Photography Archives

A Siem Reap Weekend Trip And Photography Tour

Matt — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 13:42:34 +0000

THIS POST WAS CREATED IN PARTNERSHIP WITHYOUR HOLIDAY EXPERTS FOR UNIQUE TRAVEL EXPERIENCES
kkday.com

My girlfriend and I were looking for a place to visit on a long weekend in early December. Being in Bangkok, we had lots of cool nearby options. When she told me she hadn’t been to Angkor Wat, I was like, “In that case, we definitely have to have to go.”

I’d been there once before (you can read about that trip here) and had been blown away.

Note: I’m in some places (like the title) I refer Angkor Wat for convenience because that’s what most people know it as, even though Angkor Wat is actually only one temple in the much larger city, which is called Angkor Thom (the great city).

Angkor Thom is one most impressive historical sites in the world. In its heyday (around the 9th to 15th century AD) to say it was the largest civilization in the world is an understatement. The city covered 1000 square kilometers making it bigger than modern-day Paris and several times larger than the next biggest city of the time (Tikal, Guatemala) and its temples and buildings used more stones than all the pyramids in Egypt.

December is also a pretty ideal time to visit because it’s both one of the driest and coolest months.

We were looking for a relaxing getaway, so we didn’t want to overbook ourselves with activities. So, we arranged this itinerary:

Day 1: Arrive in the afternoon, check in to the hotel, and relax.
Day 2: Full-day Angkor Wat photography tour from 5am to 6pm.
Day 3: Sunset cruise on Tonle Sap Lake from 4pm – 8pm

So, the first thing we did when arrived was check in to our hotel for some R&R.

Chilling Out At Tresor D’Angkor

I was very happy when we arrived at our hotel, the Tresor D’Angkor. It’s only 10 minutes from downtown Siem Reap, but the location is perfectly isolated from the busy city, quiet, and tranquil.

I’m not a hotel guy. To me, a room is a room, but the design of this resort really struck me. It reminded me of the Jetwing Hotels in Sri Lanka designed by Geoffrey Bawa, which are probably the most striking buildings I’ve ever seen. The Tresor D’Angkor was so similar in style and atmosphere to Bawa hotels that I asked several people whether or not it was intentional. Nobody on staff knew.

After a chill afternoon at the resort, we turned in early to get ready for our 5 am photography tour pickup.

Tresor D’Angkor Info

Address: ICF Rd, Phum Krous, Sangkat Svay Dangkum Siem Reap, Cambodia
Map: https://goo.gl/maps/NKhebUTpNDL2
Phone: +855 63-900-168
Email: assistant@tresordangkorsuite.com
Website: www.tresordangkorsuite.com

The Photography Tour: A Different Look At Angkor Wat

I was a bit concerned about this tour. We were committing to more than 12 hours with a tour guide who we hadn’t spoken to in advance. I really didn’t want to go and visit the usual photo spots — especially Angkor Wat at sunrise, which is usually a swarmed with a mob of tourists all jockeying for position to get the same iconic shot.

I wanted to explore lesser-known parts of the complex.

I was in luck. Our guide turned out to be awesome. His name was Kimleng Sang. He’s not only a great photographer who knows the area intimately, but he’s also a passionate photographer endlessly interested in finding new places to shoot and new ways to look at familiar ones.

The day was an excellent mix of off-the-path spots and must-see temples and buildings. Whether it was because of the places he took us, or angles and framings he pointed out, I owe most of my best photos to Kimleng’s help.

Here are few I couldn’t have gotten without him.

This one I definitely owe to Kimleng, because he took it for us.

This is a totally random spot not far from one of the main temples, that had no path to it and you’d never think to check out. Kimleng, however, insisted we visit it and told us we wouldn’t regret it. We didn’t.

Even after three trips to the famous Bayon Temple, I was never satisfied with my photos of it. Even standing right in front of this shot, Kimleng had to point it out and guide me to find the proper framing. I learned a lot from that guy.

Here are a few more of the photos I took that day.

Big thanks to our guide, Kimleng, who really made the day!

Want to try this tour?

You can book it on KKDay here. But, they have more than one photography tour guide. If you want the same guide who helped me get these shots make sure that you request Kimleng Sang. Tell them that Xpat Matt sent you!

VIEW THIS TOUR NOW

A Sunset Cruise On Tonle Sap Lake

We knew this was going to be a bit of a touristy activity, but after our long day exploring Angor Thom we wanted something relaxing. A 4-hour cruise and few beers sounded just right. We also booked this trip through KKDay.

We showed up at the pier to crowds of tourists piling onto big boats. We were super lucky, though, that our tour was on a small boat with only about 8 seats, and we were the only two passengers. I opened a beer, took out my camera, and snapped some photos as we cruised down the river.

At the end, we stopped at a floating restaurant where enterprising young kids who live on the lake would paddle over in makeshift boats (see the girl in the pail below) and charge tourists for photos with them or — on some occasions — with them and their pet snake.

The restaurant was, of course, a tourist trap with lots of knick-knacks on sale, and you could try exotic foods like snake and crocodile. I gave the crocodile a taste. It was pretty good; tender like chicken with a slightly fishy flavor.

One Other Thing

No trip to Siem Reap is complete without a stroll through pub street, which is a super touristy area with tons of restaurants, bars, and shops.

Fish foot massages are pretty common in Taiwan and I tried them many times. Noey had never tried one, so after dinner one night I took her to try.

I don’t take the best care of my feet. I run a lot — often barefoot on the beach. This makes them very dry and calloused. Turns out that’s something that the fish love because they swarmed my feet like crazy! I’d never seen anything like it. Check it out.

Have you been to Siem Reap? What would you recommend if you were only there for a few days?

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Yellowstone National Park in winter is even more spectacular than in summer

Matt — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 15:43:15 +0000

In honor of the United States’s National Park Services 100th anniversary on August 25th, Exodus Travels asked me to write about one of my most unique National Park experiences.

I’ve been to my share of national parks. (I also have some great photos from Glacier National Park here).

It was easy to choose what to write about. My winter visit to Yellowstone National Park was one of the most unique outdoors experiences I’ve had.

Yellowstone National Park receives far fewer visitors in the winter than in the summer. I guess that kind of makes sense. The snow makes it less accessible and most families take their vacations in the summer.

Yellowstone National Park in the winter is, however, in my humble opinion, way more spectacular when the hills are blanketed in snow webbed with mineral-rich rivers and the famous springs and geysers are gushing thick pillars of steam into the freezing blue sky.

Here’s what I saw during my winter trip to Yellowstone National Park.

The Drive Into Yellowstone

Visiting Yellowstone National Park in winter consists mainly of exploring by various means of transportation, such as snowshoes, cross-country skis, or good old-fashioned hiking.

First mode of transport is the snowcoach, or as I like to call it the bumblebee snowcrusher machine.

Even just the drive to the Yellowstone Lodge is a tour in itself. Here are some of the stops we made.

The Walkways Around Yellowstone’s Springs

The walkways around the most active springs and geysers are the most popular and visually stunning way to explore the park.

X-Country Skiing in Yellowstone National Park

My personal favourite way to see the park was on cross-country skis, but I love cross-country skiing in general, so I’m probably a bit biased.

Leaving Yellowstone

Even the drive out of the park is beautiful — especially if you leave into Wyoming the way we did. This is a shot of the Tetons I took from the side of the road.

If this post has gotten you thinking about visiting , check out some of the Exodus Travel Yellowstone National Park Tours.

Have you ever visited Yellowstone National Park in winter?

What was your favorite part?

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Are Calgary and Kananaskis about to become a river surfing mecca?

Matt — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 04:48:40 +0000

“Your wetsuit has some holes in it.” Jacob Kelly told me. “So it’s going to be a little colder for you.”

It was May and we were standing on the banks of the Kananaskis River in the mountains between Calgary and Banff, Canada. The day before it had been snowing. I had finished photographing the surfers for Tourism Calgary and was about to try river surfing in the barely-above-freezing water.

That was not what I wanted to hear.

By the end of my hour-long surf session on the river wave the call The Mountain I was so fatigued that after falling and being swept downstream yet again I didn’t even bother to try and paddle upstream. I just got out of the river and started wobbily walking up the river bank.

I was completely spent, not from exertion, but from the frigid water.

I had new respect for Calgary’s river surfers. Not because of the ease with which they caught and slashed back and forth across the touchy wave on their ultra-short surfboards, but because they would spend whole days in the depths of the Canadian winter in the river, which is fed by glaciers.

Jacob Kelly showboating on the wave that I could barely stand up on.

Calgary, just an hour’s drive East of the Canadian Rockies, is an unlikely home to a passionate and growing tribe of river surfers. Among the most prominent are Neil Egsgard and Jacob Kelly of Surf Anywhere, a company that builds river surfing waves whose goal is to make Calgary the Mecca of river surfing.

As of now, there are two popular waves in the area: The Mountain in Kananaskis (about an hour’s drive from the city) and the 10th Street wave right beside the downtown core.

Surf Anywhere is the only company in the world that specializes in building river surfing waves (they’ve been doing it since 2008) and in the Calgary area they have a two unique opportunities.

First, the government is planning to rebuild a kayaking course that’s also on the Bow River in the city. If Surf Anywhere gets their way, they will be building even more waves within the city limits during the reconstruction.

The second opportunity is in Kananaskis. The Kananaskis River is controlled by a dam. This means two things. The flow is always consistent, which means consistent surfing. It also means that the river can be turned off like a faucet, and heavy machinery can be brought in to build waves, making it easier and cheaper to build waves than in a normal river.

Surf Anywhere wants to take advantage of this and plans to have 2 – 3 new waves of varying difficulty and size built by the end of this summer.

I couldn’t wait until then to visit so, although I plan to return, here’s what it was like during my 5-day visit in May.

Neil Egsgard working on river flow models for the new Kananaskis waves.

River Surfing in Kananaskis Country

If you want to go surfing in the Calgary area — unless you’re friends with one of the locals who know where to find the rest of the half-dozen waves in the area that are more-or-less secret spots — you’ll probably have to choose between The Mountain and the 10th Street wave.

The Mountain in Kananaskis is about a one-hour drive out of the city, but it is a markedly better wave than the 10th Street wave. It’s bigger and wider, which makes it both easier for a beginner to stand up on and more fun for an experienced surfer to play on.

Also — if Neil and Jacob at Surf Anywhere have their way — Kananaskis will have multiple features for all skill levels very soon, making it an even more accommodating spot to surf.

Neil thrashing The Mountain.

Neil again, looking kind of like a surfing Spiderman.

The Kananaskis River is also popular for canoeing and kayaking. Here are two canoers bombing over The Mountain.

Jacob doing his signature move, where he falls back in the wave and then suddenly jumps forward with an ollie-like pop.

Surfing in Downtown Calgary on the Bow River

Calgary’s 10th Street Wave is located right below the 10th Street Bridge on the downtown side of the river, which is walking distance from the city center. This is where most Calgarians first discover river surfing and learn to surf.

The wave can be seen from a popular walking and biking path, the CTrain, and the 10th Street Bridge. I’ve only been there a few times, but each time about half-a-dozen people have stopped to ask about the wave and how to get started. (Pro Tip: Stop by on wave Wednesdays when Jacob brings extra gear for people to try.)

The wave’s high visibility is probably responsible for the growth of Calgary’s river-surfing community, which has expanded rapidly in recent years.

Although the 10th Street Wave isn’t the biggest or best, it’s convenient, which makes it the busiest wave around. If you are able to visit during working hours, you’ll usually find the wave empty and will have it all to yourself. It usually starts to get busy around 6pm after most people have finished work.

How awesome would it be to get to go surfing everyday after work?

I’m jealous Calgary. Very jealous.

The 10th Street Wave lineup on a normal evening.

Jason McQuade

Chillin at the 10th Street Wave.

Jacob Kelly

Local surfboard shaper Jason McQuade working on a new ride.

Check out the full gallery of river surfing photos here

Calgary Surf Culture

Surfing is a notoriously territorial sport. Personally, I prefer to avoid popular breaks frequented by both visitors and locals because the friction between them dampens the experience for me.

The vibe in Calgary is not like that at all. Yes, there is a bit of territorialism, but it only manifests itself in the few ‘secret’ waves around Calgary known only to the most dedicated river surfers (who spent their time scouring the local rivers to find them). Even then, some locations are kept secret partly for safety (either they’re too advanced or the inevitable ride downstream after falling is too dangerous for most surfers) or because they’re only accessible via privately-owned land.

But that’s where any territorialism ends.

The Calgary surf community is overwhelmingly friendly and supportive. This is Canada, after all.

The lineup is full of friendly banter, and you don’t need to be an amazing surfer to elicit cheers from the crowd. Every time a surfer shows a bit of progression — stands up for the first time or learns a new skill — clappings and ‘whoo-hooos’ erupt from the banks.

I was told by Jacob that this would happen. It happened to me twice during my trip: my first time standing up on The Mountain and my first time standing on the 10th Street Wave.

That’s how surfing is supposed to be.

The lineup at the 10th Street Wave.

Sunset at the 10th Street Wave

The one maneuver that can only be done on a river wave: an acid drop (throwing your board onto the wave and jumping on to it).

Calgary River Surfing Resources

Riversurfing.ca – The original river surfing online community, founded in Calgary .

Waveslayar Surfboards – Custom-shaped boards for river surfers made locally in Calgary by New Zealand transplant Jason McQuade.

Undercurrents – The only shop I could find offering river surfing rentals, but I haven’t tried them so I can’t speak to the quality or service.

Riverbreak – The international river surfing magazine, including a map of river waves around the world.

Surf Anywhere – For more information on the wave builders themselves.

Jacob on the 10th Street Wave at dusk.

Have you ever tried river surfing? How was it?

If you haven’t, would you?

Let me know in the comments!

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Life And Death And Angkor Wat

Matt — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 15:00:07 +0000

The sun was sinking into the jungle turning the horizon orange and throwing long shadows across the ancient ruin. Drenched in sweat, I rushed around the surprisingly empty rear portion of Angkor Wat, snapping as many photos as I could during the golden hour. I left the temple and headed toward the exit. With a few minutes to spare before the ruin closed for the night, I walked along the outer wall toward the jungle.

As the sun went down a high-pitched scream slowly rose from the jungle like a sound-effect from a horror movie. As the ancient ruin darkened, and the scream filled the night, the moist night air felt thick with ghosts.

As I rode my mountain bike back to town, I turned off the road into a rice field to record the sound. In the distance, a khmer flute began to play.

This is what it sounded like.

This is the recording of the insects that I took. The flute was too faint for my microphone to pick up, so I’ve added one that sounds almost exactly the same by khmerangkor on YouTube.

Death and sadness seemed to hang in the air.

Some trips cannot be separated from the circumstances under which they took place. My trip to the ancient city of Angkor was one of them.

Three years before I visited Angkor Wat, I moved from home from Tainan, Taiwan back to Canada when my father nearly died from heart problems. Eventually, he got better. Then, just when I was ready to move back to Taiwan, my girlfriend’s sister was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, so, instead, we moved to California to help care for her.

Two very difficult and grief stricken years later, my girlfriend and I broke up. No longer having any reason to stay in North America, I decided to return home to South East Asia. I put all my things in a storage locker, packed my bags, and one month later I was laying on a hard bed under a fan in a guesthouse room in Siem Reap that I’d rented for 10 days.

Gaining distance from the events of the preceding years gave me opportunity to reflect on them.

So, when I say that Angkor Wat is a haunted place, I can’t tell you whether I was given that impression only by the grand ancient Hindu structures slowly being eroded by the elements and consumed by the jungle, or by my reflections on a family that was robbed of a kind-hearted young mother, sister, and daughter.

It was probably a bit of both.

Angkor’s eerieness had no quality of fear. It was a still sadness. A melancholy calm settled on the ruins each evening. As the sun set the azure sky turned orange, and then yellow, and then purple. As the dusk dissipated and night flooded in a scream from the jungle would gradually and steadily grow to a maddening pitch. Then it would rise and fall unceasingly—the sound of the insects in the humid jungle night.

I rented a mountain bike for my ten days in Siem Reap. Most days I would work until about 2 or 3pm. Then I would get on the mountain bike and ride 10km to the ancient city which, was, historians say, the largest city on Earth before the industrial revolution. It is said to sprawl across 1000 square kilometres and dwarfs the next-largest ancient city in the world, the Mayan city of Tikal, which covers just 150.

I wandered the ruins alone for 5 or 6 hours most days, returning to the city only when it got too dark to take photos. I had a lot of time to think. I often found myself thinking about the mystery surrounding the fall of Angkor. There are several theories about why the city was abandoned, most of which involve catastrophes such as plagues, earthquakes, and war.

I also thought about the holocaust that brutalized the country less than 30 years earlier, and the enduring poverty experienced by the survivors.

I would spend the hours before sunset exploring the ancient ruins on my bicycle. After I’d seen most of the major temples, I began riding down random paths into the jungle to see what was there.

I found half-buried statues of lions, strange artifacts that I couldn’t explain, and small, seemingly unvisited temples. I found unrecognizable structures choked in tree roots and overgrown with vegetation that were slowly being devoured by the jungle.

Each night I would ride my bike back to town on the narrow strip of pavement that split the thick jungle, light dwindling, sky turning yellow, orange, and purple, the jungle the insects screaming all around me.

During my trip I struggled to find some kind of lesson in the morbid unfairness and suffering that I’d seen during the preceding years. The experience was too awful to have been in vain. I must have learned something from it.

I don’t think they’re very profound—and they’re certainly not unique—but these are the conclusions I reached.

Death is inevitable, and therefore not worth worrying about. And, although it may sometimes feel that way, the inevitability of death doesn’t remove the meaning from life.

The jungle consumes all. With enough time, it will devour the greatest city in the world, but that doesn’t mean the city isn’t worth building. The act itself is a thing of beauty. And, if it’s built well, it will be remembered and appreciated for a long time.

There is only one worthwhile thing we can do in life: build temples to the people and ideas that we love.

The jungle consumes all, and it will consume me. The best I can do is leave behind my own slowly eroding, root-choked temples.

If I’ve built them well, then it will mean two things:

First, it will mean that I lived a purposeful life and stayed true to those things that mattered most.

Second, it will mean that, just maybe, my temples will be appreciated and remembered…for a while at least.

The jungle will eventually consume them too, but that matters not, for the act of creating them was a thing of beauty, and that is something not even the jungle can erase.

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21 Amazing Photos of a Puerto Vallarta Adventure

Matt — Sun, 29 Jun 2014 11:10:35 +0000

In June, 2014 I went on an Puerto Vallarta adventure tour run by Vallarta Adventures. I’m always wary of ‘adventure tours’ because they’re usually too tame for my taste. This tour, called the Sea Safari, wasn’t exactly adrenaline-inducing, but is was probably the most fun I had on the entire trip.

A tour guide always plays a big role in making a good experience, and ours was fantastic. I was also very impressed by how socially and environmentally responsible the trip was.

The Sea Safari started in a an inflatable motor boat with about 20 attendees. Our enthusiastic guide took the time to memorize the name of every person on the boat, and made quite a show of it. By the time we arrived at the first point of interest, he stood at the head of the boat and pointed out every passenger by name.

As we headed away from the marina we got a fantastic view of Puerto Vallarta just after sunrise.

Our first stop was a brief one, at a series of rock formations called Los Arcos with shapely arches jutting out of the sea.

The rock formations were covered in booby birds, which I had never seen before. Surprisingly, they bear little resemblance to the boobies that I was first introduced to by the television show Baywatch.

After around an hour we arrived at a small fishing village. The village is accessible only by boat. No roads lead in or out of it. It was super cute.

The waters near the shore were dotted with small anchored boats, which were covered in hordes of pelicans. It is very likely that I will never see so many pelicans in one place again.

The view of the unspoiled coastline was idyllic. (If you’d rather see some extremely unidyllic coastlines, check this out).

After a wander through the village and a bathroom break, we arrived at a river where our horses were kept. Actually, I don’t think they were horses. They were smaller, probably donkeys or mules. I was happy to see that they were well-cared for because I’ve seen many companies that don’t care for their animals so well.

There were flocks of butterflies in the air and beside the river in most places.

Our donkeys, or mules, or whatever they were, knew the trail perfectly. I rode the lead mule, and eventually just dropped the reigns because there was no need to steer him.

After thirty or forty minutes we arrived at a waterfall. Vallarta Adventures had a photographer on hand to capture the moment for people (and, of course, sell them their ‘moments’ later).

The waterfall was not ugly.

I decided to take my GoPro and swim as close as possible to the waterfall to take a waterfall selfie.

This is what I got.

After about an hour we hopped on our trusty steeds and meandered back to the village. On the way I took a mule selfie.

We all hopped back in the boat and went snorkelling. So, I had a friend take a snorkelling selfie of me.

I am, as a matter of fact, the selfie master.

One of our guides managed to grab a puffer fish for me to take a photo of, which was pretty awesome.

Finally we arrived at Pizota, a private beach where they had set up an open bar, barbecue buffet, hammocks beach mats, and sea kayaks. It was pretty sweet. The coolest part for me, though, was that the beach was filled with holes dug by crabs.

The crabs were colourful, cute, and everywhere, digging away at their holes. What the holes were for, i have no idea.

A little away from the beach I found a cliff that was swarming with crabs. It was like the cliff was alive.

After a nice long beach break, we returned to Puerto Vallarta.

This trip was provided by the Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board, but all opinions are my own.

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My Favorite Skiing and Snowboarding Photos

Matt — Mon, 12 May 2014 15:00:21 +0000

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time you know that I’m a passionate snowboarder. Each year I visit numerous resorts (one of the perks of writing the About.com Snowboarding Guide) and do a lot of skiing and snowboarding photography. Here are some of my favorite photos from the past few year in more-or-less chronological order.

This is my brother Ben. We grew up snowboarding together and now he teaches it for a living. He’s way better than I am.

These photos are from 2012 when we hiked our hometown ski hill in March. It was closed. It was the first time we rode together in more than a decade.

We built a jump and he did a backflip, which made me feel like I suck. Compared to most people I don’t. But compared to him, I do.

So I answered with a mute stiffy while simultaneously reinventing snowboarding fashion. How do you like that beige fleece vest?

He is so natural and graceful when he rides. It make me jealous — and pushes me to improve my riding.

This was taken the following year at Sierra at Tahoe during a snowboard tour. The hill has a serious park and some very ambitious local pros. I was humbled.

Sierra at Tahoe isn’t known for its terrain parks, but it also has some wicked sidecountry.

On that same trip we also got to visit Heavenly, famous for its views of Lake Tahoe.

There wasn’t much natural snow at the time, but there was a lot of man-made snow, which created some unique shots.

Heavenly is a good hill, but the view is the reason most people visit.

Sierra at Tahoe also has a pretty decent view of the lake.

When I visited Crested Butte I discovered possibly the most extreme ski area I’ve visited. The locals were awesome too.

Telluride, however, is another story.

Telluride is the place ski fantasies come from. It’s beautiful, historic, and the locals are some of the most passionate snow riders I’ve ever met.

Hiking the sidecountry is standard there.

The reason why is obvious.

Jackson Hole is another out-of-the-way place that attracts snow maniacs.

Wolf Creek Colorado is lesser-known area, but gets the most snow in Colorado.

When we visited 50 inches (or some ridiculous amount) of snow fell in a matter of a couple of days.

It was glorious.

Insane actually.

I can’t recall a time I’d ever seen that much fresh snow.

My guide, Steve, like all of the locals, was incredibly friendly and had moved there for his one love: powder.

It’s not hard to understand why he chose Wolf Creek.

Snowbird, the resort I visit the most in Utah, is often ranked among the best in the world.

Coming from Canada, I didn’t think that ski hills so far south could get more snow than ours. I was wrong.

Snowbird, statistically, is among the snowiest resorts in the world.

A rare capture of the seldom performed beer-slide on a spring day.

But really, Snowbird has big mountain terrain unlike any I’ve ever seen.

It’s epic.

A glorious playground.

Then I discovered Canyons. With 12 amazing hills within a 1-hour drive, it’s hard to get to all the hills near Salt Lake Ciity.

Canyons is enormous, but lesser-known, which means the trees are excellent for poaching.

It’s wonderful for families.

The longer I ride the more I realize that the turns you earn are the best ones.

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Advenspiration

Matt — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 15:25:51 +0000

Memes for lovers of madness, adventure, and living well. Feel free to share!

It feels good to get lost in the right direction.
~ Anonymous

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.
~ Robin Williams

Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably.
And never regret anything that makes you smile.
~ Mark Twain

You only live once, but if you do it right once is enough.
~ Mae West

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.
~ Henry Miller

Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry!
~ Jack Kerouac

The most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
~ Helen Keller

Beauty awakens the soul to act. ~ Dante Alighieri

We must constantly be jumping off cliffs and developing wings on our way down.
~ Kurt Vonnegut

Experience is the teacher of all things.
~ Julius Caesar

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
~ John A. Shedd

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
~ Confucius

Nobody said it would be easy. They only said it would be worth it.
~ Anonymous

Did you enjoy this post? Then you should check out some of my photoessays!

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Helicoptering Over Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand

Kristin Addis — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:00:57 +0000

Last year I went on a New Zealand glacier helicopter tour.

There’s something about the majesty of a glacier that you can’t quite get the full effect of from the ground level, separated by a fence and the cracking glacier a few meters away.

Sure, the vistas and viewpoints provide great photo opportunities, and the hike is quite rewarding, punctuated with cascading waterfalls and framed by gorgeous mountains.

But in order to really get up close with a glacier, to really appreciate and understand it, one has to touch it. That’s where a helicopter tour comes in. Of all the New Zealand glaciers, Franz Josef is one of the best to see in person, fly around, and land on. Blades swirling, clouds parting, helicopter tours of Franz Josef Glacier provide viewing opportunities like this:

The best part of the experience is landing on top of the very glacier that otherwise can only be viewed from a distance at the ground level. Walking carefully to avoid slippage, the feeling of standing on top of a glacier and taking in the full vista is astounding.

New Zealand truly is spectacular, as is getting to know a glacier up close and personally. For snow lovers, this is yet another notch to add to the travel experience belt.

*Thanks to Fox & Franz Josef Heliservices for the opportunity to see the glacier up close and personal.

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Snowbird Powder Porn

Matt — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:57:27 +0000

Snowbird is one of those resorts that in almost always included in best ski resort lists, and rightly so. It has one of the biggest annual snowfalls in the country, and it’s the legendary Utah driy powder. It has some of the most accessible in-bounds extreme terrain that I’ve ever seen.

I was fortunate enough to visit Snowbird a few times this year and shoot some of their sponsored riders. It was epic. I rode chutes like the ones I’d only previously seen in movies. Hucked sme pretty big cliffs as well. The conditions weren’t always great for photos, but we still got some pretty spectacular shots.

Is Snowbird the best ski resort in the United States?

Make your voice heard.

VOTE FOR SNOWBIRD HERE!

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Telluride Powder Porn

Matt — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:00:14 +0000

My expectations were high when we visited Telluride. It was my first visit. We arrived in a whiteout that had us driving 30 miles an hour on the highway there. The first night the hill received several inches of snow and it kept snowing all the next day. The second day the sun came out and I got to ride Telluride the way it’s meant to be ridden — on steep pitches with over a foot of fresh pow.

This is how it was: legendary.

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