Archive for the ‘Personal Work’ Category

Spring Touring in Little Cottonwood Canyon

May 31st, 2010

These are from a tour I did a month ago with my friend Bryce up in Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Bryce is skinning up Grizzly Gulch on the splitboard system he and his brother developed for the company they founded, Karakoram.  This is your average beautiful late spring day in the Wasatch, although the clouds started to roll in on us towards the end of our climb.  The next day kicked off a huge storm that dumped seven feet of snow!

Spring Fly Fishing Trip

May 25th, 2010

My friend Paul and I got out for a short fly fishing trip a few weeks ago in northeastern Utah, on the Green River just below the Flaming Gorge Dam.  It was my first experience with fly fishing, I loved it!  Of course it started dumping snow on the way there, in typical form for this “spring” we’re having in Utah.  We camped out the first night and awoke to six inches of snow on the tents!

I didn’t do too much fishing in the snow on the first day – it would have been a tough day to learn.  I always enjoy taking pictures in crappy weather though!

Sage and Luna loved every minute of it!

We had better weather on the second day – It was warm enough to float down the river in the drift boat.  Paul taught me a little bit about casting and I caught my first fish.  Paul caught this fish above on the first day, in the snow.

Cape Coast and Elimina Castles, Ghana

February 9th, 2010

It took me a while to get this post up, in part because it was a struggle to figure out what to say about the experience of visiting the castles at Cape Coast and Elimina, which were used to hold slaves before shipping out to the new world as part of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.  Leah wrote a great description of our visit which is included below.  The only thing I can think to add now that I look back is that I had a really powerful feeling of empathy for the people that passed suffered in these places hundreds of years ago.  It was a humbling experience.

Our tour of the coast of Ghana took us to the old slave castles, one of which Obama visited when he came to Ghana this past summer.  Castles is kind of an ironic word as I always think of princes, princesses and overall riches when I hear the term castles, but these white washed castles served a dark purpose for over three hundred years.  These large fortresses were built by the Portuguese, Dutch and English and were at the center of slave trading in the Gold Coast region.  Once Ghana gained its independence from the British in 1957 these fortresses were finally in the hands of the Ghanaian people and over the past few decades renovations were completed to make these castles accessible to tourist and are now listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  From the outside the most striking part of these buildings is the white walls contrasting with the surrounding colorful African city and the blue ocean and sky.  This is in stark contrast to the dark insides where we were lead down into the slave dungeons that held hundreds of men and women for months in rooms with minimal light and ventilation and no plumbing facilities to speak of.  Slaves were held in these dark, dank rooms until ships carrying guns and liquor arrived which were traded in the courtyard of theses castles for live men and women.  The slaves were then taken through the “Door of No Return” and packed on to boats on the way to Europe and the Americas. The riches and development of the western world came from man power taken from this area of Africa.  Visiting these castles was a powerful experience and a made us reflect on the injustices of one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity.

Wedding and Funeral Decoration – Cape Coast, Ghana

December 14th, 2009

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We still have a few more posts of pictures and stories to publish from Ghana.  After I get through all of my holiday orders you will see them here!

Elimina Castle and Fishing Boats – Elimina, Ghana

November 24th, 2009

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We are back in the States, but there are a few more posts worth of pictures to share.