The Grand Canyon of Fear: A photo essay

I hadn't been back to the Grand Canyon for some five years until this early summer. The re-introduction was bitter-sweet.

On the one hand it is nice to see the upsurge in runners, day hikers and excited visitors experiencing the magic of the wild. On the other hand (call me a cynic) there seem to also be a massive upsurge in the "selfie-self absorbed" experience. I think it is great that people want to document their adventures and share them, but the ubiquitous presence of the selfie-stick was a bit disconcerting. The Park seem to be a nexus for this expression - especially when wandering the overlooks and road along the rim - once a half mile or so down the canyon it lessens - a bit... I guess it is nothing new - the self-timer and running to get in the family Christmas photo... yet I think this new explosion of smart phones and Instagram makes the promise of being a media hero all to the more tempting and thus exponentially apparent. The experience and connection to place seem a bit eclipsed by the sense of self and the placement of the primary focus - the image-maker, the human, in the vast wilderness... There was also an upsurge of neon apparel, dogs on trails, graffiti scrawled on rocks along the trail - happy faces and names scratched on to rocks... Perhaps this comes unconsciously from a place of fear...

I think Edward Abbey said it well when he penned this...

Alone in the silence, I understand for a moment the dread which
 many feel in the presence of primeval desert, the unconscious
 fear which compels them to tame, alter or destroy what they
 cannot understand, to reduce the wild and prehuman to human
 dimensions. Anything rather than confront directly the
 ante-human, that _other_world_ which frightens not through danger
 or hostility but in something far worse--its implacable
 indifference.

all images ©Bennett Barthelemy

                                      

Yosemite Valley Dreams: A photo essay

The Yosemite Valley has been called the Center of the Universe by many climbers that frequent there. If I count both days and pitches climbed over more than two decades here it would be in the high hundreds.

Each and every escape here is a torrid affair for sure - of sweat, blood, fear, elation, epiphanies - of chance meetings with heroes of the vertical - crossing paths again with old friends who shared a rope in years long past - the only place I have every experienced such soul weary tiredness when I slept straight through more than 30 hours (after bailing from the Leaning Tower). It is the place that has re-birthed me, raised me, sustains me through my adult life...

History, legends, dreams are all alive and well here through a nexus of intention and shared experience... a love of the wild, steep stone - rock dreamers, dreaming ourselves alive...

all images ©Bennett Barthelemy October 2016

Staring At The Sun: A photo essay

Seems I choose to stare at the sun a little more these days...

Living for quite some time this last year during the darker months at northern latitudes in Scandinavia has me exposing eyes and heart to the light and warmth again... and putting the new my 14mm to work.

all images ©Bennett Barthelemy/Tandem Stills + Motion

Paris Bound for Cop 21

Finding cautious optimism, synergistic momentum and the interconnectedness of many things moving toward my departure to the United Nations Cop21 conference on climate in Paris, now just a few days away...

It will be interesting to see how civil society and governments blend there and find their voices at the event. And even more interesting to see if the bottom to top approach from the global citizenry will take hold in the wake of the talks... And if the necessary synergy and a binding agreement can be reached - and in what capacity.

In the last couple decades I have witnessed changing environmental conditions as a dedicated climber, trekker, wilderness guide and adventure travel photographer and writer.  Glacial ice in New Zealand, Alaska, Argentina, Chile, Peru and the US is clearly shrinking - and temperatures have been steadily climbing in Australia, the Southwestern US, Pacific Northwest - I have noticed monsoon patterns change in Arizona and Colorado, storms become more violent - and now the driest month in more than a quarter century has provided my intro to Copenhagen life. Acidification and heating of oceans, rains coming at different times and plants not being able to adapt, animal and plant populations with narrow windows of temperature adaptability being threatened and looking at extinction, loss of snowpack in the Sierra and the Rockies and exacerbated water issues in the West...

Now in Scandinavia I am constantly aware via local news of the reality of amplified immigration/refugee challenges and nascently swelling populations of effectively borderless Europe. Enhanced turmoil and pressure toward more insulation and less movement toward embracing the larger human community. I think the danger of nationalism is that it can push us further into the us against them mentality and closer to dehumanization... The recent terror attacks and the culture of fear being thrust forward in mass media seems to be enhancing an islamaphobic mentality in cultures already quite ignorant of Islam in general. Seems to be less desire to understand issues and cultures, more knee-jerk reactions and less diplomacy.

With climate change challenges multiplying the number of refugees perhaps even exponentially, jumping arbitrary borders will inevitably become much more commonplace. It intrigues me that as of yet there is still no acceptable legal status for climate refugees - technically they do not exist in the language applied by countries and it apparently was struck last month from the some 50 page draft within the hopefully to be realized COP21 accord.

As I attempt to research climate challenges and the anthropogenic effects - droughts, floods and fresh water and food growing challenges, I find it closely intertwined with the dominant oil and gas infrastructure and it appears that the current wars, migration, terrorists attacks seem to all have solid roots anchored in the global reality of climate change..  Cautious optimism via scientific recommendation to divest as quickly as possible from oil and gas and embrace and build infrastructure renewables/green energy - we know what to do and we have to tools to do it - but the effort required and the necessity to work as a global community in a splintering world seems tricky...

There is a lot riding on this COP in particular... I really hope for some serious communication from indigenous, the global citizenry at large - and that this can drive the continued successes to be realized from a binding and international agreement and the shared voice of a planet and countries in distress...

Here are a few images of some of the more beautiful (and now threatened) places I have ever traveled. All images ©Bennett Barthelemy/Tandem Stills and Motion

Melting glacial ice in Lago Grey, Torres Del Paine National Park Chile.

A calving glacier in the Fitzroy Range, Argentina.

Guding a client on a Colorado Rockies Fourteener

Pacific Northwest kayaker Brenden Wells on the Little White Salmon River

Flowering plants in spring in a very remote part of Grand Canyon National Park.

Guiding a remote trail off of the South Rim in Grand Canyon National Park

Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park

A woman in Peru's Cordillera

Calving Perito Moreno Glacier in southern Argentina

Trekking over a 15,000 pass in Peru

Sea life on a small deserted island south of Loreto, Baja Sur Mexico

Forced begging in Dakar Senegal is a reality for  50,000 youth every day where over half the population is said to live in extreme poverty.

Education and schooling is a luxury that many families in Dakar believe they cannot afford so many children work 

Jasper National Park, Alberta Canada