July 2008 | India
Our PBS expedition begins looking at water and its effect on humanity, specifically India. In Montana we take water for granted. It snows in the winter, rains in the spring and our local reservoir in Hyalite Canyon fills up. Open the tap and out comes water. Aside from a faint chlorine smell, it is clean and delicious. When I pay my water bill there are a few tips on how to save water: the resultant costs of leaky faucets and the best time to water the lawn. But past this, I am blissfully ignorant.
In Delhi we are confronted with a different reality. Water is scarce. Vendors sell glasses of water from handcarts. Hotel guests are urged to conserve with shorter showers and to use less linen and towels. The trees and plants - eking out an existence in the concrete reality of one of planet’s largest cities - are parched. The monsoon is on its way north, yet to arrive. For the millions of people in this city water is a very real issue.
As in Montana, the water arrives in the mountains, is stored and then slowly released over time. Reservoirs are predominantly the natural type: glaciers. The ice builds up over time from annual snowfall and then is slowly released over time. For millennium, these have been the source of water. For the past twenty years the high Himalaya has been a place I visited for fun. 
Climbing and not much else.
Yet this time we were to look at something a bit different. Are the glaciers changing? Are the getting bigger or smaller? How do these changes affect the millions of people that depend on water?
- Conrad
June 16, 2008 | Along the Ganges River, India
Rivers are the lifeblood of water. They are the most essential source of the substance that sustains life on earth. Their age far exceeding human civilization, they are the strongest connection we as humans have with our planet.
Each continent has its major river, the one all others are compared to. In South America the Amazon reigns. The Nile runs from the heart of Africa to the Mediterranean, a cultural conduit from the cradle of humanity. For India & the Himalaya, the Ganges is the river. Sourced high in the Himalaya glaciers and flowing a 1000KM TK to the Bay of Bengal this river supports 500 million people. This river provides more than physical sustenance from crops and well being. It is central to the Hindu religion.
The Gangotri Glacier, located on the crest of the Himalaya is the source the Ganges River. Snow, which accumulates in the shadow of 22,000-foot peaks, is compressed into ice, which over time due to its elasticity flows down to a lower elevation and melts. This melt water is the original source of the Ganges.
During mid June this year I joined a team of journalists from PBS-NOW to look into to correlation between glaciers, their relative health and the humans that live from the Ganges. “On Thin Ice” is the title of the one-hour special, which will be presented by David Brancaccio this, coming January. Glaciers across our planet are melting an accelerated pace, a fact that regardless of its cause, that will have severe impacts on humanity. The loss of glaciers is clearly visible and backed by straightforward data. The Himalayas, which separate the Indian subcontinent from Asia, are home to over 8000 glaciers. These high altitude frozen reservoirs are the source to the five major Asian rivers. These rivers in turn sustain a population of 1 billion people. Melting glaciers are forecast to flood in the near term 50 years as they melt out which will be followed by drier seasonal rivers. By visiting the Gangotri Glacier and the Ganges River to see the impact of glacier recession.
We began our journey in Delhi the capital of India. Meeting scientists, farmers, and pilgrims allowed us to get a glimpse into the Ganges and its significance.
- Conrad
May 21, 2008 | It is sixteen years to the day that my mentor Mugs Stump perished.
Mugs was guiding the south buttress of Denali when on the way down a crevasse bridge gave way and buried him. His rope led into a jumble of ice and snow. There was no hope.
At the time, in 1992, I was 29 and the world was my oyster. Climbing and being in the wilderness was just about all I lived for. My core group of climbing partners had yet to experience the devastation of death in the mountains. Yeah, stuff like that happened, but it didn’t happen to us. We rationalized the game with silly explanations like our abilities were based on experience; we wouldn’t be in a dangerous spot like that and we had better equipment. Of course when someone close to you perishes all this philosophy flies out the window. It can and will happen to all of us.
Mugs was a natural athlete. He played football at Penn State under the tutelage of Joe Paterno. His true calling was in the mountains. In the 80’s he was one of the preeminent alpinists. From the wind-ravaged summits of Patagonia to the bone-numbing cold of Alaska, Mugs traveled the world in pursuit of adventure. Mugs was 13 years my elder and for a myself as a young man, a valued mentor with lots of vision and experience.
For Mugs there was no greater joy than being outside in the great big open. There was nothing more fun than pulling into parking lot under the stars, falling asleep to the anticipation of an early start. The beep of the alarm would coax us out the comfort of our sleeping bags to the stove. A cup of coffee warmed and motivated us. Once we were a half hour in, with trees and the wind around us, we were at ease with ourselves and the world around us.
We miss you Mugs. Thanks for the years of inspiration.
- Conrad
April 25, 2008 | Summer vacation has its roots in agriculture, when the majority of our nation lived an agrarian life. The family pulled together to work on the land. It was a time for teachers to integrate into their communities. The provenance of spring break is a little more mysterious. In Montana spring break is the transition from winter to hopefully spring.
With winter still in its grip, our family tradition is to pile into the mini van for a trip to the red rock country of southern Utah. 
Our goal this year was the eastern side of Canyonlands National Park and Indian Creek Canyon. The drive south crosses the divide at the Idaho – Montana border, that being the high point of our journey. There we marveled at the 10-foot tall snowdrifts. Snow camping was not our plan. Sand, steep cracks for climbing, a crackling campfire and the company of several other families was our goal.
The Wingate sandstone that defines Indian Creek must have been the inspiration for the Road Runner cartoon series. Looking out over the slender sandstone spires, cliffs ringing the valley like a massive red curtain and the meandering wash with the occasional grove of cottonwood trees one can imagine Wiley E. Coyote chasing the elusive road runner. I just hoped there would be no falling anvils!
The Park Service campground provided our home for the week. Ringed by sandstone formations and slot canyons, our children explored the terrain on their own time. 
We parents cooked camp meals over sputtering stoves, confident that the children were being safe. They knew what a cliff was and were not going to fall off. Or at least we grownups comforted each other with that thought. By allowing the kids to rat around, we gave them a chance to discover the world for themselves, without a set of rules. Knowing that it is a potentially dangerous environment, we also signaled to the kids that we trusted them to make good decisions. Empowering children with these responsibilities makes them confident. Which, from my view, is a good attribute for children to have.
- Conrad
April 09, 2008 | As a child my parents would haul my siblings and I out for the Sunday afternoon hike. Into the station wagon we would pile with Dad at the wheel and drive north across the Golden Gate Bridge towards Mt.Tamalpias or Point Reyes National Monument. Once we arrived at the trailhead, we would bolt off in all directions as our parents closed up the car and readied a pack with the days’ lunch in it.
The trail signified the beginning of the wild. Sure, it was well maintained and visited by thousands of like-minded people annually, yet to me as a little kid, it was full of wonderment and the unknown. I would race along, imagining myself to be Daniel Boone or some other larger than life explorer. 
The towering and magnificent trees were a source of great mystery. A mountain lion could be lurking behind one, ready to pounce on my tender body. I had to be aware! My brother and I would find a pile of twigs and build miniature forts on the side of the trail, small houses for beetles and similar insects.
Eventually we would find a place to set up a picnic. Our adventures had led to an appetite, one Mom was most happy to satiate. A sandwich, an apple and a cup of juice were a far cry from the fare of Lewis and Clark, yet to the mind of a seven-year-old, surrounded by trees, insects and birds, with no sign of human incursion, it was wild. Big and daunting wild.
I realize now that the effort my parents took to introduce the wilderness were key in shaping who I am now. When my wife Jenni and I take our boys out to the woods we have a chance to connect with the kids in an unobstructed manner. There is nothing to buy, no rides to ride, just family and the woods.
And these are the best moments. Both now and 40 years ago.
- Conrad
March 27, 2008 | Katmandu on a winter’s night is a unique place. People are tucked away in their houses, the aroma of charcoal braziers mixes with the humidity drifting up from the terai. Even with 4 million people in a small valley, there is a hint of the exotic. 
Perhaps I have read too much Rudyard Kipling and I imagine my self-alive 150 years earlier. With no jet aviation let alone the internal combustion engine mounted to four wheels.
Perhaps this is it… my love for nature and the outdoors. I’m perpetually trying to get back to a place and time that is a compilation of my imagination’s best moments. Well – if that is what it is I certainly don’t mind.
I’m in Katmandu for the fifth annual Khumbu Climbing School, a vocational training program for the high altitude climbers of Nepal. The climbers that are with me are here to share their expertise on climbing with the local Nepali people. Our goal is to make climbing (guiding) on the tall peaks safer for the Sherpa – the ones who do the majority of the work and suffer the most of the consequences.
The Khumbu is a special place. The Sherpa people that live in the region are super friendly and have a balance in living with nature. Their villages are within the Sagarmatha National Park – which means they live close to wild places. Land that is arable has been tended for centuries, coaxing potatoes and barley from the sandy soil. It seems the only wildness we find are the high mountains, rising tall above the villages and monasteries. Is it possible that there is actual wildness in these mountains or is it merely a postcard backdrop to a human landscape?
Certainly it isn’t the wilderness one comes to think of in Alaska or Siberia, where human impact is far away and passing when it arrives. But it isn’t the urban landscape that covers much of our delicate planet. Hidden in the steep canyons are tall pine trees, home to squirrels and birds. 
In the under story one can see the occasional musk deer or if one is lucky and patient a snow leopard. As a climber, the cliffs and peaks call me with their unexplored and mysterious faces and ridges. Here, far above where grasses grow is the stark, desolate wilderness of the high alpine. Trapped in perpetual cold, clad by snow I find my greatest joy being in these high mountains.
Knowing there is wildness, just beyond, in places my imagination can visit and my eyes report upon, is what sustains my drive to be in the woods. The finest moments of my life – from being with my grandfather on the upper Tuolumne River fly rod in hand as a wide eyed six year old to standing on the summit of our shared planet as an incredulous 44 year old – are inextricably tied to the wild. Without it I wouldn’t be who I am.
And if we extrapolate this to the bigger picture, what would our world be without wilderness?
- Conrad
March 5, 2008 | When we last left each other I was in the narrow canyon of Ouray, Colorado. 
Ice climbers mad folk one and all that find happiness scaling daggers of frozen water temporarily suspended in space. Our tribe. We are bound by gravity, driven by the lure of adventure and inspired by the potential a new dawn brings.
Does this spirit of outdoor tribe transcend cultures and continents? As I drive down State Highway 550 to the Montrose regional airport I think about my friends and our passion for wild places. It makes our life complete. Like a secret handshake we greet each other, share the adventure and hold each other’s gaze a second longer knowing we are going back into the fray. “Be careful… be safe… hello to your family and see you soon.”
From Montrose I bump over the Rockies, a trip that just 100 years ago would have been a massive undertaking in the winter. And today? By the time I finish a tiny bag of pretzels we are landing. The flight connects to LAX, the western terminal for the Pacific Rim. Shuffling between waxed floors, pressured counter help and bored security staff I look for a bit of raw dirt. A vestige of wilderness. None to be found.
Once in the jet I’m airborne for 15 hours for a direct flight to Hong Kong. My connecting flight to Katmandu departs this evening and I have 8 hours to find something wild. A modern train whisks me from the airport past high rises that invoke images of the Emerald City from the Land of Oz. At first I think they are office towers – and then I see laundry drying 20 stories up. Do these people get outdoors? Is wilderness part of their life? Once in Kowloon I walk towards a small park. A group of men and women, who have put their youth, their backs into society and have been rewarded with time move in unison. 
They stretch their bodies and move their arms as if doing battle with slow moving thick air. I’m happy for these calm practitioners of Tai Chi. Their tribe is about them and they have a small bit of open space to relax in.
I find no wild in the concrete canyons of Hong Kong. Yet I find adventure. Walking down an alley, with no direction and no plot I am steered by what catches my attention. It is as if I am in a forest. Each bit of sensory input going through my mind. It has a primal feel to it. A small bun shop piques my sense of smell. My ears open to the sound of a conversation between two friends. Not knowing Cantonese I sense happiness between the two. When I see someone smile I too smile. The damp hot air escaping from a building vent makes me wonder how many people live in the building and what they all do.
From the side street I find the main road, ask a man the direction to the subway / train which will lead me back to the airport. Once through security I step back into the realm of hyber speed transport. My flight boards for Katmandu and i think of the wilderness I'm going to. I am happy.
- Conrad
January 2008 | The New Year begins with a brand new day. I think of the blue sky, the cold crisp Montana winter and think, “Why not go outside and play?”
It is a logical thought, being that I was raised with wilderness values and sharing them with my kids is the best thing possible.
So we rally into the woods behind our house in Bozeman, Montana. The woods are silent under a slender blanket of snow; the sun slightly thinned by a cover of clouds and what in the spring and summer is a meadow of flowers, simply a stark canvas of white. Our three sons are in the same landscape, but they don’t “see” it as I do. For them it is a place to sled, build snow forts and engage in the timeless sport of hucking snowballs. As I stand to the side, coaxing a bit of heat from the stove for the mandatory hot chocolate, I realize that life is a circle. I was the rambunctious kid playing in the snow; my dad was the one looking at the landscape from a philosopher’s view. He taught and so I teach the next generation.
Next stop – the Ouray Ice Festival. Nestled in a crease of the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, Ouray is the gathering of the tribe. What tribe is this? The tribe of ice climbers. From one vantage, the most ridiculous sport one can imagine, swinging knives into frozen waterfalls. Waterfalls that will fall down. Waterfalls that are dangerous. Yeah – this is why we like ice climbing. Danger. Risk life and you know how precious it is. And when it is precious you rejoice in its presence. And those that groove on it? They are your best friends. Warren MacDonald – lost his legs when a boulder pinned him in Tasmania. Fire? More so than ever. Malcolm Daly – an old school bro who on the 21st of May some years back pitched off a climb. Shattered an ankle only to lose it a year or two later. Motivation? Never ebbed. Ines Papert – her climbing partner and friend Hari Berger buried under tons of ice a day before his daughter first breathes. Drive? Best mixed climber – regardless of gender. Timmy O’Neill – his brother defiant in his wheel chair, flipping self-absorbed cell phone drivers off. And just last year, his partner falling and landing at the base of climb. Life gone and a dark set of questions he’ll ask of himself and never be able to answer. Purpose? Laughter and a smile.
This is our tribe.
Forged under duress, with the pain of loss ever present. Yet as any smithy will tell you, the hotter the fire and the more forceful the strike, the stronger the steel. This is our mettle. And once a year we gather together, to laugh, to cheer, to motivate, to commiserate and to share a tear for our fallen.
Being outdoors offers us a connection to the primal past. As we were 40,000 years ago – when we domesticated fire and wolves became dogs. This is our life and this is how we choose to live it. To the elemental.
Go out and find it. If it finds you – all the better. Embrace it and see where it takes you. You’ll (by my estimation) be most surprised.
- Conrad