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The cold world of skimo & alpine climbing

The cold world of skimo & alpine climbing

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

27,375


"That is the average lifespan in the United States today: 27,375 days.  If you are typical, that is what was deposited in your “time bank” when you were born.  Every day, whether or not you want to, you make a withdrawal of 1 day.  When the days run out, you die.  Game over. "

Reflect on that fact when you watch this:

3456">http://vimeo.com/113313108">3456 feet
from Ride">http://vimeo.com/ridegreener">Ride Greener on Vimeo.https://vimeo.com">Vimeo.>

Learning to ride or ski takes a LOT longer when you decide to hike every hill. Fight every battle? Right every wrong?  Not that we shouldn't try mind you.   Life is if anything the ability to  more fully understand your desires and goals.  Harder yet knowing how to balance and accommodate them responsibly into the world around you.   In the end you get 27,375 days.  1500 on either end you'll be lucky if you are conscious enough to actually enjoy ;-)

525,600 minutes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj7LRuusFqo

Call it 26,000 even.  What will you do with yours?

5 comments:

Jon B said...

That video is one of the most ridiculous pieces of green spew/eco spin I've seen in a long long time. Gee, what are the talent wearing: modern "high tech" fabrics derived from hydrocarbons (except maybe for underwear and beanie). What are they riding on: plastics again derived from hydrocarbons and metals that had to be mined and highly refined. And how did they get to those nice remote pristine mountains. Why they flew from home in a jet that dumped all kinds ozone depleting chemicals into the atmosphere and then probably took a helo to the bottom of the mountain to start their climb. And a helo was certainly being used to get the video of their descents. But hey, they're doing their part to solve the environmental crisis. But if I drove with three friends in my 15 year old car to the local ski hill an hour away that gets its electricity from hydropower I'm the eco villian because I rode the lifts, right?

These people make environmentalism seem like a joke. If you want to hike, hike. But don't pretend you're having any less impact than the 2,000th person who takes 5 rides on the hill. Skiing and riding simply is not consistent with true environmentalism. You want to be an environmentalist? Then don't have kids. That will be the biggest contribution you could ever make.

Dane said...

Jon, I actually posted this to initiate a conversation. Chouinard, Dorworth and pleanty of others got their licks in prior to this kind of nonsense. When I live and ski in Europe I ride public transport and tour from hut to hut and "lift" ski a whole lot less there because I can a LOT easier and cheaper than I can in NA. The info the video came to me with said "Filming
During filming, great care was taken to limit CO2 emissions to an
absolute minimum. Flights, helicopters, and snowmobiles were never used."

And my thought was...really? And you think you have done something special?

"Ride Greener and Patagonia Snowboard Ambassador Sten Smola has been journeying to the Alps for over 15 years, using mainly public transportation, and summiting countless peaks on foot. He consciously refrains from flying around the world to chase the everlasting snow. In
doing so, he makes his own very modest contribution not to further accelerate global warming."

And again I said to myself, really? If I happen to live in Milan or Geneva or Paris life is pretty easy to hop a train to Cham and live the winter...no car and all on public transpost. I live in Seattle so it is a 14hr flight one way and literally ton's of jet fuel burnt. As a kid I drove to the hill or was driven most every weekend till I started living and working on the hill. Among the rest of the nonsense I got back to..."ya wanted learn how to ski? You don't do it by hiking up hill if you want to play the game as we do today."

"Skiing and riding simply is not consistent with true environmentalism." Bingo! Ya got that straight. Thank you!

John said...

I work on the Columbia River doing fisheries work and feel like I usually fall further to the left on the save the whales sort of stuff but I ended up closing the video before it was done because of the "environmentalism"

One line I try to keep in mind so that I can maintain perspective is the phrase "If it wasn't grown it was mined." AKA just about everything in our lives besides food and paper products is from an extractive industry. Keep that in mind to remember your impacts. And like above, don't have kids if you really want to make a difference.

Anonymous said...

Are you really saying "My time bank account is looking thin - I've got to maximize my pleasure, so fuck everyone else."?

And are you really meaning to shit on people trying to act in ways more in accord with their concerns?

Sure, they could do better. We all could. Are you taking concrete actions to make your environmental impacts better instead of worse, or just taking comfort in calling other people hypocrite while doing nothing because it's not your problem - your time bank balance will eventually be zero, so why worry beyond that?

Sounds like your "living and working on the hill" is a good step to preserving and enjoying mountain life in a more sustainable way than the jet setting you decry here.

Dane said...

Reading comprehension a little lacking Anon?

You don't become a pro rider by only walking uphill. Public transport in NA is dismal compared to Europe...where they shit all over their "wilderness", build trams every where and huts to go with them. Yea! I love it but "greener"? Ya not so much. I just spent an hr or so looking at the Greener web site again. Still don't get it. I started skiing in leather boots and wood skis while hiking up hill (no skins) to get a ride down. There is so much green/environmental waste on anyone out fitted in modern gear today that the greener ride movement is simply comical to me. Hard to begin talking about where it is misplaced and/orr simply uneducated. Global warming? Ya it is bad. Do they have a answer...or even a tiny bit of one? Not IMO. Calling it even "a start" is silly IMO. What I did say was, "you have limited time on this earth...make the most of what you do and how you do it." You want to save the world? Do something that will actually make a difference.

Living and working on the hill? How the hell do you think we lived "on the hill"? Food, gas, heat, clothing required to live in an alpine environment all make a significant impact on world resources. Getting all those resources "up to the hill" even more impact. You really want to be a good steward of the environment as Ride Green implies? Stay the hell out of the mountains. Move to a tropical climate, get off the grid, and forget about AC. Bit boring but that will actually make a difference. But don't let me stop you from thinking you are making a difference on global warming when you put your skins on and start hiking if it makes YOU feel better :-)