The Joy Trip Project

Now that spring is in the air it’s time to start thinking about that next great road trip. In the coming weeks I’ll pack up the Jetta and head out on a tour of the adventure media and film festivals. Looking for stories that celebrate the active lifestyle and environmental conservation I’ll be reporting from the 5Points Festival in Carbondale Colorado and then the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride. But as I’m making my plans I can’t help but think about how much our nation has changed over the past half century. Last year at Mountain Film I met a man who helped me put the freedom of road travel into a different perspective.

Earnest “Rip” Patton is from Nashville, Tennessee. He’s considered an historian and a civil rights activist of the last 50s and early 60s.  Fifty years ago Rip was among first wave of student activists who road on buses into the Southern United States in the spring of 1961. Called the Freedom Rides the plan was to organize demonstrations in protest of racial segregation.

“We were at the time when the Freedom Rides were first started by CORE Congress of Racial Equality on May 4th 1961 we were trying to desegregate the movie theaters downtown,” Rip said.

The protesters came south to challenge the laws that prevented blacks and whites from using common public facilities like lunch counters, swimming pools and yes movie theaters. That bus trip through the south was met with hostility and violence. Most of the Freedom Riders were put jail, many were badly beaten and several of them were killed. Ironically Rip is telling me his story at a festival where a film depicting events of his life called the Freedom Riders had just premiered. Fifty years earlier he and his friends struggled through the spring of 1961 simply for the right to even be in the audience.

Last year at Mountain Film in Telluride I talked to Rip about his experience as a Freedom Rider. At this celebration of adventure culture it seemed all too appropriate to showcase a film based our recent history where travel played such an important role. I also connected with German-American artist Charlotta Janssen who had on display an amazing gallery show of paintings based on the mug shots of the arrested protesters. Despite great opposition Rip and the Freedom Riders held their ground. Through non-violent protests they successfully lead the charge to desegregate the south and inspire a new generation to demand their civil rights. It’s only because of the sacrifices they made that any of us can enjoy the freedom to travel that we do today.

 

Music this week  by blues guitarist Big Bill Broonzy

The Joy Trip Project is made possible thanks to the support of our sponsor Patagonia

Millions of people around the world have read the bestselling book Three Cups of Tea. Written by David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson it’s the amazing true story of one man’s journey to turn a failed attempt to climb K2 into an international movement for peace. Working to build schools in the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan Greg Mortenson has inspired the production of a one-man play about his life starring Curtis Nielson.

A Literature to Life production of The American Place Theater This stage adaptation of the popular book brings to life the spirit of exploration that delves to find the common threads of humanity that bind us all together. Three Cups of Tea is playing to captivated audiences across North America. This one-man show is a dramatic and heartwarming reenactment of the book. But Curtis Nielson’s portrayal of Greg Mortenson is a story in itself. In this interview recorded at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Alberta, Canada Curtis tells us how his journey as actor has led him to discover many wonderful gifts on the stage of life.

Music this week by the Ahn Trio and Jake Shimabukuro

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia

alisongannett.com

There are plenty of people out there talking about climate change. But how many are actually doing something about it. Even those of us who spend a lot of time outdoors can be guilty of contributing to the destruction of the natural environment we love. We fly in jets from place to place for the sake of adventure. And many of us are still driving low gas mileage carbon emitting SUVs. Our active lifestyles can put a really hurting on the planet. So that’s why we can all  take a few lessons from professional skier and environmental advocate Alison Gannett.

“I went to school for climate change and majored in education for environmental issues. And then I went to school for solar design for alternative home building,”

she said. “At the same time I had a professional skiing career, doing crazy things like the X-Games and jumping off cliffs for a living.”

But while she had two careers running parallel to one another Gannett suffered a devastating crash at the X-Game. Because she was badly injured and unable to compete several of her sponsors immediately dropped her. And that got Gannett to thinking. “I realized how shallow a lot of my ski industry sponsors were,” she said. “I decided wouldn’t it be cool to partner with companies that have more at stake and care more about than just selling clothing.”

Though many of the competitors and colleagues though she was crazy for chasing the more lucrative sponsorship deals Gannett changed her professional priorities to work instead with companies who share her environmentally conscious values.

“I want to chase ethics,” she said. “I want to work with companies that have the same beliefs that I do.”

It turns out that there are plenty of sponsors out there willing to support Gannett’s mission to raise awareness for the ongoing crisis of climate change. Blending her interests in sustainable living and an active lifestyle, she’s proven to be a very effective spokesperson for both.

“As an athlete getting older I’d have to say that I have better sponsor relationships now than I ever did,” she said. “And now working with the Save Our Snow Foundation and working with schools, working with Congress, working with the White House I’m saving our snow, saving our planet and making the world a better place.”

Allison Gannett is the kind of adventure athlete that walks her talk. While still leading an exciting life as a professional skier she’s making a big difference in educating the general public on the realities of climate change. And Through her work at the Save Our Snow Foundation and on her own organic farm in Colorado she’s showing us what we each can to do to slow it down.

Music this week by Jake Shimabukuro

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia

Special thanks to The Outdoor Retailer Winter Market

Any photographer will tell you, seeing is believing. But when it comes to climate change, a long slow process that occurs over time, its difficult to capture a single image that demonstrates the sheer magnitude of this global crisis. Even though the most obvious and apparent result of our warming planet is the recession of glacial ice, in some of the most remote places in the world it’s hard to truly show how relatively quickly and dramatically that ice is melting. So photographer James Balog came up with a plan to record the progress of climate change by taking a series of pictures from specific locations near glaciers over the course of several months.

"We have time-lapse cameras installed permanently at these various glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, Montana, Alaska and soon to be around Mount Everest," Balog said. "And these cameras shoot every half hour around the clock as long as it’s daylight and they’re looking down on these glaciers that are changing and we make this visual record of the landscape in flux."

Called the Extreme Ice Survey these images around the world shot on tripods show the cascade of glacial ice as it forms and then melts. The passage of time is quickly sped up to show the pace of change and its apparent progress.

"These cameras shoot all year long and we sometimes don’t get back for a year or more to download the images," Balog said. "But once we get the pictures we run them through video post production and turn them into a film clip showing the landscape as it changed over that previous period of time.

In these film clips glacial ice melts at a rate consistent with the human perception of time. Weeks and then months literally pass in the blink of an eye. As Balog’s cameras watch around the clock his images are making an enduring record of melting glaciers that are amazing and a bit frightening to behold. The images that James Balog and his team continue to capture through the Extreme Ice Survey offer compelling proof of receding glaciers around world. This evidence on a global scale is clear to see and even the most skeptical deniers of climate change may come to believe.

Music this week by Jake Shimabukuro

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsor Patagonia

Special thanks to The Outdoor Retailer Winter Market

An interview with executive director Shannon Galpin

In her travels through Afghanistan the locals call Shannon Galpin the blond, blue-eyed infidel. At 36 this mountain bike racer from Breckenridge, Colorado makes her way through active war zones waging peace. As the executive director of her own non-governmental organization called Mountain 2 Mountain Shannon works on behalf of vulnerable women and children caught in the crossfire.

“Our focus is to look at women in Afghanistan as beyond the victims but as the solutions and as the agents of change, “ Shannon said “and that these women that we are trying to work with through education and training are truly the solutions for the country.”

Afghanistan has been a place of violent conflict for more than 40 years and with U.S. Troops on the ground now for almost a decade ordinary people, with no special training like Shannon are getting involved trying to find a peaceful solution.

“I started traveling over there two or three years ago. I have spent time living in the middle east,” Shannon said. “I lived in Lebanon and traveled throughout the Middle East for a couple of years and I have always connected with the regions that have the worst human rights, that have the worst gender equity rights.”

A single mother with a daughter at home Shannon is like many American women frustrated with the plight of people here at home and half a world away who suffer largely because of their gender.

“What I realized was that I was ranting a lot and I was upset about it, and it was old adage of be the change that you want to see in the world,” Shannon said, and instead of complaining I should just get off my ass and do it.”

So Shannon took action. No kidding. She sold her house and started a non-profit that goes directly to serve women and children in Afghanistan. Mountain 2 Mountain provides education and pre-natal opportunities that empower women to take control of their lives. And with stable households where children, boys and girls, are encouraged to go to school how much more likely are the prospects of peace in the future?

“I want to see ripple effects in Afghanistan that effect the ability of women to have control over their destiny,” Shannon said.

You can’t help but be inspired by Shannon’s story. Hers is the kind of narrative that makes this program so much fun and really an honor to produce. But while I was piecing together the sound clips for today’s episode I came across a piece of information that we didn’t discuss in our interview. So I had to get Shannon on the phone and have her take me back to something that happened almost 20 years ago.

“When I was 17 I had moved to Minneapolis right after high school graduation,” Shannon said. “And I decided that I was going to pursue a career as a dancer and was basically working and living in downtown Minneapolis.”

She had left her home in North Dakota to begin a life dramatically different than the one she leads today. But something happened in Minneapolis that changed the course of her destiny.

“I was working late one night and instead of taking the bus that I should have taken I took an earlier bus, which dropped me off on the far side of a park,” she said. “And through a series of, looking back now bad choices or bad decisions I walked through the park and I was attacked.”

To put it bluntly Shannon was raped. A stranger wearing a ski mask caring a knife brutally assaulted her and left her for dead. Though she survived and reassembled the shattered piece of her, Shannon would come to realize that even though she put that chapter of her life in the past her journey through it was far from over.

Music this week by new contributing artist Cheryl B. Englehardt

The Joy Trip Project is made possible through the generous support of our sponsor Patagonia. Check out their latest new media projects and conservation initiatives at their blog the cleanest line.com.

In the spirit of charitable giving Robert Egger is leading the charge in America to show that philanthropy and looking out for the best interest of others can be business as usual. Dedicated to feeding the homeless and providing job training for the formerly incarcerated Egger’s work at the D.C. Central Kitchen serves the poor in our nation’s capital.

In cooperation with restaurants and catering business, the D.C. Kitchen collects more than 3,000 pounds of surplus food each day. The non-profit makes 4,500 meals that are distributed to over 100 shelters, transitional housing facilities and rehabilitation centers throughout the Washington D.C. area. And Robert Egger travels the country giving talks on the value of philanthropic giving as an engine for social change. At the D.C. Central Kitchen Egger is using food to build stronger communities, combating hunger while creating opportunities.

The Joy Trip Project is made possible through the generous support of our sponsor Patagonia. Check out their latest new media projects and conservation initiatives at their blog the cleanest line.com.

After a long career as a professional skier and BASE jumper Karina Hollekim was living her dream. In 2006 at the paragliding world cup in Switzerland she and a group of friends were invited to do an exhibition jump. It was just going to be a routine flight in wing suits sailing away from an airplane to entertain a crowd of thousands below. Flying high overhead Karina couldn’t have been more happy.

"I was there with friends I was having fun and everything was just perfect," she said.

Karina made the jump from a small plane and carved  turns through the sky in her wing suit. As she flew  she filmed the others with a camera mounted on her helmet.

"I could see the smile on the face of my friend and everything was great. I was suppose to open the parachute and land on the grassy field in front of the spectators. I could hear the clapping and roaring from the thousands of spectators underneath," she said. "And then a split second later I realized that something had gone wrong. And 15 seconds later my life was changed forever."

When Karina pulled the ripcord her parachute deployed, but there was a malfunction.

"I had what we call a line-over and when you have this it’s impossible to control the canopy and it starts spinning," she said. "I spun uncontrollably toward the ground at more than 100 kilometers an hour."

With no way to break her fall she hit the ground, her body sprawled across a huge boulder.

"And normally I think big rocks are something you don’t want to hit. But I think actually this particular rock saved my life. Because by hitting this rock it crushed everything that I had from my hips on down. I had four fractures in my left leg, left femur. I had broken knees. I had 21 open fractures in my right thigh. But it saved by back and it saved my head and therefore I was still alive.

Despite these devastating injuries Karina Hollekim survived. And in the years that followed she forged an incredible journey to not only recover physically, but reclaim much of the life she loved while going on to inspire others.

Music this week by new contributing artist Cheryl B. Englehardt

The Joy Trip Project is made possible through the generous support of our sponsor Patagonia. Check out their latest new media projects and conservation initiatives at their blog the cleanest line.com.

An interview with the author Greg Mortenson

It’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for 197 weeks. The book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin continues to engage and inspire millions of people around world. This story of one man’s journey to build schools for children in the most remote regions Pakistan and Afghanistan has helped to forge a better understanding of how to encourage peace and cooperation where there has been only war and armed conflict for decades. But when I met with Mortenson at the MountainFilm Festival in Telluride Colorado he shared with me his latest project.

“The second book I wrote, Stones Into Schools, is more about Afghanistan," he said in an interview. "It’s also about the lessons I learned in Three Cups of Tea about empowering the people, listening to the elders, about really letting the people themselves do the work. So I tried in the to really show that people themselves can be empowered.”

Stones Into Schools isn’t just a sequel to a popular piece of non-fiction. It’s a testament to the impact one person can make in the lives of others. By providing the people of Afghanistan with the tools they need to help themselves, Mortenson is doing more than building schools. He’s paving a long road toward a world that lives in peace.

A short documentary called Stones Into Schools based on the new book is currently part of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour.

Stones into Schools

- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Music this week by Chad Farran

The Joy Trip Project is made possible through the generous support of our sponsor Patagonia. Check out their latest new media projects and conservation initiatives at their blog the cleanest line.com.

An interview with Sender Films producers Nick Rosen and Peter Mortimer

I just got back from the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Held every year in November at the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada this celebration of alpine culture marks the end of one adventure season and the beginning of the next. After putting in time at the MountainFilm Festival Telluride and few other events throughout the year I’ve had the chance to see a lot of movies about athletes and explorers pushing the boundaries of the human experience. But one film in particular hits really close home. Called Point of No Return this movie for television produced by Sender Films depicts of lives of guys I once knew who died tragically in the pursuit of a dream.

Jonny Copp

Micah Dash

Wade Johnson

Climbers Jonny Copp and Micah Dash with cameraman Wade Johnson were killed in the making of this film. While making their retreat from a failed attempt to climb Mount Edgar in western China, a devastating avalanche swept through the region to claim their lives.  With footage recovered with their bodies the movie Point of No Return is a tribute to three men who paid the ultimate price to follow their passion for adventure. I had the opportunity to talk to producers Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen to discuss both the risks and the consequences of a lifestyle that is often fraught with danger. Is it worth it living life on the edge?

Point of No Return - First Ascent from Mountainfilm in Telluride on Vimeo.

The film Point of No Return is part of the First Ascent Series produced by Sender Films in Cooperation with National Geographic. You get The Six Episode DVD Box Set on line at www.Senderfilms.com

Music this week by Jake Shimabukuro

The Joy Trip Project is made possible thanks the generous support of sponsor Patagonia. Check out their latest new media  projects and conservation initiatives at their blog www.thecleanestline.com.

An all inclusive adventure for the disabled only

I’m packing my bags and taking this show on the road. And you’re wondering, so what’s new? James you travel all the time. That’s right. I do. The Joy Trip Project is all about venturing out into the wide world and finding those stories about people who are doing what they can to make a difference, to make the world a better place. But this time, it’s just a bit different. This time, I’m going to Africa.

You’ll find out why exactly I’m going intercontinental in an upcoming edition. So stay tuned. But yesterday, and I mean while I’m sorting my socks and underwear I get a text message from my friend adventure filmmaker and a true Joy Tripper Dominic Gill. You’ve met him on the show before. Dom’s from the United Kingdom, the UK. He’s riding his bike across the country from LA to New York on a trip he calls The Dom & Ernie Project. And on my iPhone it says: James we just crossed into Wisconsin. We’ll be in Madison tonight.

Believe it or not, I dropped everything. Cleared my schedule and made plans, because Dom and I just had to visit. And for you my loyal listeners I just had to bring you his story. Because Dom’s not just riding across the country, that’s been done to death. Just like before in the last story he’s riding a tandem bicycle and all along the way he’s picking up people, random strangers to come along on the ride. Before when he road 20,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina he’d pick up just about anyone. But this time he’s only bringing along people with a disability.

"We had Ryan with traumatic brain injury. Then we had Carlos who is visually impaired. The after that we had two brothers, Warren and Chad Woodbury who had muscular dystrophy," Dominic said. "And then 59-year-old Kelly Lane who has Parkinson’s disease, he jumped on. And then he switched out with Rachel who has Cerebral Palsy and she’s just cycled 250-miles from Minneapolis where she lives to here."

These are people with profound disabilities, people who under normal circumstances would never have the opportunity to take part in such an amazing adventure. And yet thanks to the Dom & Ernie Project Dominic and his crew Alonzo and Nadia, these disabled cyclists are getting out and experiencing the world. They’re traveling hundreds of miles in a way they may have never dreamed of before.

Listen to the first Dominic Gill interview on the Joy Trip Project: Take A Seat

Music by Chad Farran and The Ahn Trio

The Joy Trip Project is bought to you thanks to  sponsors  Patagonia, Osprey, Clik Elite and Mountain Hardwear. Their generous support makes this latest series of stories possible. Support us by supporting them