We begin a new series on WildSnow: Photo Story. The idea is to tell a story with minimal words and an image or two. If you have something in mind you’d like us to consider, feel free to ping us with an email.
There is so much beauty in the world. Much of it, perhaps, lacking in this gear explosion within the confines of a rented room in Bozeman.
I’m swinging through to help my 19-year-old head out on his first Alaska adventure. The beauty is the child, his love for the mountains, and his raw excitement; not the gear explosion. I’m always the parent. He’s got about 12 hours to get it together.
Below, Chris Labosky illustrates that oftentimes the gear explosions coalesce into only what you need.
Chris Labosky (@chris.d.labosky) illustrates that oftentimes the gear explosions coalesce into only what you need. Photo: Aidan Whitelaw.
Jason Albert comes to WildSnow from Bend, Oregon. After growing up on the East Coast, he migrated from Montana to Colorado and settled in Oregon. Simple pleasures are quiet and long days touring. His gray hair might stem from his first Grand Traverse in 2000 when rented leather boots and 210cm skis were not the speed weapons he had hoped for. Jason survived the transition from free-heel kool-aid drinker to faster and lighter (think AT), and safer, are better.
3 comments
The bedroom in my apartment looks much like this all the time. Varies by season. I find it comforting.
Hi Jack. I hear you. A text this AM from a friend I sent the photo to…”Yeah / from this perspective, it all looks pretty normal.” I need to stop dadding. I’m trying to embrace it. Still little progress at 6:45P.
Tell me all about it..god, yeah, i hear y’all ..but then, that’s how it is with most kids, most don’t require gear-hoarding daddies to foment their inner chaos ..i seem to recall Andrew McLean years back fretting about having kids..and a houseful of Chinese injection-molded plastic .. but it’s a chicken-and-egg game..i happen to have a 12-year-old who’s never been much into traditional toys, nor much taken with C21 console-gaming fetishes – relatively tidy this, hardware-wise, i think – and, for the moment, he leaves the ski/climbing gear to me..but he’s obsessed with power tools, all that is mechanical-electrical-tech, making and building things from whatever material, wood, plastic, metal, carbon fiber etc..to the point where our front room often resembles a landfill site..it’s a bit frightening sometimes .. but then it all distills into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozZbyp9UbRo&t=366s