocent and charming elderly lady running a precious and adorable little B&B on the edge of a small town? No one, that’s who. And it’s always the people you least suspect that you’ve got to watch out for. [image error]

This post was originally published at Snarky Nomad and is reprinted here with permission.

The post Why Hostel is the stupidest travel movie of all time appeared first on Matador Network.

57 fascinating maps of our world

THERE’S SO MUCH MORE to the world than we can usually glean from a map of a place.

Sure, you’ve got the political and topographical maps we’re all familiar with, and from those we can see the boundaries we’ve created and those that were naturally imposed…but what about burning questions like, “How does my country rate on the global attractiveness scale,” or “Where are all the redheads of the world hiding?”

Thanks to the wealth of data floating around for free use on the internet, with these maps we visual learners can finally get a better sense of the global scheme of things, and perhaps find answers to several questions we never even thought of asking.

1

Map of the world according to Americans
From his international bestseller “Atlas of Prejudice,” this is Alphadesigner Yanko Tsvetkov’s impression of the world from the perspective of Americans.


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2

Countries that don't use the metric system
In our American punk-rock refusal to conform, we find ourselves in the minority, as nearly the entire world uses a system of measurement that makes base-ten sense. Those other countries representing the Imperial system are Liberia and Myanmar (Burma).


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3

US map of the highest-paid public employees by state
After seeing this, my first reaction was, “Perhaps I’m in the wrong profession,” followed shortly by, “Clearly, America loves its football.” It does, it loves its football $5,545,852.00 much (Head Coach Nick Saban of Alabama’s 2013 salary).


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Intermission





Yelp Worldmap: What’s the hipster density in your city?





20 maps that will change the way you see the world





Four maps that make the world more awesome












4

Perspectival take on global population density
With more than 2/3 of the population of the entire United States crammed onto the islands of the comparatively tiny Indonesia, this map throws into sharp relief just how much of the planet seems to be relatively uninhabitable (or, at least, nowhere near as densely packed). As an aside, the ongoing discussion over this map has yielded that the circle could in fact be considerably smaller than shown.


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5

Political map as Pangaea
Pangaea was a supercontinent that existed for about 100 million years before fracturing apart 200 million years ago and moving slowly into the current continental configuration. This is what the world would look like had that land mass stayed intact.


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6

Average age of first sexual intercourse by country
A shining example of something to do “just because we had the data,” this map of average deflowering ages around the world arrives also as relatively unsurprising. I say relatively, because apparently in Iceland the young’uns are doing the deed at the barely ripe average age of 15. Until 2007, the legal age of consent in Iceland was 14, but was then revised to the current age of 15 to more closely match Norway and Finland, where it's 16.


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7

World map of paid maternal leave
The sad and maddening truth is that the US, somehow ever the minority, is one of eight countries without mandatory paid maternity leave. Those other 7 countries listed are: Suriname, Liberia, Palau, Papau New Guinea, Nauru, Western Samoa, and Tonga.


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8

Map of time zones in Antarctica
This gem demonstrates that all time zones of the world must converge, and happen to do so longitudinally on Antarctica. However, UTC or Coordinated Universal Time refers to “no time zone,” so those areas in red are actually sort of a generic “Antarctica Time.”


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9

World air travel routes
This map, which includes only the arcs made in air travel routes, demonstrates the beautiful world-connectedness that flight has enabled.


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Intermission





What Hollywood flicks about Africa are really saying





Here’s what riding on the first commercial spaceship will be like





This 5-year-old knows more about the world than you do












10

Africa, as made up of other countries
Based on our current accepted map projection formats, countries either at the equator or at the edges invariably get distorted in size. Here’s a map of Africa, with a number of random countries superimposed over it to get a relative feel for the size of the continent.


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11

Map of alcohol consumption around the world
Perhaps growing up in Las Vegas put beer-goggles on my sense of America’s global standings on alcohol consumption. Still, that dark purple mass indicating a greater-than-12.50 liter per-capita consumption of pure alcohol must mean the Russian liver is a force to be reckoned with, especially considering your standard vodka is only 40-50%.


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12

Map of alcoholic beverage of choice by country
When juxtaposed with the previous map, one thing becomes strikingly clear: The volume of notoriously low-alcohol-content drinks (beer and wine) that is clearly pounded in Europe to allow them to rank so highly in pure alcohol consumed must be staggering (no pun intended).


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13

The journey (almost) around the world
Pictured here is the longest straight line that can be sailed on Earth. The 20,000-mile journey stretches from Pakistan to the Kamchatka Peninsula (in Russia). With the average sailing speed of about 7.5 knots, this trip would take almost 20 years to complete.


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14

World map of earthquakes since 1898
This is what happens when you plot over a century of earthquake data, with the magnitude of the earthquakes dictating the brightness of the coloration on the map—you get an incredible image of Earth’s tectonic plate boundaries in glowing relief. Fun fact: 1898 was also the year Tesla claimed to have unveiled a version of his oscillator that caused an earthquake in New York, later earning the device the nickname “Tesla’s earthquake machine.”


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15

Freedom of press map
From 2012, this map outlines the relative freedoms of press per country of the world. In essence, if you’re living in China, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Syria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Yemen, Sudan, Eritrea, or Somalia, you’re probably not vying to be a hard-hitting journalist.


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Intermission





How people around the world feel about Black Friday





What do your country’s trending hashtags say about you?





20 trivia facts about world countries [Infographic]












16

Map of vegetation on Earth
Courtesy of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Suomi National Polar-Partnership satellite, we have this snapshot as a gentle reminder that there is still quite a lot of green life on this planet, and we should do everything we can to preserve that.


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17

Inverted population of Australia
This map flipped the paradigm, as the shaded region represents where only 2% of the entire population of Australia lives, meaning the un-shaded region is home to 98% of Australia’s population.


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18

Cramming the world’s population into one city, by density
Superimposed over the United States, this map demonstrates how large the single city would be if the entire world’s population lived in it, based on current city densities from around the world. The missing piece of this puzzle is the fact that the current population density for Paris is approximately 54,899 people per square mile of the 40.7 square miles of the city. With Manila’s 111,002 people per square mile in the Philippines, the world’s population would fit in a city the size of Washington State (with plenty of wiggle room).


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19

World lightning strike frequency
At first glance, this map, and the information contained therein, seems underwhelming. Until, of course, you notice that there is an area on the border of what appears to be Zaire and Tanzania that averages ~200 lightning strikes per square kilometer per year.


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20

World map of researchers per million inhabitants
Aka “Most Science Oriented Places on Earth,” this map shows the prevalence of individuals choosing lab-life as a career path. Taken with the “Average age of devirgination” map from earlier, there seems to be a strange correlation between regions with younger kids having sex, and those with higher rates of researchers per capita.


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21

Most famous US brands, by state
America is pretty obsessed with branding, and of the multitude of brands spawning from each state, here is the spread of the most famous.


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22

Writing systems of the world
This elegant summary of the distribution of the world’s various writing systems not only demonstrates which areas write in what, but also just how many globally in-use writing systems there actually are. It’s fascinating to think that a person from any of those other regions would see this map in much the same way I do, that there is one area they can read and a multitude of what appears to be gibberish.


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23

Worldwide annual coffee consumption per capita
In kilograms per person per year, this map outlines the major joe-junkies of the world. I was surprised to see that Canada out-caffeinated the US. After the other maps, I was not surprised to see that Iceland, Norway, and Sweden out-coffee’d the world. There are some strange things going on under those Northern Lights.


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24

The world divided by population
Color-coded into 7 regions, each with a total population of 1 billion, this map is another great example of visualizing the global population density and distribution. It also seems to corroborate the circle-map from earlier.


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25

World population by latitude and longitude
Yet another take on the visualization of the global population distribution, this map-pair demonstrates the desirability and inhabitability of the tropics, with their major intersection hovering over the Indonesia/Philippines region.


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26

South-north world map
Breaking from the long-held convention of orienting north as “up” established by Ptolemy (90-168 AD), and resulting from the majority of cartography taking place in the Northern Hemisphere, this world map seems turned on its head (by orienting south as up). Fun fact: Evidently in the Middle Ages, cartographers routinely fixed east as up, “to orient.”


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27

Topographic map of the United States on the moon
Wrapping almost two-thirds around the moon, this image puts into sharp perspective the size of the US, the size of the moon, and, indirectly, the size of Earth.


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28

Global internet usage based on time of day
With that orange upside-down “U” representing daylight hours, and a color spectrum spanning from red to blue (red indicating usage increase above average, blue indicating a usage decrease), this gif-map is visually stunning, but perhaps not terribly surprising.


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29

Global overall water risk
Another map for the environmentally conscious, this representation demonstrates a near-perfect strip between latitudes around the globe in which water seems to be in scarce supply, and draws attention to the fact that Earth is covered in water that we simply can’t drink.


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30

Map of the duckies’ journey
Do you remember hearing about some 29,000 rubber duckies that fell off a cargo ship coming out of Hong Kong? Here’s a map of the routes those duckies took, and the various places they made landfall over the 15 years they were at sea (from 1992 to 2007).


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31

Mercator world map with a different centerpoint and orientation
Another map that seems to challenge convention and distort the planet, this west-up Mercator projection (the cylindrical style world maps invented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569 and possibly the most common type of map ever) centered on Greenland instead of Europe is no more or less accurate than the world maps you’re used to seeing.


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32

Map of US GDP compared to the rest of the world
This map compares the GDP of US states to entire countries from around the world, ranging from $1 trillion (such as California/Canada).


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33

World map of population proportions
For the mathematically inclined, this map has restructured the world’s countries to accurately represent their population as opposed to confining it to landmasses, and demonstrates just how much of the world’s population lives in India. One grid square equals one million people.


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34

World map of social networks
From time one (2009) to time two (2012), one thing is absolutely certain: Facebook is taking over the planet.


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35

Mapped: US in seven deadly sins
While I don’t wholly agree with the criteria used to compose each sin-map, it was interesting to see the distribution of average income compared to the poverty line, total theft, number of violent crimes, entertainment expenditures, fast-food restaurants, number of STD cases, and an aggregate of the lot in a plain and clear representation. It would seem that Iowa is the most “saintly” by these standards.


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36

World map of countries England has not invaded
Of the 196 countries of the world today, there are only 22 of them that Britain has not invaded, though only 21 appear on this map (suspiciously absent is the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe).


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37

US auto-complete map
With the recent success of “crowdsourcing” for everything from ideas, to products, to scientific data, it would be difficult to deny there must be some horrifying truth to the information in this map. Populated by searching “State name is…” in Yahoo and allowing the “topmost satisfactory result” to represent each state, this map illustrates exactly what the internet seems to think about the states, and the US as a whole.


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38

Map of European attractiveness
Sure the sample size may be small, but it seems the overwhelming majority of people involved in the data-collection of this map strongly believe Sweden is where it’s at when it comes to attractive people.


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39

Global prevalence of obesity
While the “fat American” image seems to be echoed with some truth in this map, somehow Mexico, Venezuela, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa missed that update to their respective stereotypes.


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40

World driving orientation
Though I wish this were subdivided by regions into “left side of car” and “right side of car” appearance of steering wheels, this map demonstrates which side of the road people drive on, a completely different and equally nerve-wracking experience to the simple migration of the steering wheel to the other side of the car.


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41

Inverted land/ocean map
While not a real map in the sense that it doesn’t depict reality, this interesting shift illustrates what the world would look like if land was ocean and ocean was land.


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42

Different names for beer in European languages
An absolute must-memorize for any Europe-bound traveler, this map outlines the major types and names for beer in the various languages around Europe.


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43

World map of country flags
This almost painfully colorful map shows the world’s countries with their respective flags superimposed over the land. Here is a breakdown of every national flag, and the relative proportion of each color in the flag on a pie chart.


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44

World map of national IQ scores
Though Intelligence Quotient scores tend to only to be indicative or even suggestive of learning ability, and must always be taken with a grain of salt, this map proves interesting in the distribution of world IQ, and begs for a redefinition of “average” intelligence (particularly in the spread of light green). Again, Norway and Iceland stand to be recognized as outliers, though this time Italy, the UK, China, Mongolia, South Korea, and Japan join their ranks.


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45

Most famous popular musicians, by state
Sourced from Acclaimed Music, this distribution of “most acclaimed” popular musician from each state is like a history and pop music lesson all at once.


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46

World welcome map
Another must-see for the world traveler when planning a trip, this map compares the relative welcome-ness of countries to foreign visitors, with blues indicating “more welcome” and reds indicating “less welcome.”


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47

Penis size world map
Outlining the average penis size for the country in centimeters, this map alone serves as an interesting look at your fit in the global scheme, and an unfortunate statistical reinforcement for genitalia-related stereotypes. This map would be most interesting, however, when compared to a map of the distribution of the world’s nuclear weapons.


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48

Breast size world map
The trend in this map are the coloration of the countries by average breast cup size, ranging from green (A cup) to red (larger than D cup). Interestingly, there’s almost no discernable global trend I can find between breast size and penis size.


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49

World web browser map
Though perhaps unsurprising, there seems to be an about-equal distribution of national pride for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome in 2012. Representing Opera, however, Belarus stands alone.


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50

World map of most popular sports
America still loves its American football, but it seems the rest of the world generally prefers…football. The other major popular sports include: table tennis (purple), ice hockey (bright blue), cricket (bright red), wrestling (off-white), baseball (yellow), and basketball (orange).


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51

Europe's distribution of redheads
Perhaps rather obviously, it seems Ireland is the epicenter of red-headedness in Europe. What is surprising is the intense concentration of redheads in western Russia, somewhere north of Kirov, though my research did not return much as to why there might be such a colony.


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52

The Chinese map of Europe
This one takes a bit of explaining. Here is a map of Europe, based on the phonetic translations from country-names in Chinese to English. So, each country has a name in Chinese that sounds like how it's pronounced in its native language, but the Chinese characters used to create that pronunciation have literal meanings different from their sounds. These are those literal meanings.


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53

US House of Representatives, by religion
This outline of the major religions represented by the 435 members of the US House of Representatives includes: Anglican/Episcopalian, Baptist, Buddhist, Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Mormon, Muslim, Other Christian, Presbyterian, Uniterian, and Unspecified/None. As a US citizen, there are honestly twice as many religions on that list than I expected, which is probably telling in and of itself.


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54

Most popular surnames in Europe, by country
While pretty self-explanatory, this collection of by-country most-common last names shows that European countries represent at least two of the 10 most-common surnames in the world (those names are: Garcia, Wang, Zhang, Li, Smith, Müller, Gonzalez, Smirnov, Nguyen, and Hernandez).


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55

Most popular surnames in the US, by region
Broken up by regions, this map denotes the most popular surnames in the country, where size of print indicates portion of population with that surname, and color indicates origin of that surname. Almost all 10 of the world’s most popular surnames can be found (again, those names are: Garcia, Wang, Zhang, Li, Smith, Müller, Gonzalez, Smirnov, Nguyen, and Hernandez).


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56

Earth in reverse
It’s upside-down, backwards, the land and sea have been inverted, and the elevations and depths have been swapped. This is what the world would look like completely inverted.


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57

Area codes of Luda's "hoes"
I simply couldn’t resist. From Ludacris’ 2001 hit single “Area Codes,” this map chronicles every telephone area code in the United States where Ludacris claims to have had sexual relations with women. Those area codes are (by order of appearance): 770, 404, 718, 202, 901, 305, 312, 313, 215, 803, 757, 410, 504, 972, 713, 314, 201, 212, 213, 916, 415, 704, 206, 808, 216, 702, 414, 317, 214, 281, 334, 205, 318, 601, 203, 804, 402, 301, 904, 407, 850, 708, and 502. From his legendary conquests, some 0.5% of the entire world’s population has descended from Ghengis Khan, so it looks like Ludacris has some catching up to do.


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The post 57 maps that will challenge what you thought you knew about the world appeared first on Matador Network.

Preaching the gospel on Michael Sam

WHEN MICHAEL SAM, an All-American defensive end for the University of Missouri Tigers, came out as gay during an interview with ESPN last week, it sparked a lot of excitement that the NFL is in line to get its first active openly gay player. Sam is finishing up his senior year at Missouri and is considered a third- to fourth-round pick in the upcoming draft.

Apparently, though, not everyone is sharing in that excitement. Certain “anonymous NFL executives” have predicted Sam’s draft chances will worsen as a result of his revelation.

Dale Hansen, sportscaster for Dallas’s WFAA, has something to say about that. And we should all listen.

The post Dallas sports anchor preaches the gospel on future NFL trailblazer Michael Sam appeared first on Matador Network.

Travel writing tips: Become a camera

Photo Credit: kevin dooley via Compfight cc

The travel writing tips below are excerpted from new lessons at the MatadorU Writing course.

WE MOST COMMONLY describe place through our eyes. In some ways we can think of a narrator almost like a camera.

One thing to keep in mind however, is not to “get in the way” of the camera too often. Take this example:

I looked out over the vast playa as the sun was setting.

Notice how the narrator (“I”) is “in the shot.”

When we remove the narrator from the shot so it’s just a description of the terrain, the visuals tend to come out more direct and vivid:

The sun was setting over the vast playa.

As writers, we “get in the way” simply because we’re unconsciously stating what we saw, for example:

I saw taxis speeding down Avenida de Mayo.

But by not being super-conscious of exactly how each word affects the reader’s experience of the story, we may inadvertently “clog” the composition. Note how the unclogged version reads more crisply:

The taxis sped down Avenida de Mayo.

Sometimes this extra layer inserting yourself as narrator into the action (ex: “I saw”) is important however, especially if it allows you to reveal something about changing emotions or moments of new awareness. But again, this should be a conscious decision on how you’re trying to shape the narrative.

It’s also important to note that this sense of being a “camera” isn’t limited only to what the narrator “sees” but how he or she interacts in the story overall:

I climbed stairs zig-zagging upwards past dimly lit bars until I came to the top level of Sky Garden. I leaned against the bar and watched sun-bleached Australians dance with drinks in their hands to LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem.

Notice that if we remove the self-referential parts it allows the reader to “inhabit” the narrative in a much more direct way:

The stairs zig-zagged upwards past dimly lit bars until the top level of Sky Garden, where sun-bleached Australians danced to LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem.

How do your achieve a balance of “acting” vs. “narrating” in your storytelling?

To learn more about our programs in Travel Writing, Photography, and Filmmaking visit MatadorU.com.

The post Travel writing tips: Transforming your narrator into a “camera” appeared first on Matador Network.

Conversation with an almost-Olympian

All photos: Andy Cunningham

With the Sochi Winter Olympic Games now in full swing, we’re all becoming familiar with the names of the competing athletes. Deservedly so, as every athlete there has worked incredibly hard and each has an incredible story. But in sport, as in life and travel, much more is learned from the journey than the final destination.

Someone much wiser than myself once told me that dreams don’t mean shit unless you chase them down. If the dreamer is unwavering in their pursuit through the trials and tribulations, the highs and lows, the rejection, the frustration and heartbreak, and refuses to give up when the world is stacked against them, the dreamer becomes worthy of their dream. Ask anyone who has chased his or her dreams down, and the common thread will always be perseverance.

Life rarely works out the way you think it will. Nick Hanscom knows this age-old truth better than most. I first met Nick in the summer of 1997 on a soccer field in his newly adopted hometown of Sun Valley, Idaho. From the very beginning, it was obvious this skinny kid from Seattle had the kind of rare athletic talent that makes everyone around them appear to be in slow motion — the only problem was he knew it and was as cocky as he was talented. Like so many teenage boys, Nick had always dreamed of becoming a professional athlete, and from the way he mastered any sport he tried, it seemed like a foregone conclusion — especially to him. Sun Valley is a skier’s town, renowned for putting its native sons and daughters on the US Ski Team, so it was a natural progression for him to compete and excel on snow. His rise through the junior ranks was nothing short of meteoric.

“I started skiing bumps when I was 13 and by the time I was 16 I won the 2001 Jr. Olympics in Dual Moguls at Big Mountain, Montana, and tied for 9th in Duals at US National Championships in Waterville, NH. I won Jr. Olympics Dual Moguls again in 2002 at Sugarloaf, ME and followed that up the next week with a 5th-place finish in Duals in Finland at the 2002 Jr. World Championships. In 2003, I took 2nd at Jr. Olympics in Single Moguls at Steamboat, CO and then a 6th-place finish in Duals at Jr. World Championships in Newfoundland, Canada.

In a just a few years, I had become one of the best junior freestyle skiers in not only the country but the world. By the time I finished the 2002-03 season, I had already forgone a year of college and was thinking that at my current pace I would never have to go because I would make it so big in skiing…”

Partying his way through the off-season while flunking out of school at USD, he showed up to the US team selections in Park City out of shape and unmotivated, yet still managed a respectable showing due mainly to his incredible talent, a talent he was convinced was enough to take him to the top. The world had other ideas.

While skiing at home over Christmas, Nick’s ski tip hooked a rock and sent him cartwheeling towards the trees at over 60 miles an hour. Miraculously he didn’t end up paralyzed, but he did do significant damage to his shoulder, neck, and back. For the first time in his life, the impenetrable confidence that had so defined him was shattered. At the time, he shrugged it off and killed the nagging doubts with booze.

“I was off my feet for about a month and was probably sober for 5 minutes of that time. I finally got out of the sling and went to compete at a big Nor-Am event after doing nothing but drinking. I thought I could wing it off of my natural ability, and I was quickly humbled. That Nor-Am tour, all of my shenanigans caught up to me. I was skiing like shit, I couldn’t finish a run, and by the time the season ended I had no confidence left in myself.”

Nick, who had coasted for so long on his incredible talent and confidence, began a downward spiral into depression and self-medication that is the graveyard for so many big dreams. As Nick slipped deeper into the rabbit hole of alcohol and depression, he watched those closest to him succeed.

“All of my friends surpassed me and made the US Ski team and went on to be top 10 world ranked skiers and Olympians. I was happy for them, but it also made me feel worse about myself. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make anything work in life or in skiing. Skiing had become my entire life, I didn’t have anything else, so when skiing tanked my life tanked. I was a failure in school and now I was a failure at skiing. My ski friends were now on the US Team and my other friends were almost done with college and looking at going to law school and med school…starting their lives.

My family, who are all extremely educated, looked at me disdainfully, as I had barely any school done, and I wasn’t on the US Team, so they were like what the fuck are you doing?? And I was beginning to wonder the same thing. I would show up to training still drunk from the night before, go puke in the woods real quick and then rip a mogul run. I remember feeling like such a failure that I no longer had respect for myself and I doubt others had respect for me. I dealt with all of these negative feelings by partying a lot and burying them under gallons of booze.”

The years drifted by, and Nick’s name became synonymous with squandered talent. Just another golden child who thought it would all come so easy, and when it didn’t he dove into the numbing comfort of booze and a façade of not giving a shit. It’s a common enough story and one that rarely ends well. At the best it’s a life of regret, of should’ve / would’ve / could’ve and endless glory-days yarns spun from a bar stool. At worst it ends in tragedy, evidenced by the recent suicide of US Ski Team Aerialist and Olympian Jared ‘Speedy’ Peterson. Vowing that this would not be his fate, Nick went back to school and the gym to begin the hard work of resurrecting his talent with effort.

“The positivity coming from doing well in school and being in the gym again translated into my skiing. I began to feel confident about myself again, and at the 2007-08 US Ski Team Selections I won on one of the days. I was the only person to ever go from qualifying in 16th to winning. Unfortunately, on the other day I was in 3rd place after qualifying, and in finals I hooked an edge and missed the podium. It was a grand prix event which combines the results from the two days of competition. If had made the podium on that other day I would’ve made the US Ski Team…

I stayed positive, and the momentum carried into a great season for me. I was ranked 6th in the country, and at the 2008 US Nationals in Deer Valley I just needed to put down my run a couple of times to have a strong chance of either winning National Championships or staying in the top 7 on the points list, which would solidify a spot on the US Team for the next season. After so much doubt and struggle — all of the shit I had gone through over the past few years — the US Team was finally in my grasp once again. My dream was only a couple hours away.”

Very little in life tastes better than redemption, for very rarely are we given second chances in life — but sister fate had other plans for Nick. On the morning of what was to be his hard-won day of redemption, Nick blew his knee out on the first training run.

“My ski just stuck in the mogul funny and I hyper-extended and twisted my left knee so hard I did my acl, mcl, meniscus, and a huge tib-fib and femur bone bruise. I was so devastated I still have a hard time talking about it…I had finally climbed back up to the top of the mountain, and when I was one step away, I fell off.”

When it rains it pours, and after battling through the mental barriers of depression, Nick was dealt the crippling blow of a string of horrific injuries.

“I came back from that knee surgery only to blow out my other knee the following winter in 2009. I came back from that knee surgery only to blow out my ankle, then tear meniscus in my left knee, and then the final blow was when I hurt my back in December of 2010. When my dad, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Seattle, flew out to look at the MRI of my back, he told me there was no way I would be able to ever compete again. All of my lumbar discs were totally compressed to the point where there was no fluid in them. And the disc that did have fluid in it still was ruptured and all over my nerve root so my leg was like 75 or 80% numb. He told me I probably shouldn’t even jump again, certainly not flip.

I was so devastated. To be so close and then forced into retirement…I totally freaked and went on a giant bender. I was depressed and miserable. I would wake up to a beautiful sunny day and would feel so bogged down and unhappy it took everything I had just to get out of bed. I drank constantly the entire time I was there. I couldn’t stop thinking about how everyone was right. I had wasted all of my potential and couldn’t stop criticizing myself as a “fuck-up” and a “waste of talent.” I couldn’t forgive myself.”

Depression is a powerful force, and breaking out of a downward spiral can feel nearly impossible. As he slid deeper down the rabbit hole, he reasoned that the only real way out was to give up on skiing once and for all, go back to school, get a job, and get his shit together. Slowly but surely, the focus and energy he was putting into school and work dragged him away from the booze and out of the rut of depression. The positivity he was creating in life also drew him back into the mountains.

“While in school I couldn’t shake the feeling that despite my injuries I had a lot of gas left in the tank and a lot left to prove. In the winter of 2013, while in school and working full time, I began to train again at nights at the Utah Olympic Park and began competing in regional events on the weekends to build my points back up again. I skied the 2013 National Championships in Heavenly and got 13th in Duals, which wasn’t bad considering I had 60-plus hour weeks going with school and work.

But it was school and work that really helped me get my shit together. I graduated with a 3.72 in Economics from University of Utah in August of 2013 and took off to Australia, Zermatt, and then Apex BC for training which brought me to US Selections at Winter Park a few weeks ago, where I placed 3rd overall and missed that World Cup start by one spot in a ridiculously competitive international field of 75.”

With the third-place finish, Nick came up one spot shy of getting the World Cup start, a spot on the US team, and a shot at skiing in the Sochi Olympics, and while coming so close after going through so much does sting, Nick has become a battle-tested believer in the often-quoted idea that the journey is the destination, and will keep fighting.

“The comeback is not only about beating the odds and doing it when no one else but me thinks it can be done. Since I was 20 my career has been littered with “almosts” and chronic underachievement. Being a cocky kid coasting by on natural talent and low focus and work ethic caught up with me and burned me hard. I took my lickings and picked myself back up and have never had my head on more straight and my shit more together.

This time around it will be different. I’m not going on a bender because I missed my chance — I’m training even harder so I don’t miss the opportunity next time it comes. I can’t rest until my goal of skiing for the US Team and in a World Cup is accomplished. I set out to do this 16 years ago, and I don’t want to let myself down again. I’ve turned my life around the last several years, and this time around I’m doing it right.” [image error]

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1 in 3 women will experience what happens to the man in this film [NSFW]

In a Women’s and Gender Studies class I took in college, my teacher had the men role play what it felt like to be cat-called. It was super awkward. French filmmaker Eleonore Pourriat takes things one-step further in her role-reversal short film, “Opressed Majority,” where men are seen as the victims of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, and the women, their oppressors. I felt uncomfortable watching a man go through many of the same issues I’ve experienced.

While I know plenty of men who treat women with respect, the sad fact is that there are people out there who act this way, and think it’s perfectly fine. Women are victimized based on their appearance, their choice of clothing, the things they say. According to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault report, “nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men have been raped in their lifetimes,” and nearly 1 in 3 women will suffer from some form of sexual assault.

Is this short film an eye-opener? It certainly resonates deeply with me, but the real question is, how does it influence the “oppressed majority?”

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MatadorU Student of the Month: Jan

ONCE A MONTH, MatadorU faculty members get together to spotlight one standout student from a pool of faculty- and student-nominated weekly selections.

MatadorU Travel Writing and Travel Photography student Ana Lenz was selected as our very first Student of the Month for 2014. We sat down with her recently to learn more about about her experience taking both the Writing and the Photography courses concurrently, and the unique set of challenges she faces as a student for whom English isn’t her native language.

Congrats on being our first MatadorU Student of the Month for 2014! Tell us about yourself!

I was born and raised in Mexico. I currently live in San Miguel Allende, a small city in Central Mexico.

I’ve always been interested in the many expressions of art and I knew I had to find a profession related to it. Writing, cinema, photography, and architecture were in my mind. In the end, I chose to study architecture, but I’ve never stopped writing and learning about cinema and photography.

Right now, I work at an architecture studio in San Miguel Allende. My work there allows me to take some time off whenever we finish a project. I invest that time in fulfilling one of my biggest sources of joy in life: travelling.

By now, I have collected enough travel stories, pictures, and practical information, so this year I’ll start my own travel blog. This is one of the reasons why I enrolled in MatadorU, I want to make a professional blog, with stories worth reading.

Photo by January’s Student of the Month, Ana Lenz

What kind of stories do you hope to share with the world?

I feel a huge curiosity about human beings. They absolutely fascinate me.

Last week, I went to The Harmandir Sahib — The “Golden Temple” — in Amritsar. It’s where Sikhs guard the Adi Granth, the Holy Scripture. I entered the Gurdwara, the place where the Adi Granth is guarded. Everyone is allowed in, no matter which religion, sex or race they are.

There was this man who saw me and invited me to sit next to him while he chanted. At first sight, one might think we have nothing in common, right? He is a Sikh, while I don’t belong to any religion. We were born and raised on opposite sides of the world. He is at least forty years older than me. We don’t even share a language. And yet, he invited me to sit next to him, shared his chant with me, and said: “Welcome.” Then, we looked in each other eyes and smiled. In that instant, I knew that despite being very different, we shared a common humanity. With that gesture, he called me a human being and I called him a human being.

Those ephemeral instants that happen when we travel are very moving to me and are the ones that make all the tiredness and problems of travelling worth it. Those are the kinds of stories I want to tell: stories of the humanity we all share.

On your profile, you mentioned an upcoming trip to India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Do you want to tell us a bit more about your trip?

That’s right! I’m actually answering this interview at a rooftop restaurant in Agra, with a very interesting view of the life on the streets and on the other rooftops: kids juggling with ropes, women washing clothes, men drinking hot chai, loud motorcycle horns, cows walking around, and monkeys climbing into the houses.

I felt a lot of curiosity about India: its history, cultures, religions, traditions and social structure. I had to come and see it with my own eyes.

I didn’t come to document something in particular, I just wanted to learn as much as possible. India is its own fascinating, complex and frustrating universe. So far I’ve learnt a lot.

You’re enrolled in both the writing and photography courses. What inspired you to enroll in both courses?

Writing and photography can be complementary subjects. You can create art with words as much as you can create art with light, or as in my profession, art with space. If a piece of travel writing is complemented with great photography, or viceversa, then it becomes more complete. I enrolled in both courses so one could complement the other.

They have both also enriched my daily life. Because of the Travel Writing course I’m more aware now of the little details that surround my routine. Life doesn’t pass me by so easily now. And because of the Travel Photography course, I’m more aware of light and space, which enriches my profession as an architect.

What’s been the most challenging part of your MatadorU experience so far? Do you have any favorite parts?

The most challenging part has been writing in a language that isn’t my native one. I have to spend time translating words and looking for words I don’t even know to finally get a result that just doesn’t sound as I wanted. The structure of both languages is very different, so not only I have to translate the words, but I also want to make sure those words make sense, and that can take many hours.

But the great part of this is that I’m improving my language skills a lot, so not only I’m learning about Travel Writing and Photography, but also English.

My favorite part has been the feedback with the MatadorU faculty. Their knowledge has improved my writing and photography skills in many ways and I’m very thankful to them.

As one of our MatadorU students for whom English isn’t your first language, do you have any advice for students who are in a similar situation?

MatadorU is definitely attainable for non-native English speakers. I think it just might take a bit more time for them to finish the course, but that’s it.

My advice for them is to read as many books, magazines, newspapers, etc. written in English as possible, and watch movies without subtitles to get used to the way people really talk.

If they struggle, I’ve found that the native English speakers in the MatadorU community are really cool people who are willing to assist each other, so you can ask for a little help and connect with them on the way.

Student of the Month honorees are selected based on not only the quality of their work, but the progress they’ve made throughout the course, the effort and enthusiasm they show during their MatadorU journey, and their willingness to support and help their fellow students. Check out MatadorU.com for more information about our travel writing, photography, and filmmaking courses, and to learn how you can join Ana in our community of travel journalists from around the world.

The post Meet the MatadorU Student of the Month: Ana Lenz appeared first on Matador Network.

On Salt Lake City's 'snow culture'

Salt Lake City in the snow. Photo: Andrew Smith

1. The science

A wonderful phenomenon called the “lake effect” is a major contributor to the champagne snow Utah is famous for. Cold air moves over the warmer water of the Great Salt Lake, water evaporates into the clouds, and more snow falls on the mountains. The science is complex, but the result is localized and intense storms that can double predictions and keep the snow culture floating for days.

Jim Steenburgh, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, states that lake-effect snow’s “negative impacts are in terms of snarling traffic and potentially closing schools…. And then there are the positive benefits for Utah skiers, which is a deep powder day that boosts our winter sports economy.”

Lake-effect storms account for about 8% of Salt Lake precipitation during the winter. Depending on the snow year, that’s 30 to 50 inches per season. If the forecast says 5 inches, I’ll call my friend and bring dinner to his slope-side cabin. I may wake up to 3 inches, but there’s a good chance it’ll be 13 instead. Underestimating the power of the lake is a mistake you only make once.

2. The student culture

Photo: Brandon Dalton

With multiple colleges in the greater Salt Lake area, individuals come for school and study around their snow schedule. It’s more or less a sanctioned thing — the University of Utah runs a direct bus from campus to the resorts, and every mountain offers major discounts for students. We come for school, get hooked on the snow, and continue the balance for as long as possible.

I landed here eight years ago as a transfer student, drawn by a quest to find the closest nursing school to a ski resort. Pre-nursing courses were demanding, but by taking the occasional summer course and loading my fall semester, my winters were surprisingly free. On busy weeks, you’d find me with a pathophysiology book on my lap, crammed with three other friends in the back of a Subaru as we made the trek up canyon. An hour and two chapters later, I’d step out of the car less stressed and ready for another amazing day of skiing with friends.

3. The professional culture

From Black Diamond to Doppelmayr, many big names in the ski industry call SLC home. When your job is on the mountain or based around it, work becomes play and the ski lovers stay. The perks aren’t bad either. Free lift tickets and food, gear discounts and guided adventures — working in the ski industry pays back. You may not be the richest, but you’ll have the support of a community that trades hookups for the important things, like beer, food, and friends.

4. The work-play balance

Salt Lake City is the epitome of work meets play. With the mountains so close, the balance becomes easier here than maybe anywhere else in the country. I’m a nurse and I date an engineer. We both work 40 hours a week and still get 70+ amazing days on snow each year. With a little extra energy than most, we night ski 1-2 times a week and ski every weekend.

Out of work at 5, take the bus home, change, pack the car, grab a snack and caffeine, drive to Brighton, and ski from 6pm to 9pm when the lift closes. Dinner and drinks up canyon (at Molly Green’s, Solitude, or a friend’s cabin) or Thai takeout on the way home. When it’s this easy to make skiing your way of life, there’s no reason not to work and play in the same day.

5. The ridiculous accessibility

The Wasatch. Photo: vxla

There are 14 resorts within a few hours of SLC, and 11 within one hour. It takes about 45 minutes from standing downtown to sitting on a chairlift, half of which is a beautiful canyon drive. With an international airport five minutes from downtown, you can’t help but laugh when you land from Hawaii or LA and find yourself waist-deep in powder the same day.

From my house it takes about 10 minutes to get to the airport driving, or 30 minutes on the new Trax line. I can enjoy a leisurely brunch, grab a friend from the airport, stop by their house and drink coffee as they flick off their flip-flops and grab their ski boots, and make it to the mountain by early afternoon. There are few feelings greater than skiing with fresh sand and sea in your hair.

6. The rich history

Skiing has been an integral part of Utah since pioneers first settled here in the 1840s. Milling and mining led people up canyon, and 60 years later the first ski resorts were born. Founders such as Sverre and Alf Engen and K Smith turned their passion for skiing and the Wasatch Mountains into the current-day Alta and Brighton ski resorts. Old men whisper from the original walls at Alta Lodge, and black-and-white photos hang in most resort centers. They remind us of the dedicated mountain men who founded this lifestyle we love, and encourage us to continue living it to the fullest of our potential.

7. The powder flu

The “I might be ‘sick’ tomorrow” because it’s dumping snow is a more tolerated excuse here than in most cities. If you’re lucky enough to have friends who live up canyon, or live up canyon yourself, the impromptu sleepovers and carpooling phone calls happen faster than you can say “powder day.”

If the forecast calls for snow, I’ll start or be included in a 5-10 man text chain days before the storm actually hits. I’m lucky enough to have amazing friends in multiple near-slope locations, and the topics are always where to stay, who’s driving, and what to bring. We try to plan and work together 80% of the time. The other 20% is reserved for the all-powerful powder panic. Planned or not, my coworkers and boss know about my obsession with snow. This makes them surprisingly understanding when I ask to change shifts or come in late after a powder morning. I work hard when I’m at work and choose my days, but the snow support I feel in times of need is an unparalleled attribute that only a snow culture provides.

8. The community

Photo: dennis crowley

United by a common love of mountains, snow, food, drink, family, and friends, we come for the powder and stay for the community (and more powder). Nothing beats the yips and hollers of your favorite people enjoying a run, or the ‘cling’ of cocktail glasses at the end of a good day. The stomp of skis waiting for first chair at Brighton, the sound of avalanche bombs ringing through the tram line at Snowbird.

Salt Lake is a community bound by the love of snow and a happiness that is present on every content face on the mountain — sitting at Alta Lodge, feeling that euphoric exhaustion you can’t describe, and knowing the person across from you, holding a cold beer and eating free appetizers, feels it too.

Welcome to the community. Snow + Skiing = Happy People, Happy Friends, Happy Life.



This post is brought to you by Utah, home of The Greatest Snow On Earth®. With 11 ski resorts less than an hour from Salt Lake City International Airport, there’s plenty of powder for the perfect ski vacation.

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The Brazilian approach to funk music

Rio funk, known as funk carioca in Portuguese, owes its name to the North American groove-music genre. But history has it that DJs and MCs from the initial baile scene, particularly Furacão 2000, got the beats from both electro and Miami bass, filling it with generous doses of dirty tricks. The result is fun, bizarre, and always original as fuck — even when stealing from others.

For years now, funk carioca has essentially been the soundtrack of summer in Rio and sings the life of the favelas and local communities — hence the level of violence and sexuality in the lyrics that would put off even Miley Cyrus.

Funk’s local popularity shows no sign of vanishing — as proved by this current map of bailes in Rio. It’s also influenced a host of new genres around the country, most notably the ostentação (as in: ostentation), sort of a younger brother from São Paulo. Inspired by the reality and aspirations of economically ascendant Brazilians, funk ostentação in general talks about money and what it can buy.

Here’s a little of what Brazilian funk can teach you about the country.

“Megane,” MC Boy do Charmes

Coming from Santos, birthplace of ostentação, this is the MC who, alongside visual producer KondZilla, created what’s considered to be the first “ostentation” aesthetic, emulating the lifestyle portrayed in North American rap and RnB music videos: expensive booze, cars, motorcycles, clothing, jewelry. As they say, “Out with the HK, in with the Citroen.”

Consumerism is an important part of the economic boom Brazil has experienced in the past decade, and few forms of expression pay homage to it more than funk ostentação.

“O Gigante Acordou,” MC Daleste

Daleste was born in São Paulo and rapidly became a strong musical role model. His lyrics told of love stories, of childhood, and daily life in poor neighborhoods. He was huge on Brazilian YouTube and also at São Paulo’s bailes. Tragically though, Daleste was shot on stage during a gig last year. He was 20 years old.

Before being killed, Daleste wrote and recorded “O Gigante Acordou” (“The giant awoke”), about the street protests that happened all over Brazil in June of 2013, giving voice to the enormous dissatisfaction regarding the country that some prefer not to speak about. But his lyrics also told about the feeling of hope, that a day will come when all is going to get better.

“Beijinho no Ombro,” Valesca Popozuda

Former gas station attendant and proud owner of a rearguard that would send Kim Kardashian home to cry, the inimitable Valesca has sung about how she’s “met Lula at the favela, and he couldn’t take his eyes of my ass,” among less printable lyrics. The unbelievable music video for “Beijinho no Ombro” (“Kiss on the Shoulder”) tries to imitate the ‘diva + dancers’ modus operandi of so many North American videos, while Valesca sings about how she wants her inimigas (enemies) to live long enough to watch her rise to fame.

The current economic climate has done wonders to Brazilian self-esteem. We feel deserving of copying foreign styles and fashions while maintaining our local jeitinho.

“Na Pista Eu Arraso,” MC Guimê

After overcoming many difficulties, subculture kids and their Brazilian funk now proudly mix external references — the North American looks and moves, the sunglasses, the Instagram selfies. It’s time to sing their success, to claim the prestige of the VIP area, the expensive champagne, the hot girls walking at their side.

Guimê is probably the biggest name in ostentação (he prefers to call it just “funk”) and, as anyone who’s survived difficult times, he has loads of self-esteem. Sexism and presumption — it’s all here.

“Envolvência e Quebradeira,” Bonde do Passinho

Passinho (small step) dancing was born at the bailes, a mixture of movements from funk, frevo, capoeira, and hip-hop. This video shows a day in the life of some kids as they go to release new music at the baile. From the competition between dancers came this bonde (group) to show how funk is evolving to something else.

This is where the mix of influences and genres, so characteristic of Brazil, reaches new heights. The cultural sampling and popular creativity are explicit in the passinho, a dance that, as many Brazilian streets, is not for amateurs. [image error]

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Notes from a big wall climber

All photos: Ben Ditto

The 1200′ sandstone formation known the climbing world over as Moonlight Buttress stood proud in the sun’s radiant light. Four different parties were cast about the wall; it looked like a game of connect the dots. Which rope connected which person to what and where. Spring Break was in full effect, and it seemed like the university kids were chomping at the bit for this route. Some seemed to be going at it full wall style with multiple bivys, others were in day aid parties, and some even seemed to be trying out the free climbing. For many this wall is people’s first — for me it wouldn’t be a first, but it would be a sort of milestone in my climbing career.

Every big wall free climber I know has either ticked this iconic line, or it’s on their list. It had been entered into my queue some years back when Kate Rutherford and Madaleine Sorkin made the first all-female free ascent. At the time my wall experience was limited. I had not long moved from the South to California and was still cutting my teeth on the granite in Yosemite. I’d previously really only been a sport climbing and bouldering aficionado.

As the years progressed, so too did my climbing experiences and my knowledge of how to manage these bigger stones. I made mistakes, I achieved goals, and I found myself with a fortunate quiver of climbing partners. Each partnership had taught me something different, and it became more and more evident to me that climbing partnerships took on a deeper meaning than someone willing to belay you. They were relationships; I relied on my partners to be on time, to be positive, to be supportive, to be patient, to be willing to let me make mistakes and figure them out, to belay just so, and on and on. And I felt I was expected to do the same. A lot of talk had been had with different people about possibly teaming up for this wall, but in the end my real dream was to do it with another female, all free.

As a single woman it has never been terribly hard finding a partner, but the majority of them have been males, and since these partnerships start to take on the characteristics of a relationship, this has always come with its struggles. One or the other usually starts to develop emotional feelings, and these are either addressed and reciprocated or it turns really ugly. Imagine your climbing partner crush belaying you on your project after you’ve just told them how you feel and they stare back blankly at you saying, “Oh, I thought we were just climbing together,” — there goes the send and your self-esteem.

At some point one or the other can become jealous if they go off climbing with someone else — questions about what the partnership really is come into play, and it’s at this point that things either continue along or break off. Once the partnership has subsided, it’s time to move on and find a new partner. Usually this is a fun and trying time — you try a little of this and you try a little of that, but eventually what you decide on is a steady partner who’s willing to be there for those alpine starts and late-night descents.

I’ve been fortunate in my years in Yosemite to climb with local legends like Surfer Bob, Big Fall James, Jake from the Gate, little Sue McDevitt, and Jobee Whitford. I became partners with Ron Kauk, one of the most influential people of my life. I even met my husband, Ben Ditto, climbing Yosemite’s walls in 2009. We form a great partnership and relationship. We’re compatible in our climbing and hold similar aspirations, from sport climbing in Europe to free climbing big walls.

In the last years, some of what we’ve had the opportunity to do together was free climb several walls in a day, including: Lotus Flower Tower – VI 5.10d, Cirque of the Unclimbables; Original Route/Women at Work – VI 5.12R, Mt.Proboscis; Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome – VI 5.12b, Yosemite Valley; Romantic Warrior – V 5.12b, The Needles; and the West Face of Leaning Tower – V 5.13, Yosemite Valley. But through all these times I still longed for a partnership of a different kind. I longed for my female counterpart — the other chick who could crush the cracks, climb the steeps, and dominate the boulders, someone who knows how to build anchors, haul a bag, and generally speaking, hold their own. I craved the experience of facing challenges with someone of similar build so that we could learn from each other. I had become friends with Kate Rutherford, and I admired the partnership she had with Madaleine — I wondered where my equivalent lay.

All my searching and waiting led me to Sandra early in 2012 — she was strong, she was well-rounded in many aspects of climbing, she was petite, and all in all seemed solid in character. We met at the boulders, and I think it was love at first sight. Through the last year we became more acquainted with one another — we developed a repertoire, we helped push one another and supported each other on numerous projects and ambitions, and soon we established a tick list together. Moonlight Buttress was pushed to the top of this list. It seemed like all my dreams of finding a compatible and capable female partner were coming true. Very often she and I would blow off our significant others in order to climb together. Our partnership walks the line of a relationship, and in the winter of this year when Ben and I were leaving for three months to climb in Europe, I was nearly heartbroken to have to leave her behind. We kept in touch weekly about our climbing experiences, our latest sends, our struggles, and the upcoming training we would be doing when I returned home — we kept the Moonlight vision alive.

Finally, in mid-March we found ourselves racking up in Zion National Park. Our first climb of the trip together was Shunes Buttress – IV 5.11c. It went great; we climbed well together. We kept it slow and steady as we dialed in our systems and belays and got the feel of how we would be moving together in the sandstone wonderland. Some days later, we were crossing the icy waters of the Virgin River and making our way to the base of Moonlight. There were a few parties at the base and on the intro pitches; a few different times in the day we found ourselves waiting on them. As the time ticked on, we maintained a positive outlook — we were giving our best onsight attempt, and we were doing it together. Unfortunately, as the pitches kept coming so did the waiting, and by the time we were standing underneath pitch 8 we realized we would be doing a bit more waiting and not topping out in the light — I wasn’t very interested in sorting out the last hard pitches via headlamp in the dark, and so we made the decision to rap the route. It was okay, as both of us had fallen on some of the climbing below.

As we descended down to the sandy, vegetated slope via headlamp, we came up with a plan to return in two days and try again. But early on the morning Sandra and I were due to go back, she got word that her mother was really ill and was urged to go be with her. We both knew previously that this could be a factor in our plans, and we had been playing it fast and light. But that morning, as she stood in the door of my van, tears in her eyes, I knew she was not only sad about her poor mother but also about our unfulfilled dream. Life is present. and with that comes responsibility — she needed to leave and I understood completely. I was so sorry to hear the news and very sorry to lose her as a partner.

Plan rewrite started for me. Mason Earl, a fellow First Ascent athlete, was coming into Zion in a few days to meet up with us for some work for Eddie Bauer. He had climbed the route the previous year, but I wondered if he would be interested in doing it again with me — he said he would be down. I waited for him to arrive and off we went.

Moonlight is such an iconic route in equal parts climbing quality and scenic beauty. Ben really wanted to shoot us on the route, and Eddie Bauer had expressed to us that they really wanted portaledge shots — so we took this idea into consideration when we made a plan for our climb. We decided we’d do the wall with a bivy, which would allow us to start late in the day and have us climbing the crux dihedral in the shade. We started late on Sunday and blasted through to pitch 7, the infamous slot pitch. On my attempt with Sandra, I had fallen here a couple of times — this time I climbed it efficiently and effectively. I belayed Mason up and the photographers met us there. We set up the ledge, cooked dinner, enjoyed the sunset, and got some great shots.

We slept on the wall that night with the canyon to ourselves. It was stunning. I thought about Sandra several times. I was enjoying the experience of being on the wall with Mason, but at times I could tell he was a bit bored. He was there for support and I appreciated it greatly, but it was the same old thing. I was once again climbing with a stronger male partner who could jam his .5 fingers snuggly into the 1-inch cracks — we could hardly relate at times.

The next morning, Ben wanted to get shots of me on pitch 8 in the first light. It was cold, but I racked up and set off anyway. I was freezing and moved slowly. Looking down at the belay, I could tell Mason was freezing, too. I made it about halfway up when I was totally numbed out in both hands and feet and slipped out. I lowered down, cleaned the gear, and rested a minute. I tried to thaw out and tried again, but it was a similar experience. I got too cold, and it was a brutal warmup. I thought to myself that we should have just kept climbing the day before — that it would have been easier then — but so it was and here we were.

I slipped out again — this time flash pumped. I continued up to the belay and asked Mason if I could try again, and he didn’t mind. So I lowered down, cleaned the gear, and rested for about 10 minutes. The gauzy haze of clouds was parting and it was warming up. After some food and water I set off again. This time I made it no falls. The rest of the route went smoothly enough and we were topping out by midday. I had become one of the women on a short list who have free climbed this route. I was grateful to Mason for playing along, but I was saddened a little not to be high-fiving with Sandra.

The route had been a challenge for me. It’s not the hardest or longest thing I’ve ever climbed, but it offers up three pitches in a row of one of the single hardest sized cracks for me. Being 5’0″ and with small hands, the 1-inch cracks never truly provide me with any solid jams — it’s neither fingers nor hands, and there’s no real finesse to climbing that size.

I was psyched to climb through those pitches, and I think I even learned some slight nuances in technique thanks to Mason. It was a great accomplishment and I’m thankful to have experienced some time there with Sandra. In the end I know it was a stepping stone on our journey together as partners, and while we didn’t get the chance to complete this one together, I know where to find a solid female to hold the rope for me and do her fair share of getting us up the wall. [image error]

* This post was originally published at Thoughts and Things from a Bird’s View and is reprinted here with permission. All photos courtesy of Ben Ditto.

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