Parques Nacionales

October 12, 2016Stay Wild

Photo and words by Randy P. Martin // @randypmartin

National parks are one of my favorite things on the planet. Learning about their history, exploring them as much as possible, and crossing each one off my list are the most fun things I can think of. Last year I got to experience some of Colombia’s best preserved spaces when I visited a handful of their Parques Nacionales with my 35mm camera on my hip and a tent in my pack.

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona: This place is exactly why national parks exist. No development is taking place in this jungle paradise, which is still home to native tribes, howler monkeys, ocelots, sloths, and 40 different species of bats. — **Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona:** This place is exactly why national parks exist. No development is taking place in this jungle paradise, which is still home to native tribes, howler monkeys, ocelots, sloths, and 40 different species of bats.

Frailejón plants start their spring bloom under the snow-capped peak of Pan de Azúcar. — Frailejón plants start their spring bloom under the snow-capped peak of **Pan de Azúcar**.

After getting rained on and scrambling up an embankment in Chorro Aguabendita, the clouds cleared and two bright blue, glacially fed alpine lakes came into view. — After getting rained on and scrambling up an embankment in **Chorro Aguabendita**, the clouds cleared and two bright blue, glacially fed alpine lakes came into view.

Parque Nacional Natural El Cocuy (The Bogeyman): Above the clouds at 15,000 feet without another single soul around. Don’t stand up too quickly or you might find yourself face first in the dirt at this high of an altitude. — **Parque Nacional Natural El Cocuy** (The Bogeyman): Above the clouds at 15,000 feet without another single soul around. Don’t stand up too quickly or you might find yourself face first in the dirt at this high of an altitude.

Cocora Valley boasts the tallest palm trees in the world. Walking around under the 200-foot wax palms made me feel like I was on the set of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. — **Cocora Valley** boasts the tallest palm trees in the world. Walking around under the 200-foot wax palms made me feel like I was on the set of *Honey, I Shrunk the Kids*.

Trespassing Through John Day Fossil Beds

October 11, 2016Stay Wild

I pretend to not see “No Trespassing” signs. It’s my duty as a dad, since my wife Amy is a firm rule follower. I need to give my son Camper a balanced point of view, so he can decide for himself when, and when not, to trespass. I tell him it’s not trespassing if we don’t leave footprints. As we hop from rock to rock on the outskirts of the Painted Hills National Monument, we take care not to squish any plants. Finding a log shaded by a big old juniper tree we sit and listen to the view. A raven flies overhead and we can hear the wind between the feathers of its wings. The tall grasses growing in the pond knock into each other with the breeze making the subtle sound of leafy wind chimes. We hear water splash and look to see small fish jumping out of the pond to eat insects flying over the water surface. The longer we listen to the view the less we trespass. We are leaving nothing, yet we are taking in everything.

The most photogenic view of the Painted Hills has a set of footprints walking out beyond the boundary to the top of a smooth red clay mound. The footprints sink 6-8 inches into the red clay and they will be there for many years. They are like a plastic bag stuck in a tree, flapping in the wind like a flag that says “Fuck You Fuck You Fuck You...” until it fades away. These footprints trespass and everyone knows it.

Later in the day Camper eats the cherry from my milkshake and says, “Tastes like freedom.” I have eaten many milkshake cherries. I know what freedom tastes like. That’s why I forgive those footprints in the Painted Hills. They are either a monument to freedom, or a monument to selfish sloppy tourism. Either way those footprints belong to us all. It’s not worth complaining about or blaming some kid with a selfie stick. The footprints are there for us to learn from.

On the open road I see the difference between land fucked with by humans and land unfucked with. That’s why I pull off the main highway and go down a dirt road into the Ponderosa Pine covered hills of the Ochoco National Forest. We drive past cows eating grass and pooping all over the place. We drive past RV camps set up by hunters. Further down the dusty road a brown and white government issued sign points in the direction of “Public Agate Beds.” We follow the sign deeper into the woods until we come to a fork in the road. There is no sign telling us where to turn, so we just park and wandering into the forest. The ground is soft from centuries of pine needles falling and fading into the ground. We find mushrooms growing out of cow poop. I reach for what looks like an agate, but it’s a ball of honey-sweet pine sap. It smells so good I actually lick it to make sure it’s not honey. Nope, it’s tree sap. We don’t expect to find agates here, but we do. They bubble up from the ground. They are diamonds in the duff. We leave most of what we find, but can’t resist bringing a couple crazy ones home. It feels kind of wrong to take them, but Camper is more excited about a rock than he is about playing a video game. My seven-year-old needs to remember his connection to nature and if a rock can do that it’s worth taking back to the city.

I put this rock back exactly where I found it.

Deeper into eastern Oregon we walk a trail up the Blue Basin. The trail follows a small muddy creek of sage-colored water. The color matches the smell of the trail as it snakes through shoulder high sage brush and sappy juniper trees. I pick some of the leafs and rub them between the palms of my hands. Cupping my hands together I take a deep breath of the plant’s goo and it shows me a deeper side of this place. The smell is so strong I have to close my eyes and imagine what life is like for these plants growing in this weirdly colored canyon. Further down the trail we come across fossils of a prehistoric turtle shell and a strange dogthing skull with crazy fugly teeth. The sage colored mud walls really take shape as we go deeper into the canyon. By the dead end of the trail we are surrounded by monster-sized prehistoric mud teeth in the mouth of a place that dares us to see things through its geologic eyes. This muddy canyon has swallowed life that we try to understand from the fossils left behind. What will our fossils look like?

The highway we travel goes through the Warm Spring Indian Reservation. Driving through feels like trespassing, but I love it. I just feel like I’m on land that has been taken care of by people who know how not to fuck this place up. It feels more natural. As if the people here know they will not rule the planet forever. I can’t help but get out of the car to explore a couple abandoned houses. I ignore the signs. I am trespassing. I am hunting for modern fossils, but I only find broken glass in rotting carpet. I go back outside. Don't mind me, I'm just trespassing through.

Burn it at Both Ends

October 06, 2016Stay Wild

INTERVIEW BY MEGAN FRESHLEY

PHOTO BY MATT GONZALEZ

Jessi Duley // Badass Biker, Mother, Wild Woman @BurnCycle

BurnCycle founder Jessi Duley blazes through the health and fitness space like a meteor of unstoppable vitality. “I have an abundance of energy, and 99 percent of it is positive,” she says. “My gift to this world is my energy.” She’s just revving up to become one of Lululemon Athletica’s community ambassadors in NW Portland. Duley’s spark used to be spent in the production industry over nearly a decade in LA. “I was working 18-hour days. It’s easy to climb to the top when you have so much energy. But it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I bought I one-way ticket to Nepal. It was that snow globe moment: You turn your world upside down to shake the shit out of you and then see where everything lands.”

After the glitter settled, Duley finally returned to Portland and met her husband in a dive bar the very next day. Her mission to bring boutique spin classes to Portland was realized in 2013. “I wanted a workout that would melt my fucking face off,” she says. And apparently she wasn’t alone, because BurnCycle opened a second location to accommodate an explosion of clientele in 2015. “It’s still just as amazing to go in every day. The shine has not dulled one bit for me. Or, it seems like, for Portland.” Duley’s devotees keep coming back for the camaraderie. “The whole world of fitness has become this perfection-oriented fishbowl of comparison, but we’re just down and dirty — like ‘Let’s just do the work,’” she says. “The way someone described my class was that I had the fury of a preacher and the mouth of a sailor. We’re just real.“

VISIT LULULEMON'S REFRESHED AND RENOVATED PORTLAND LOCATION IN THE PEARL DISTRICT

1231 Northwest Couch St.

Swing by the refresh Lulu this Sat Oct 8th, 8:30-10am for coffee and conversation. Oh, and keep up with their latest news on their Facebook page >>>

One Night in Jtree

October 06, 2016Stay Wild

It’s approaching midnight at the Hall of Horrors in Joshua Tree and the desert is way colder than I thought it would be. Our crew has already made two “oh shit” stops for keep-warm supplies, putting us over our blanket budget. However, nobody feels the temperature dipping more than Ryan Paul Robinson, who’s suspended 200 feet in the air, balancing on a wobbling piece of nylon… barefoot.

Photo and words by Shaun Daley

@shaun_daley // #LEDbylight